When I try to start the game it crashes out on the Character Loading screen before any of the graphical assets load in. This happens every time without fail.
I get an error saying…
Program: E:\Program Files\World of Warcraft_retail_\Wow.exe Exception: ACCESS_VIOLATION - The instruction at “0x00007ff6829318fb” referenced memory at “0x0000000000000004”. The memory could not be “read”. ProcessID: 31468 ThreadID: 13128
I’ve tried…
- Completely uninstalling & reinstalling WoW
- Updating my VGA driver
- Updating my BIOS
- Updating my chipset drivers
- Switching WoW to run off DirectX11 instead of DirectX12
None of these have worked so far. Is someone able to look at my DxDiag to try help me figure out whats going on? Thanks.
DxDiag here
Have you had any issues with other games? The intel 13 and 14th gen CPUS have a microcode issue that is breaking them (I have lost a 14900k and a 13900k to the same issue…)
This literally just started happening to me as of this morning as well and I also cannot for the life of me figure out why. Following this post for hopefully more info…
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Its only WoW.
I’ve been playing Baldur’s Gate, Darktide, TFT, Deeprock Galactic all without problems
Some people have been able to fix the crashing by going into options and then unchecking the multi threads option under compatibility.
Update to this issue.
You gotta have a starter Edition account for this to work, as i describe it.
Try this:
- Login to your “Starter Edition” account. Stop at the warband screen.
- Click “<Back”
- Login to your “Main” account.
- This should now succeed and bypass the violation errors
I’ve been able to replicate this result 5+ times now, and it’s worked everytime.
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I’ve been having this same issue just since today’s maintenance - this seems to be working as a temporary work around, thanks!
Renaming cache/wtf folders lets me load in once, but if I close the game and try to get in again it just comes up with the same error.
This started happening to me today. I renamed the cache folder to cache.old and that seemed to allow the game to start again. I suspect some bad info is getting cached to the login screen.
Edited to add - Only started happening after I logged into the first timerunner and it converted to retail. I will go through and convert the rest of them as a couple still have the hourglass next to the player name, and see if that helps the issue resolve permanently.
happens to me again. stopped for a few months. can happen couple times a day.
Do not have any problem in Diablo IV or III. Only WoW -
This workaround is also 100% reliable for me. Having this issue on two completely separate computers (both AMD, both different processor series) so it’s definitely a wow issue.
Same. While loading character screen a Access Violation error crashers the game. Unable to play. My pc has run flawlessly through BFA and DF until today.
I’ve also been experiencing this issue. I resolved it a couple times by copying the entire WoW directory to another drive and launching it from there. Then the time after that launch, it starts the crashing again. Really annoying.
Update: I’ve also found another workaround that seems to work. While the warband screen is loading, I spam click the “Enter World” button, and it seems to log you into the last character you were on before the warband loads, and before the crash condition occurs. It’s something specific to the warband screen’s initial load. After getting into the game, you can log out to the warband screen just fine.
I am experiencing this error when I first load the WOW and just as it is displaying my character list.
I deleted the WTF and Interface folders resolved the issue, but then on installing and enabling any Addon caused the same issue.
I then deleted my Cache folder, loaded wow, successfully getting to the character selection screen, I could then enable an addon and load a character.
But any time I leave the game and start WOW afresh I then get this error, deleting the Cache folder then resolves the problem until next time start WOW. Logging out and then using the reconnect button doesnt cause the crash.
I have tried with several addons such as Details and Weak Auras, any addon seems to cause the issue.
I also started having this issue this morning (8/20/24) after maintenance. I do have a 13900k, but i have updated my bios and adjusted the 2 other recommended settings to lower the clock. I contacted my manufacturer about the processor, and the tech i talked to said generally the issues they’re seeing with the 13th and 14th gen intels happen with Unreal games. you get some kind of video memory error. take that for what it’s worth.
I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling wow, removing all my addons, unchecking the GPU extra work and whatever other checvkbox i’ve seen people mention with the GPU. It keeps crashing, usually after choosing which character to play. Sometimes it’ll load 10% and crash, sometimes it’ll hit 100% but crash before entering the game, and sometimes anywhere in between. I even had it give me this error when i was logging out of the game. Never crashed during play though, at least not yet. sometimes i get into the game, and log out and swap to a different character and it will crash.
The only thing that’s consistent about it is that it happens to me while the game is loading (also unloading that one time)
Not happening with any other games. only wow.
also if it matters i’m on a windows 11 system, all windows updates installed. drivers are up to date for video card.
edit:
most recent error code from right after i posted this reply
EF07AD9E-5753-495C-B921-5754DBA61363
I started having this Tuesday night. I played fine when I got home from work, then a few hours later, I couldn’t get back in. Renaming WTF got me in a few times but then didn’t. I logged in manually through Wow.exe, then I was able to also launch again through the launcher. Luck?
I’d guess luck, but who knows. I’ve been testing on and off since 3 this afternoon. Probably get into the game 30-40% of my attempts… but i’ll hit some heavy streaks where it keeps crashing on load.
I started having this issue as well. Started 8/20/24. I actually reinstalled windows today and fresh installed WoW and am now having this issue. WoW worked just fine yesterday. I found the workaround of deleting Cache will make the game work once. Spammin enter before the warband loads works as well. Will keep an eye on this thread for a fix.
I had this problem as well which started for me last night. I spent hours trying to fix it until this morning, after going to sleep frustrated, I woke up and realized what I changed that started it for me.
I’m not saying this is going to be true for everyone’s situation but here is what I did that prevented it from happening when launching the game.
My Issue
- Launch the game from the bnet client
- Wait while the game would go through the loading screen process
- Warband would look like were going to visually start to appear
- Wow client would crash with a Memory Access Violation fault everytime
What fixed it
While testing various fixes, I discovered that if I stopped the login process by hitting Cancel when the client was starting and just simply waited a bit while letting the background music play (I tested and listening for the Drums to start seemed to be long enough for me), it would start perfectly fine every time when I logged in from the game while it was open.
I realized that I made a change last night when I decided to move my Paladin into my warband in the slot of where I previously had my Shaman. That simple change caused my problem because my Paladin was on a different realm, Illidan, than my other three characters which are on Zul’jin where my shaman is also located.
When testing after doing the wait strategy, I swapped the Paladin back out for the Shaman so all four characters in the main warband display were on the same server. After making that change, the problem has completely gone away and I’ve been able to continue to keep all my graphics options enabled (game is set to 10 right now even).
It’s almost like there is some sort of Memory faulting issue happening when loading the Warband character screen if you have characters from different servers in your warband. It was definitely causing my client to crash every time. I was even able to replicate the crash by swapping the Paladin back into the warband.
Not saying this is the fix for everyone or the OP but this is what worked for me that solved it.
All of my favorites were on the same realm, but using your manual login method above I was able to get to my war band screen. After securing my tinfoil hat, I removed my paladin from my favorites and now the issue appears to be gone.
Is it a paladin issue? 
EDIT: Worth noting that my issue didn’t begin until last night after I added my paladin to my favorites.