Server Login Trouble

[merb]

Ok so recently I've been booting up my server but every time I do, neither myself nor any players can get past the character select screen. The world.exe and zone.exe logs don't show any problems, but every time I try to log in, I simply get the "Client Disconnected (not active in progress)" and then I get a "zone.exe has encountered a problem and needs to shut down". However when someone else tries to log in, I get a message that says something along the lines of the zone boot up being too slow and again, zone.exe encounters a problem. I've tried multiple characters on multiple accounts and nothing seems to work.

I'm using EQEmu-0.7.0-1102 and the .xml file looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0">
<server>
	<world>
	    <shortname>darkwood</shortname>
	    <longname>DarkWood [Custom-Legit 1.5x Exp.]</longname>
	           
	<!-- Only specify these two if you really think you need to. -->
	    <!--<address>xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx</address>-->
	    <!--<localaddress>127.0.0.1</localaddress>-->
	   
	<!-- Loginserver information.  -->
	    <loginserver>
	        <host>eqemulator.net</host>
	        <port>5998</port>
	        <account></account>
	        <password></password>
	    </loginserver>

	    <!-- Sets the shared key used by zone/launcher to connect to world -->
	    <key>some long random string</key>

	    <!-- Enable and set the port for the HTTP service. -->
	    <http port="9080" enabled="true" mimefile="mime.types" />
	</world>

	<!-- Database configuration, replaces db.ini. -->
	<database>
	    <host>localhost</host>
	    <port>3306</port>
	    <username>xxxxx</username>
	    <password>xxxxx</password>
	    <db>ax_classic</db>
	</database>
</server>

I do of course have the correct IP and username/password. This problem has persisted for a while and it's becoming a bit frustrating :P

Thanks in advance for any help!