I’m trying to delete some level 1 characters which I have just made to test whether or not some names were available but I keep getting an error message which says “character deletion failed.”
They don’t have any mail, heirlooms, etc. Most haven’t even been logged in to.
Any idea why this is happening and what can be done to fix it?
Update: I just tried my luck again and I’ve been able to delete the characters.
Just to check, have you actually logged into the characters? The mail is what I would bet on causing the issue, but that’s just a guess.
I only just made the characters no more than 30 minutes ago. Some have been logged in to and some haven’t. The ones I have logged into don’t have mail and it’s not giving me the error re. mailbox having mail.
You’ll get a cooldown when you try to delete too many characters at once.
It’s something like 24 hours IIRC.
I was wondering that as I have deleted a few over the last 24 hours while testing name availability.
o.O
I’ve been posting here for a long time and have not heard of that before! That’s not to say it’s not correct…just something I’ve not experienced or heard about!
I found it when I was trying to cut back on my name hoarding.
It’s a holdover from the days when shady operators would spam their sales pitches and delete the character before the flags started rolling in.
It is kinda referenced in the following Support file:
The error “Character deletion failed” when trying to delete a character could be caused by one of the following:
- Character is a guild master
- Character is the leader of an Arena team (Burning Crusade only)
If neither of the above is true for your character, wait a full 24 hours after your last deletion attempt. You should be able to delete your character then.
Interesting, thank you. I tried looking but couldn’t find it in writing anywhere. I knew about the cooldowns for character transfers, faction changes, etc, but had no clue about character deletion.
I had submitted a ticket prior to starting this thread so I will post the response here once I get one.
I just realised I posted this on my Warlock and then replied on my Hunter. I tried my luck again and it allowed me to delete multiple characters, so it couldn’t have been a 24 hour cooldown. So strange!
During creation, you get a little green check mark or a red x if the name is available. You don’t actually need to create the characters. Unless you are trying to hold the names for future use, it just didn’t sound like you were trying to do that.
To be fair I’ve had weird experiences with that. There’s been a number of times where it shows a green check mark and then when I hit create it says the name is taken.
Ohh weird! I’ve never come across that myself so didn’t know that feature wasn’t reliable. Thanks for letting me know.
Same here. It happens for less than 1% of the names that I try. My guess is that the character is in the middle of a server transfer.
I can tell you the exact limit. Today I decided to delete all 60 of my characters (on my 2nd account) and recreate new ones (to take advantage of the huge free bags you get from Pandaria Remix, and an essentially a free level 10 boost.) After exactly the 50th deletion, I was unable to delete any more. Perhaps there’s a 24 hour cooldown for me now.
This thread seems rather old, but just FYI, the cap is 65 characters per account now, raised for the event.
Yes, that’s correct, but only if you have purchased Dragonflight. For those of us who have not, the limit is 60.
Will be honest, nothing i read indicated that, just retail though, not classic.
The actual post this was released in is 404 though.
I’m not aware of any expansion requirement. Where did you read that, Skull?