After initial success with the lutris-7.2 runner earlier in the day on 2 prefixes (one to update Lich King, the other to finish installing SC2), I have spent the rest of the day pulling my hair out trying to get it working with a fresh install and later today to update other games. My final working config was esync and fsync disabled, runner lutris-5.7 (the first one in the Lutris download list) and the battle.net.config changes suggested earlier in the thread. Using this, SC2 updates, but all the World of Warcraft games will sit initialising for over half an hour. I think with the Wrath of the Lich King and other PTR content rolling out today along with an update to the agent and certificates, their update servers are overwhelmed. As an aside, it was a painful wait in Windows to update WoW but SC2 downloaded ok.
ehi guys I just noticed a thing, please confirm if you also encounter this!
In my battle.net installation the launcher, since the start, try to upgrade itself to the beta version, so the other games cannot upgrade due to this.
How do I see if it’s downloading the beta version?
Ah, you mean in the settings, yes it shows that for me as well but the game is downloading slowly in the background even though it says it isn’t.
I’ve noticed this behaviour as well in the settings, wonder if is related to your account being flagged for beta invites some of the games, even if the work around a work I really wish a blue post communication before the wotkl releases.
Im not sure how so backup before attempting. I just managed to resolve mine getting stuck on updating wow. I’d largely followed Phattie’s solution but did a few extra things based on chazdingle’s solution as well.
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I DID NOT use an older version of the Agent.exe i used Agent.8012 thats appeared in the last 24 hours
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I did delete drive_c/ProgramData/Battle.net/Agent Agent.dat (though this just regenerated with an identical file)
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I changed the drive_c/users//Application Data/Battle.net/Battle.net.config to this
{ "Client": { "GameLaunchWindowBehavior": "2", "HardwareAcceleration": "true", "Sound": { "Enabled": "false" }, "Streaming": { "StreamingEnabled": "true" } } }
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Disabled esync and fsync in the runner options in lutris then dropped the wine version down to lutris-5.7-11 removed the “–exec PRO” from the arguments line in the Lutris > Configure > Game Options Tab (as I’d been using the to launch bnet so might not be relevant)
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Ran battle.net (it seemed like it was going to get stuck in the loop again but tbh i didn’t give enough time to see) then I changed these settings in Downloads > Game Updates. `
- Pause updates when I launch a game - Unticked.
- Automatic Updates > Game Specific Settings - Ticked
I then selected Latest & Future updates for World of Warcraft and never for other versions of WoW.
After I’d done that all the updates seem to complete no looping even after restarting bnet. Unfortunately, on running WoW it would lock up on the character selection screen. But I resolve that by changing back to lutris-7.2-2 wine version on the runner options and renabling fsync and esync (might get a bnet crash running it first time after changing wine versions). Til theres another update not sure if it will get stuck looping again or happily update. But this might prove insightful to someone with better understanding.
Edit:
Some news according the Wine-GE release page, Code Weavers are working on the issue. Releases · GloriousEggroll/wine-ge-custom · GitHub
I think you result has more to do with changes on the Blizzard backend then your runner, esync or dropping Pro. If you look in the bc logs in the Agent.8012/logs folder, sometimes there would be 404 errors or unresolved manifest errors. With esync on. lutris-7.2 or lutris-5.7 and Pro launch option, I have been able to INSTALL MW, SC2, WotLK but not update PTR. In my Battle.net, PTR says an update is needed, but when I look at the logs, it has many errors. I am wondering if my PTR install is borked.
As for the GE reference to people working on it, they are referencing back to here and the other threads on reddit and lutris dot net. Right now there is no clear reason behind it working for some and not others, and still can not rule out issues with Blizz servers being overloaded or other issues (logs have 404 errors and update manifest errors).
Uhm guys, I tried older wine Lutris versions and I noticed that with Lutris 5.7 WoW RETAIL works!!
It updates normally and pass any agent verification.
Sadly, no luck for WoW Classic…
I’ll continue to try different version and I’ll let you know.
As I said above, I can do all this with lutris-7.2 runner also and download Classic and WotLK Classic - something has been resolved on the Blizz side, I suspect fewer people trying to use the update/download servers.
What I do see when an update just sits there spinning is the following error (same with both 5.7 and 7.2 runners):
[I 2022-09-20 13:00:49.0299] [tact][d:\package_cache\tact\3.6.8\src\async_state\async_build_update_state.cpp:141] Starting build update check with: baseTagQuery(‘Windows x86_64 US? acct-AUS? geoip-AU? enUS speech?:Windows x86_64 US? acct-AUS? geoip-AU? enUS text?’) - tagQuery(‘Windows x86_64 US? acct-AUS? geoip-AU? enUS speech?:Windows x86_64 US? acct-AUS? geoip-AU? enUS text?’)
[I 2022-09-20 13:00:49.0299] [tact][d:\package_cache\tact\3.6.8\src\async_state\async_loose_file_set_create_state.cpp:54] Starting a loose file create request.
[I 2022-09-20 13:00:49.0299] [tact][d:\package_cache\tact\3.6.8\src\async_state\async_build_update_state.cpp:506] Build does not have file manifests.
[E 2022-09-20 13:00:50.0757] [tact][d:\package_cache\tact\3.6.8\src\patch\patch_manifest_binary_reader.cpp:117] Cannot open scanner to uninitialized patch manifest.
When this happens, agent stops, no other actions can occur but it does not throw an error.
I was playing using proton 6.3 from Steam installation without any issue (i don’t even know Lutris), and ran into same problem yesterday.
I wiped the entire installation, including ProgramData and started over. As expected, Battle Net installer crashes at updating agent step.
Changing agent 8012 for the working one, making it inmutable and deleting Agent.dat made the installer to work and install Battle net. After that it won’t install World of warcraft lich king, and logs shows loop on this errors:
[W 2022-09-20 13:16:57.0086] GetTactContent failure for summary.empty
[W 2022-09-20 13:16:57.0086] Falling back to old fetcher to get version information for bts with region: us and branch: launcher
Forever 
so i’ll just wait for an update on this matter.
I also tried adding HardwareAcceleration and StreamingEnabled options to config file but it changed nothing for me.
Uhm sorry, I missed it.
Anyway, it actually works for both! But… Wotlk is stucked in a loop of Upgrading->Initialization->Applying patch and so on.
But I can play anyway so it’s ok, I think.
Thank you!
Edit: Disabling auto update and restarting the bnet everything is ok! Thank you again =)
I am from EU, but the issues are the same. I do not have a solution, I tried every workaround there is at the moment. Nothing really works and IF, it is so time consuming and annoying that it is not worth it to be honest. I already spent too much time the last days just for this alone. And I know many of you did, too.
But I can tell you guys what I do at the moment until this is fixed, which could take some more days or even longer, who knows.
- Option #1:
Boot into a Windows install. Maybe use an old SSD for that. Install BattleNet and install WoW (or whatever game). Then boot back into your Linux OS and then you can access the NTFS Windows SSD and just copy over the WoW install folder (or any other game) to your Linux System/Drive.
Then you can use “Bottles” [ usebottles_DOT_com ] or “Lutris” [ lutris_DOT_net ] to start the game with the WoW.exe (or whatever the .exe file is for the game you want to start). You can use the latest GE-Wine versions for this [ GitHub - GloriousEggroll/wine-ge-custom: My custom build of wine, made to use with lutris. Built with lutris's buildbot. ] . The game will start and you need to enter your login credentials. And every time you start the game you need to enter your password again. (not that of a problem imho…). Done.
- Option #2:
For those who do not want or just can not install Windows or don’t have any old SSD to use etc.
You can use something like “Gnome Boxes” (any other VM software should actually work for this, virt-manager, VirtualBox etc.)Install the Windows 10 ISO [ microsoft_DOT_com/en-gb/software-download/windows10ISO ] and then BattleNet and then do the same as you would do on a normal Windows, install the Game then you can use something like WinSCP for FTP file transfer to your Linux HOST (you need to have a ftp server running on your host though!).
Then copy over the install folder of your game to your Linux System. And proceed in the same way as described in Option#1
I don’t know if the game will update itself without the BattleNet launcher or what happens when there is an update that needs to be downloaded. But my guess is, that you can’t login or join a Server without the latest patch. If that happens, just update on Windows again and copy the folder over to your Linux System again.
When you use a SSD/NVME this doesn’t take very long, like not even 5 minutes depending on the speed of your drive(s).
So, everybody with this problem are actually using a Linux OS for sure. So I think that this shouldn’t be an issue to do for most people.
Good tool for downloading custom GE-Wine versions:
davidotek.github_DOT_io/protonup-qt/
tldr: Copy over game install folder from Windows System(VM) to Linux System and start the game directly with the .exe file / without the BattleNet Launcher. For updates, do it on Windows System… rinse and repeat.
After doing this, it started downloading my games again. Great but how long will this work? In anyways, thanks everyone at least I can play a bit more Hearthstone.
i’m using proton GE for a moment because performance is higher than wine, and the issue remains the same, whereas Streaming is now enabled, Agent 8012 is crash looping.
wine-staging 7.17 on Archlinux launch the Agent it seems but it crash after and all downloads remains at 0% (regarding download launcher upgrade in settings is also stuck at 0%)
Try the lutris-7.2-fshack version or wine-7.17-staging-tkg. If you have an issue with upgrades, check the Agent.8012/Logs folder for the most recent bc#### log file and look for E datestamp entries in this file. So far, only SC2 is updating correctly, WoW Classic, PTR and WoW retail all seem to fail updates.
Adding the normal Battle.net-Setup.exe to Steam as non-Steam game and running with GE-proton-7-33 doesn’t even run correctly. It just errors out in the middle scrollbar. I assume it’s at this point I should locate the Agent.exe somewhere in (/home/<your_name_here>/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/<some_newest_random_number_here>/) and swap it out as per your guide.
But where do you download the 7984 Agent.exe?
You don’t - doesn’t work anymore - need to work with the latest 8012 version, modify the battle.net.config file and try a runner that keeps the agent running (lutris-7.2-2 is my main safe one with esync enabled). Note that updates on WoW products may not work, downloads seem to and SC2 does update from my testing.
Also a problem for me when attempting to update / install on my steam deck
Kinda got it working now, at least I can play.
Here’s what I did:
- Deleted game via Lutris
- Used Lutris regular WoWClassic script with lutris-5.17 runner to install, when I got the 0% progress, I killed the Battle.net Setup via activity monitor and the installation proceeded successfully.
- Didn’t launch battle.net via the installation wizard, instead I updated the json config from above comments, enabling streaming and hw acceleration, then I started the game (Battle.net) via Lutris.
- I already had a running copy of WoW Wotlk Classic backed up, so I pointed to that on Battle.net to be located
- I couldn’t start the game via Battle.net, stuck on update loop, what I did is to change the executable on Lutris configuration to use WoWClassic.exe , which is the actual game client. (using WoW Classic Launcher.exe will fail as that routes back to Battle.net)
- You gotta log in via the game client, so no socials login, you gotta setup your password.
I’m running on SteamDeck, I could get the game running using wine vanilla 7.17, lutris-ge-7-29 and lutris-7.2 , all worked, I just had to disae faync and esync with wine vanilla as those are not supported.
I hope this helps any WoW Classic SteamDeck gamers with troubles.
Cheers,
As I already said in my comment. You do not need BattleNet launcher to start the Blizzard games, if you have an install folder already of a game. Just start the .exe file with Lutris, Bottles etc.
I really have the feeling that many just do not understand this correctly. The games work, no issues. IF you have the game installed somewhere. But people insist on using the BattleNet launcher for some weird reason instead of starting the game directly.
So the current issues are only an issue for people that do not have a game already installed somewhere and/or are not able to install it on Windows or a Windows VM and copy it over to Linux.