i looked on the forum for help with this, but couldn't find it

Whenever i open up WA, it gets to the menu and i can start up a match, but when i do the loading circle thingy never shows up, and the screen just stays black.

i downloaded the v3 patch and the 3.6.26.5_Beta and intalled them, but im not sure if that helps the problem.

thanks for your time

Have you patched your version properly?
www.nanacide.com/wahelp

Also, you might try using CyberShadow's automatic patcher/updater (on a clean reinstall of course):
http://forum.team17.co.uk/showthread.php?t=31140

ah brilliant thanks! second link was perfect. why is it that the patches that i got off the official website didn't work? im sure i got the latest one

thanks for you're help, awsome to see this is still such a talked about game, 8 years after its release. Only the best

Maybe you (accidentally?) chose the wrong path for WA, gets a lot of people that does.