"connecting to realms..." forever

I try and connect to a friends realm on Java and it just says "connecting to realm" forever and nothing ever happens no matter how long I wait. It isn't freezing as the bars at the bottom of the screen are moving. When I cancel and try to quit the game I get the classic "Java (TM) Platform SE Binary has stopped working" which is apparently a problem that has existed for years with no solution to be found. I tried reverting to an old driver as suggested by Java as a hotfix and it changed nothing about the experience. This is one of the stupidest and most annoying problems I've ever faced, especially considering how expensive Java edition still is for some reason, the fact that it's broken and nobody can be bothered to fix it is ridiculous. Somebody please help me fix this.