On startup, I get a black screen and a cursor. How do I fix this?

General Discussion
1

Tried linking a screenshot but it won’t work. When I launch the game, all I see is a black screen and a warcraft 3 cursor. That’s it.

I can launch any other game from the BNet launcher completely fine. I’ve uninstalled and re-installed the game, still the same.

Anyone know how to fix this? I bought and downloaded the game, so excited to play, and I can’t even play it…

2

first step to fixing any issue with W3:R is check for driver updates. If that doesn’t fix then link your PC specs because depending on how old your pc is you may have an issue there

3

Just updated my video driver. Restarted computer, still the same problem.

Specs are:

Operating System
Windows 8.1 64-bit
CPU
Intel Core i7 4790K @ 4.00GHz 47 °C
Haswell 22nm Technology
RAM
16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 666MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard
ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. MAXIMUS VII HERO (SOCKET 1150) 28 °C
Graphics
VG248 (1920x1080@60Hz)
VG248 (1920x1080@60Hz)
2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 (ZOTAC International) 30 °C
Storage
465GB Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB (SSD) 27 °C
931GB Western Digital WDC WD10EZRX-00A8LB0 (SATA) 19 °C
232GB Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB (SSD) 20 °C
14GB ADATA USB Flash Drive USB Device (USB)
Optical Drives
ELBY CLONEDRIVE SCSI CdRom Device
ELBY CLONEDRIVE SCSI CdRom Device
Audio
High Definition Audio Device

4

i have the same problem here Black screen with a cursor

5

Even problem, I try to dedicate one of my graphics card to the game because I have an SLI but nothing helps.

Please help us :frowning: i have made all my driver uptade ect ><

6

Me too. It loaded eventually.

7

Solved!!

For me, I had BitDefender Anti Virus installed. Not disabling it, but actually uninstalling it and then launching the game solved it.

1 Like
8

I’ve tried just about everything to get it to work, nothing worked that I found online. I’m using a GTX 970, and yes I’ve tried everything relating to it as a GPU. What eventually worked for me, after I load the game and I’m staring at a black screen with the cursor, is hit alt+tab to minimize the game. Eventually you’ll hear the rain in the background of your windows without the game maximized. Click on Wacraft to maximize it and then alt+tab again. I just rinse and repeat this, usually doing something else in the meantime like surf the web, takes roughly 5 mins for me but in time it loads. Eventually the game loads the menu, but I don’t see the main options on the left, only party and main menu options towards the lower right corner. Click on the main menu and view the credits, then hit escape to back out of the credits. Odd fix, but this is what I found to eventually work. Game runs fine at max settings, everything is viewable. I spent the time since release until just a few hours ago figuring this out.

9

It worked, thanks a lot. I had to uninstall the antivirus.

10

Uninstall the antivirus

11

Don’t have an anti-virus. Fresh windows install, even dropped firewall, those methods did not work for me. The method I used got me to be able to play the game the day after the first frustrating release day I spent trouble shooting. As of today, the final fix for me was bending over and letting every Microsoft official windows update, update itself. It took several restarts and at least an hour of waiting. I just let it go until it wouldn’t update anymore. I’m using windows 7 Sp1 64bit, but it still took a lot of updates beyond that even. Game works fine now odd as that is.

12

After trying everything, I fixed the Warcraft 3 black-menu-cursor-only issue by forcing BlizzardBrowser.EXE, via file properties, to work in Vista Compatibility Mode. Can’t say why this worked for me, but it does. Putting this here as a possible solution to try for anyone else still having problems with it. Cheers.

13

What Ken wrote worked for me as well. The menu was lagging after the recent update (June 2021) and I had to find a workaround. After disabling my Intel GPU and leaving my NVIDIA the only one enabled, I too had the black screen. Ken’s advice worked.

  1. I disabled my Intel GPU, leaving NVIDIA the only one enabled.
  2. Use the path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Warcraft III_retail_\x86_64\BlizzardBrowser
  3. Right click “BlizzardBrowser” and select Properties.
  4. Left click “Compatibility” tab and select “Run this program in compatibility mode for” underneath “Compatibility mode.”
  5. Then select “Windows Vista” from the drop down menu underneath.
  6. Click the “Apply” button at the bottom of the window, and then click on OK.
  7. Start up Warcraft 3. You can mess with the FPS afterwards.

Not exactly desirable but it works for me.

14

I had this problem for a long time and i finally figured out why. So while troubleshooting yet another blizzard that would you guess doesnt work either.

How i fixed wc3: I reinstalled windows using the oem service. For windows 10 type in start:
“Recovery options” and hit enter to find it. After the fresh install i noticed wc3 works however!

Windows updates just generic windows updates and security updates for windows reverted the black screen and cursor! This has to be fixed most likely on blizzards end.

15

You can uninstall some of these updates if you know the date it stopped working I’d start unimstalling the day and day before

1 Like
16

What you have to understand is Blizzard is one of the worst gaming companies in the world and thats why nearly none of their games are compatible with simple windows updates. It’s a joke.

17

Should also report things like applications breaking after an update to Microsoft. They can put a block on more people recieving a windows update if it’s messing up people’s machines. Even if it’s for some game like this.

1 Like