@Oatmeal - kick rocks. In the politest sense possible. You’re obviously an outsider looking in. Your comments are patronizing and uninformed.
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Thank you for trying, I can see how they could be potential workarounds. I first also thought it could be because of the new mac OS update that was causing the issue, so I restored a time machine backup from last month when the wow clients had still worked perfectly fine, and the issue still persisted. That shows that the problem lies in the new shadowlands client’s coding, and not from apple’s updates.
If it hadn’t been intended to, they would have banned or hot fixed it out already. As long as we don’t violate any ToS, then it is perfectly within the intended design to play the game however we find it fun. If anything we should be treated as valued customers because we pay double, triple, quadruple the amount of money others pay for the game, hence we have every right to demand an escalated fix for an issue that is directly hindering our financial investments and enjoyment of the game (compared to other in-game issues that are merely causing gameplay inconvenience).
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I’m definitely new to the forums and have, over the years, sent in a dozen or so tickets. I don’t understand why my tech tickets (including sys specs and trace route) end up with people who say
“…Customer Support is not really able to do much else here sense this is a bug.”
If I send it to tech and such???
I must be doing it wrong.
I never said it was against ToS, I said you played in a way that was never intended… which is true, they never wrote the game specifically with multi-boxing in mind… if they did, you wouldn’t need a third-party assist to make it even possible in game. They aren’t stopping you. I’m not stopping you. I’m merely SUGGESTING that switching to the Windows side for the time being might be a solution to the problem in the near term. Get a grip.
You’re submitting the tickets correctly. We never get to talk to the people actually doing the work. The people assigned to reply to us are not techs, unfortunately. They’re the CS people assigned to the tech support department, while our submitted reports are forwarded to the actual techs for the actual work. It sounds a bit kafkaesque I know. But think of it like this - do you really want the people working elbows-deep on the problem to stop every time one of us bugs them?
I had the same issue on my Mac. I have 3 accounts, could only run 2, 3rd would hang.
This is what I did, and works for me - USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Running 10.14.6 with all updates. I launched activity monitor and launched 3 copies of the client from the Battle.net app.
Clicked “info” in the activity monitor for each of the 3 WoW clients. 2 running, 1 was “Not responding”. Once the info windows are open go to “Open Files and ports”. Compared the running to the non-running. The non-running always hung at line 127:
/private/var/folders/ts/l320s_yj3mx03_ww5gdjcv_00000gp/T/WoW ASYNCTHREADSHAREDMEM.1.mutex
This is the temp directory in Mac OS (from terminal type “open $TMPDIR”). I’m guessing it is different for each machine/user??
I went to that directory, and saw 4 recent files, all zero bytes in size:
WoW ASYNCTHREADSHAREDMEM.1.ex
WoW ASYNCTHREADSHAREDMEM.1.mutex
BlizzServiceRegistry.ex
BlizzServiceRegistry.mutex
So what I do is this:
- open the temp directory
- Lauch Battle.net App
- Launch client 1, login to character
- Go to Finder, go to temp dir, delete the 4 files listed above. Just in trash, I do not empty the trash.
- Back to Battle.net, launch client 2, login character
- Go to Finder, go to temp dir, delete the 4 files listed above. (It creates them with each client launch)
- Back to Battle.net, launch client 3, login character
- Play with 3 accounts!
So far this has worked 100% for me. I have not noticed any ill effects.
If you do choose to try this, let me know if it works for you. Also, if you check Activity monitor, I would be curious if it hangs at line 127, on that same file, for you as well.
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This worked exactly as you said.
I did not let it crash to see if it was line 127 but I presume it was.
Others trying this… That terminal command isn’t to be feared.
- Find the terminal app and launch it.
- Copy this: open $TMPDIR
- Paste and hit enter
It will open a good ol’ familiar finder window. Delete the files he mentioned.
This narrows the possible causes down vastly. What an amazing discovery.
Thank you.
Also, Blizzard thanks you for preventing people from canceling accounts and all that.
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Great job Bheleu. I was able to follow your instructions and successfully opened up to 5 clients on my mac. Although you don’t have to log into the character in order to delete those files, deleting them while at the character selection screen also works.
PS: Blizzard should pay you for this, because your one comment is more helpful than all of those GM’s responses combined.
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What is “a third party assist”?
Just tried opening my second account and this is the last line in activity monitor “open files and ports” for me:
134
/private/var/folders/7h/j4w8kstj6_1fg7pm0lpx6t2w0000gn/T/WoW ASYNCTHREADSHAREDMEM.1.mutex
So not line 127, however it is that same temporary file. Deleting the suggested files allows me to launch my second account.
Thanks for the find, Bheleu! 
Also as a note, I have NOT tried the other temporary solutions in the thread such as the “reopen windows on restart” or PRAM/NVRAM reset. So this “delete temp file” solution works WITHOUT having done anything else.
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I have no idea why there’s a big green checkmark/“solution” for Bheleu’s hack. I agree it’s a very clever hack and kudos to Bheleu for figuring it out. It’s still a kludge, not a solution. A seven step process involving typing commands in the terminal & trashing files is not a solution that should be checked off like that. Liked - definitely. But please don’t let anybody at Blizz think they need do nothing further.
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100% in agreement.
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I just want to make it clear that I’m definitely happy Bheleu has been putting so much effort into coping with our situation. I’m in favor of his and others efforts. I was only saying that - if anything - his hack makes it obvious that the problem is not on our end.
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Yeah, Bheleu has saved the situation! When I read his post, I was amazed. I figured it was some something with some file somewhere. I had no idea how to figure out where or what.
I also agree that it serves to shine a light on the cause. I’m confident the developers know right where to look.
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Thanks for all the kind words. My motivation was that I have gotten used to running my own 3-man team (ok, 2 orcs and a troll). I just really wanted to play! But I agree, it does need a fix. It is a hassle to delete those files each time.
I’ll gladly take a long boi in lieu of money!
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I completely understand. When I couldn’t play my groups of 3, I felt like something was off. I’d imagine you get it.
I have a hunter, a priest, and a DK in a team. I felt like I was cheating the DK when I ran without her. The other two need gear, so I ran them. Last couple days, has “felt” right once more.
I honestly am a little surprised by how attached I am to the groups of three. shrug
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Update: Tonight I launched my second account and ONLY deleted “WoW ASYNCTHREADSHAREDMEM.1.mutex” and kept the other 3 temp files. The game launched my second account correctly.
Apparently the other 3 temp files have nothing to do with the issue.
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Confirmed, just deleting "WoW ASYNCTHREADSHAREDMEM.1.mutex” worked for me as well. 3 clients open.
Guess I was just really wanting play and nuked too many things when I first looked at this. Allthough I would be curious to know what these files do. They are all zero bytes…
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From a technical standpoint there could be several reasons for “zero bytes”. Especially with a temp file that the user would not normally be aware of. Something is being read then reset. We’re getting an erroneous result because (a) another file is looking for something here & not finding it, or (b) a routine is looking to see if this temp file exists - which tells a process to stop - and the loading process is not deleting it properly. or … there are other possibilities as well.
It’s probably the case - as often happens in large projects - that one programmer did not properly annotate his changes, so when it was handed off to or incorporated into routines written by another, how to handle certain variables and subroutines was lost. In thousands of lines of code it can be a pain to track down.
The ingame ticket-response boiler plate includes the suggestion that if the problem persists a ticket should be refiled. We should follow Blizzard’s suggestion.
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Confirmed: Deleted that one file and a fourth client launched.