1017 and 5006 without showing any characters?

[ufufu]

When I try to log in the game client, after I press Start, one of the following happens:

• I get a 1017 without being brought to the character select screen and am brought back to the title screen
• I get an error 5006 and the client crashes
• I am brought to the character select screen, which does not display any characters or servers, and eventually gives me one of the above errors
• I sit on the title screen and get an error 2002 "the lobby server encountered an error" or some such and the client crashes

What the heck is going on? I'm trying to play at extreme off-peak hours here. How is this happening?

Edit: oh, and now the start button is grayed out, so I can't even attempt to log in. Excellent.