Respawn has asked Apex Legends players to stop posing – at least, until they can implement a fix next week to stop client crashes linked to Epic poses.

Apex Legends has been plagued by crashes recently, as a result of a new bug caused by animated Epic poses – which are animated poses that play out on the game’s menu screens between matches. Developer Respawn has issued a statement about this game-breaking issue, with some stern advice: stop posing.

“We’ve just published this message in-game to help cut down on crashes called by animated poses,” they shared via Twitter. “Tell your friends! A full fix is scheduled for next week.”

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The full in-game message reads: “Bug Notice: There’s currently an issue with animated poses which can cause crashes. We advise you to unequip these epic poses while our team works on a fix. Thanks, Legends!”

A similar issue appeared last month, with Respawn issuing the same advice at the time. Epic poses are usually equipped for each character in their customisation options, but Respawn suggests equipping non-animated poses for the time being. At least, until the upcoming fix goes live.

“There’s no obvious reason – looking at the code – why epic (animated) banner poses should trigger this more often,” said a Respawn developer going by RobotHavGunz on Reddit, replying to people pointing out the issue. “I never saw this bug in testing, nor did QA, but I know the bug is happening. And I can definitely believe this post – that epic banner poses are triggering this more often, because the bug is with a safeguard to make sure we don’t try to run a pose on a character for which it doesn’t apply. Maddeningly, it’s not 100%… it doesn’t happen every time. And, again, we had no reports of this during testing.”

There’s currently no indication of when the hotfix will go live, so it’s best to follow Respawn’s advice and stop posing for now. Although, with a range of new epic poses added in the ongoing Monsters Within event, it’s pretty unfortunate timing.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.