Battlenet App High CPU

Desktop App Tech Support
1

Whenever I launch Battlenet, it starts up the ‘Battlenet update agent’ which uses 35-50% CPU. It does this constantly.

I googled and saw someone say it happens if you limit the download bandwidth in the battlenet options so that the update agent can’t download if something is too big and it just gets stuck circulating. But my download bandwidth has never had a limit (I checked multiple times to be sure) and it’s just uncapped.

How do I fix this? It’s affecting my game performance in Overwatch and WoW (particularly in Overwatch).

I tried turning the bandwidth limitation on and off just in case, and this didn’t fix it. There also doesn’t seem to be an option for when I want Battlenet to update–certainly not during a game.

(I can technically “fix it” each time by exiting Battlenet after I launch my game, and then force ending the update agent in the task manager. But it’s annoying to have to do each time, and also would have liked to keep the app open for chatting.)

2

Hey there Faith,

Thank you for taking the time to reach out! This sort of behavior with the Battle.net Desktop App certainly isn’t normal, and I’m sorry to hear that it’s been causing a negative impact on your game performance. Antivirus or firewall software could be a factor here if the software is out-of-date or configured to mistakenly identify the Update Agent as a security threat. Updating or temporarily uninstalling your security software can help resolve this.

Note: Some security programs may be difficult to uninstall. ESET maintains a comprehensive list of common antivirus uninstallation tools on their website.

If you don’t have antivirus or firewall software installed – or if updating/uninstalling it doesn’t fix the problem – let’s try a “clean re-install” of the Battle.net Desktop App:

  1. Uninstall the Blizzard Battle.net App (skip Step 6 for now, we will re-install later).

  2. Next (before re-installing) let’s delete any Battle.net, Blizzard, and/or Blizzard Entertainment folders in the Windows temporary file locations below. If you don’t see all 3 folders in each location, that is okay—just delete the folders you have):

    • Press Windows Key + R and type: %LOCALAPPDATA%. Delete any Battle.net, Blizzard, and/or Blizzard Entertainment folders.
    • Repeat the process for %APPDATA%, %TEMP%, and %PROGRAMDATA%. Delete any Battle.net, Blizzard, and/or Blizzard Entertainment folders.

  3. Finally, re-install the App.

Hopefully this helps. Let us know how it goes!

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3

Thank you for the response!

I did a full uninstall and cleaned out all the files listed. I downloaded it again and installed Battlenet.

Sadly, it is back to its old tricks. The update agent ballooned to 50% CPU so I waited and eventually it went back to 0%, presumably done downloading. So I then launched Overwatch, and after maybe 30 minutes, the update agent was at 50% CPU again, and stayed like that for a long while. I ended up just force ending the update agent and battlenet.

It’s pretty frustrating as it lags me so much ingame. The bnet agent honestly should just not update when any of its games are running.

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