DaveG is right, this is the darkness bug.
You\'ll experience it only if you load an \"outside\" region, that should be lighted by the azure sun, that seems kind of lazy sometimes and doesn\'t begin to shine until the ingame hour changes. It\'s simply an annoyance, as all the space outside buildings turns completely dark, anyway, waiting a bit solves the problem.
I suggest that, before you log out, you go to an indoor place or in front of Harnquist.
In the first case, when you log in again, maybe the outside is dark, but, if in the tavern, for instance, you could find people there to talk with and make your wait a little less painful.
And in the second case, you\'d see nothing, but thanks to the neon lights we have as label names, you could actually know where people are and try to have a talk while you wait for the hour change.
I too experienced that if you crash and relog again, there are big chances of experiencing the bug, like if something doesn\'t get unloaded from memory.
