Greetings all,
We’ve been working to improve some of the available troubleshooting resources for our games. We wanted to have a go-to resource for some of the most common technical issues you can experience in Blizzard games. Each of the following posts goes over a different type of technical problem and links to troubleshooting resources. If you continue to have problems after using our technical support articles, check the last post for how to receive more help.
To proceed with troubleshooting, check these links:
If none of this helps, review this post for “what to do if you need more help” to post your own thread and get your issue resolved as quickly as possible!
For FAQs on technical issues, Click the Triangle!
You can browse our Known Technical Support Issues sticky for other common contact causes.
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Why am I only having problems with Blizzard games?
There is always the possibility that there is a server issue, but we try to post about these problems on the Breaking News bar on our site, the Blizzard Battle.net Application, and in game. We also update our BlizzardCS Twitter as soon as we can when we see server issues. If you suspect this is the problem, check those locations first before trying troubleshooting.
If there are no problems, corrupt data in your game files can cause technical issues with wow specifically. Consider resetting your UI.
If you’re having connection problems with a specific game or service, everything you connect to has a different IP address. It’s very likely that you take a different path through the internet to connect to our servers. Comparing even two different games or services isn’t very useful because of this. When we suspect this type of problem, we’ll ask for connection tests so we can try to find out where the problem is.
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I have a high-speed connection and my speed test looks fine, so why is my latency so high?
Connection speed tests measure bandwidth, which is different from latency.
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Bandwidth is how much data can possibly be downloaded and uploaded every second.
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Latency is how quickly you receive information from a specific location.
Latency can be different even between different games of the same company. More information on why this is can be found here. When you have high latency to a specific service, you still could possibly receive as much data as advertised, but there’s something delaying the flow of that information. When we investigate high latency, we run tests to find out why you are getting your information slowly from our specific servers.
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Why do you suggest that I update or remove software when they were working with the game previously?
Other programs can have conflicting interactions with our applications, windows, or your drivers.
Updates to our applications, security programs, or other third party programs can cause the programs to fight with each other. A security program may suddenly mistake our games as a threat. Other programs may fight us for certain drivers or windows functions, which can negatively impact your gameplay.
Our goal is to help you play the game. If you do find a program causing a conflict, try updating or reinstalling that program. If it doesn’t fix the problem, contact the program’s support team. They can usually help you configure the program, or contact their developers who can fix the incompatibility.
Why can I stream or download from other sites without issues but have problems in Blizzard games?
Streaming services have the ability to buffer information. This means that they give your computer data before you see it, often 30 seconds or even minutes before you need to look at it. Online games on a 'live server’ need to send and receive data immediately so that you can react to it immediately.
A direct download can be interrupted by a connection issue, then pick back up when your connection returns to normal. Our games will try to do this, but if you disconnect for too long, you will be fully dropped from the servers.
Keep in mind that anything that takes up bandwidth can cause game connection issues or make them worse. We suggest playing with as few other applications running as possible for the best experience.
Why do I need to swap to Ethernet when my WiFi works for other things?
WiFi is less stable than a wired connection directly to your router or modem. Many things interfere with WiFi, like physical barriers (walls, glass, etc), other types of waves (microwaves, etc), damage to the hardware (USB Ports or wifi antenna), or computer power issues. The easiest way to see if your WiFi devices are the problem is connecting directly to your modem or router via Ethernet. Note that we do not directly support wireless connections. If you find that WiFi is the problem, you can contact the support team for the WiFi device or the wireless router.
Why is my entire internet crashing when I disconnect from Blizzard games?
When your internet goes down, regardless of the trigger, it means that your network drivers or network hardware crashed. If you have this sort of problem, focus on things like:
*Note: We do not advise long term play on mobile internet connections. However if this works, it indicates the issue is likely with the modem, router, or ISP.
Why is my “World” latency high even though my “Home” latency is normal?
While playing world of warcraft, you are connected to multiple different servers.
- Your Home server is the realm that your character is hosted on. In example - Area 52. This connection sends chat data, auction house data, some addon data, and various other data. It is a pretty slim connection in terms of bandwidth requirements.
- Your World server is whatever server you are actively playing in. For an example of this, it might be whatever server the dungeon you are playing through with your friends is on. This server sends a LOT more data, especially from the people around you. Your combat data, data from the people around you (specs, gear, enchants, etc.), NPCs, mobs, casting, professions, etc.
Your world latency will typically be higher for a few different reasons.
- If it only happens in an instance like a raid or battleground, check to see if you are in a group with a lot of players from overseas by checking the realms of players you are with. If you normally play on Americas servers and have joined a group with a lot of players from Oceania(or vice versa), you may be on a far away server.
- Certain types of zones (especially dungeons, raids, heavily populated areas like major cities, and PVP) will send a lot of addon data. If your addons or temporary character data have become corrupted, it will slow the flow of information to and from the server. Try resetting your UI.
- A corrupted network cache or bad driver setting can slow the flow of information to certain servers. Update your network drivers and power cycle your connection.
If these don’t help, check the connection troubleshooting resources at the top of this page.
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