You guys at blizzard seriously need to fix the blacked out character issue upon log in after prepatch. I waited since yesterday! for this issue to be fixed. Guess what! its not fixed! I go to try and make a ticket to talk to someone and all your offering is 24hr web tickets… No phone call option, No webchat, Just a 24hr ticket when I already have waited 24hrs naturally for you guys to fix it… This is unacceptable customer service first off. Second of all I am not the only person currently having this black character issue, cant experience the new customizations, hell cant even make a new toon to see them. This is absolutely stupid you have not fixed this yet and only have the 24hr web ticket open for support options… Why the hell would I wait another 24 almost 48 hrs considering you guys are being hella slow about answering tickets via web ticket. When this is a issue that should have never been there to begin with! Let alone that people are saying this was a bug on the BETA! for weeks! and you did not do anything to fix it or make sure it wasnt happening on live. Well blizzard get on it cause not only be but multiple others are pretty pissed off at the moment with the fact this has not been fixed or even addressed
It’s a database issue that they’ve addressed. It looks like not many people are having the issue anymore. There’s probably no way to ensure it works for every single person, until, well, every single person logs in.
It looks like there is still an issue with the DB for a small amount of people.
Make sure you leave the screen up instead of closing it and trying to log in again. Wait a while and see if it fetches your toons.
Also, this kind of issue has happened for years. Its not just related to shadowlands. You can alternatively try the scan/repair feature, and if you still get the black screen, make sure you WAIT a while and don’t just log off.
I’m sure they have a lot of tickets right now, with the release of the prepatch. You can also post in the support forums.
Well hopefully they fix it because atm there is some very unhappy customers dealing with this issue. I tried everything I could think of on my end to address it. Now its truly their issue to fix. That’s the conclusion everyone I’ve spoken to and myself have come to. Its on them and ya the fact that I couldn’t even get the support options like webchat or phone call that I wanted for my ticket makes me even more unsatisfied customer because the web tickets are not even being answered within 24hrs more like 45-72hrs and I’m sorry but not sorry they had 24hrs starting yesterday to address this and fix it and still not fixed so how long are they going to really need to fix this issue is the next question? Considering they already have my money and I cant experience half of the new stuff in the game atm.
I left my character select up had dinner and took a shower and they finally loaded in.
Oh the problem isnt that they wont load in… the problem is they are black like blackend fish and stay that way in the game I cant check out half the new customization stuff because of it. If i make a new toon that toon is black to… so getting toons to show up isnt the issue the issue is they are black like someone burned them at a bbq
Oh is that the glitch with certain old CPU’s not rendering correctly?
Yea I feel you, it’s frustrating. All you can do is open a ticket though. We have service level agreements for our tickets at my job (like 24 hours to fix), as all companies do. Sometimes, there’s a big wave of tickets, and we cannot meet the service level agreement… it just happens sometimes and there’s really nothing that can be done about it. If you hired more people, when the wave of tickets ended, you’d have too many people on your team.
Using forums like the support forums or Reddit after you open a ticket can be very helpful.
I go into those forums and other forums, like Linux support all the time to brush up on my tech skills and keep current on them. A lot of people out there like me that do this. Tons of knowledgeable people are happy to assist with whatever they can. There are even former customer support agents from blizzard that post on Reddit, for example.
As for the phone and web stuff, it’s been gone for ages. Probably way too much money to staff. That’s why you always call a support line and get foreign people that you can’t understand, and that’s not very fun for the customer either. It’s honestly worse than having a number to call half the time.
I have no friggin clue at this point. People are saying it was happening weeks prior to patch on beta and blizzard didnt do anything about it and now here we are on live and its happening. People ran the spectrum of computer related issues it could be its not that so its gotta be a bug/glitch on blizzards end at this point
there’s a thread in tech support forums where people with Phenom line AMD processors are having non-rendered textures on characters so it shows up flat black
Actually they still have the webchat option and phone option now during covid it may not be open as often but I have used it this year multiple times and been able to get phone call or web chat option so they definitely still have it Ive used it this year during bfa and in the last 2 years
Yea almost 15 year old CPUs, Time for an upgrade
No. Your characters are all stored on a database. Think of it as a giant table that has data, like achievements, class, level, etc.
Sometimes, the game can’t pull the information it needs from that database to populate your character screen, so it’s black.
It’s just a bug in relation to the database. Sometimes it’s widespread, and sometimes it only affects a certain server, or handful of people.
Ah, yea, even my ISP has removed a handful of options I used to have to reach out to them 
it sucks.
Hopefully they fix that for you soon! In the mean time, I’d run the repair, and just let it sit for an hour at least on that screen.
Once it figures out how to get your data, it probably won’t fail again.
Ill try it but ya at this point I truly think its a blizzard issue and until they address it Im not the only person this is happening to and I know im not the only one effected by it so ya hopefully they fix it soon because its irritating AF
a whole day?
you have displayed great patience.
Close your ticket.
They’re aware of the issue, and have already stated they’re working on a fix.
Something doesn’t get magically insta-fixed just because you’re upset.
a ticket won’t accomplish anything.
they’ve already stated they’re working on pushing out a fix.
there’s no reason to drive up ticket times for something a GM can’t help with.
i can log on but i cant enter world because it says my toons don’t exist
Hmm, there seem to be two separate issues here. I thought he was saying the screen to select your character was black, not that his toons are black / no graphics after logging into them.
One is a DB issue on their end that they could potentially look into if it’s not happening to other toons on the server. The other is a CPU issue.
that’s not what i’m getting from their rant… maybe i’m mis-reading it.
there’s an awful lot of pointless sulking and complaining which doesn’t help to establish if there is one or two different issues.
by the wording:
i assumed it was the characters… not a blackened character select screen.
¯_(ツ)_/¯ it was a giant rant