OK I am also getting this since the last update.
Get the Checking for updates screen and the circle spins for about 50 seconds then the circle stops and the screen remains stuck for an additional 50 seconds until it moves on and starts loading.
Takes 1min 40s total to get from start of checking for updates screen to getting the blue loading bar.
Never had this before. Running the sim on its own dedicated M.2 NVMe drive. Rest of the loading process is very fast.