Same here on Pagle. Black background and saying " Error Retrieving Character List ".
This is happening on Pagle right now.
Got DCed then tried to log back in on Pagle now I have a black Character screen.
whitemane still down
I logged out of Battlenet completely and then logged back in and the issue fixed. Before that I simply logged out of WoW and that didn’t resolve the issue.
I know this thread is a little old but I just had the problem today… Cheers.