Battle.net Launcher asking for admin -- cannot update WoW

Having the same issue with Win10 and Cold War. I have not yet found ANY forum regarding this for Cold War

Tried that and didn’t work. :frowning:

Tried again all the forced admin rights options, including “enclosed items” option, still bugged during update. It now mimiks a start, then fail after fectching 728/760 indices.

Note that I am playing the game from an external SSD, so it is not even an issue of local glitch, it is straight-up a bug from the bnet launcher. Also tried to completely delete bnet launcher and reinstall it, including everything related to Blizzard in my Shared folder. Still no fix.

We are closing on the SECOND WEEK of this bug. I wish I could treat my own clients as you treat yours, this is unbelievable.

I solved the problem on Monterey with the following:

#1. Download & Install Battlenet.app over existing installation
#2. Download & Install WoW over existing installation
#3. Locate the Agent application in /Users/Shared/Battle.net folder and give it Full Disk Access in the security center
#4. Using GetInfo, reset the Everyone read-write settings on:
/Users/Shared/Battle.net
/Users/Shared/Blizzard
/Applications/World of Warcraft
toggle read-write off and then on and then apply to all enclosed items

#5 Start Battlenet app and let it update Wow & Launch it

– EDIT –
Steps #1 & #2 are optional and are only required if you’ve interrupted a repair or taken other steps in repair attempts that may have changed critical files.

Reboot is not required on Mac.

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Tried changing permission settings to Everyone for all Blizzard & Battle.net and WOW folders as administrator few days ago. Didn’t help. Added a new administrator account and did the same. No help. This was in Big Sur OS. Tried it in Mojave OS before I upgraded OS last week. Didn’t work then or now. Have tried every suggestion by Blizzard Tech support without success. Last response from them is that it is a bug by them, that they need to fix. So will just check online once daily to see if problem gets resolved.

You need to locate the agent application in the /Users/Shared/Battle.net folder and give it full-disk permissions in the security center. You may also need to locate the copy of it in the Agent#### folder where #### is the version number.

It’s also Critical that when you grant everyone read-write that you use the pull-down at the bottom of the panel and select the option to apply the settings to all files & folders contained inside of the folder you’re modifying.

The re-install steps are critical too since that process will verify the base files and permissions and install the most current Battle.net agent.


You should also be able to launch the game without the Battle.net app doing any updates by locating the actual World of Warcraft application which is in the /Applications/World of Warcraft/ folder.

All of your personal settings and add-ons are stored in the following folders:

/Applications/World of Warcraft/_retail_/WTF (Appropriate name is it not?)
/Applications/World of Warcraft/_retail_/Interface/AddOns

You can make a copy of these folders and completely remove & re-install and then overwrite the new folders with the old to restore your settings and game state.

You can also copy these folders to another machine and do the same thing to personalize it.

I keep my Mac & PC copies of the game in sync by using OneDrive as the common transport mechanism to translate the path separators.

In a worst-case scenario you can use this process to do a full remove & re-install and keep your settings.

The other trick you can use on a Mac to get back into the game is to restore those critical folders from Time-Machine and do a complete replace. If you do this DO NOT use BattleNet or the Wow launcher to start the game. Start it directly by using the /Applications/World of Warcraft/_retail_/World of Warcraft application. I keep that pinned on my Dock right next to Battle.net Application.

WOW Retail and Classic NOW WORKING on my MacBook this evening. Did what Diable 1539 posted. I gave full permission to all the appropriate WOW folders already, but didn’t know I had to select the option carat and select "apply to all files & folders contained inside of the folder you’re modifying. Rebooted laptop without deleting and reinstalling the Blizzard Desktop App. And Voila!

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When can we expect COMPENSATION and a proper bluepost for this? It has been almost 2 weeks since this issue was presented, tickets from GMs have been closed (at least mine has, saying it was already presented on these forums) and we have no clear fix or proper resolution. Half a month of sub down the drain, a large part of the WoW anniversary event gone on retail, and still no actual response on how we will get compensated or helped. This is scandalous.

thank you, thank you, thank you ! IT WORKS ! (kiss from France) - So sad ! It worked one time then… Huge bug and re installation ! sorry

I’m now having this issue on a windows 10 machine that can and has run WoW before, I tried to run it as admin and it spits out this error:

BLZBNTAGT00000841 i have loosened security on the wow install folder and the battle.net folder (remove the read only thing so your system can mod it)

i am infuriated at this crap it is really irritating and i want to play my wow again and before some of you go “hur durh reinstall” I ALREADY FECKIN DID IT so to sum up

  1. i have set the admin rights to wow and battle.net, still pops that error
  2. i have made it to where you can modify the BN and WOW files (no read only)
  3. IT STILL SAYS UPDATE AND IT NEEDS ADMIN RIGHTS

if someone has the fixes to windows 10 having this issue please send them i know the vast majority of this post refers to mac users but i figured if its the same error it belongs here

Hi I am still having this issue):

Hi.
It has been more than a month now and no sign of compensation so far for this issue. When contacting support through tickets, they bring us back to this forums to expect compensation that is nowhere to be found. Your issues made me lose dozens of in-game mail, almost all of the wow anniversary event, along with roughly 2.5-3 weeks of gameplay. I am a recurring 6-month subscriber, but that doesn’t mean I don’t value my money and in-game currency.
A month of playtime is a bare minimum, that is what you stole from me. But it is not going to cut it. We need proper commercial gestures. The way you have treated this crisis and give us radio silence following it is utterly disgusting. Do better.

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Thanks ! Worked for me as well !

Same issue, can’t run any game in the battle.net launcher. Tried everything. They just do not update, waiting for some other update.

Changing (toggling and applying to all enclosed items) the permissions for the /Applications/World of Warcraft folder (on my Mac running Big Sur) seemed to do the trick for me, when I relaunched Battle.net after this the updates that would not run before just ran and I was able to launch WoW (Shadowlands) and play one of my toons to test things. Hope the ‘fix’ holds. Not sure what was in the folder that had the wrong permissions or how it was mucked up but suspect it was some previous update about 1 week ago as I had not been able to get in since about then.

This has been happening on and off for months on Windows 10 for me. The client is just terrible and has been problematic for YEARS. Should just let us play games without it.

I didn’t think it was possible to have a worse client than Riot Games but here we are.

Well, I was ok with daily update bug, but this. I tried every solution that recommended at forums, but none worked.

So, what now ?

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