Game freezing 5-15 seconds randomly since TWW Pre-Patch

Support Technical Support
1

I posted about this issue in the Bug Report forum back in November, but so far have not gotten any responses from Blizzard.

All throughout Dragonflight, the game played perfectly. As soon as The War Within pre-patch dropped, I started experiencing game freezes lasting 5-15 seconds several times a play session. During the freezes, NPCs/mobs/bosses and other players appear to be running in place, while I can move my character around but cannot cast. I still get audio from client-side inputs like DBM, but all of the audio from server-side input stops. Then when the freezes finish, everything that would’ve happened during that time all happens at once (spell effects, sound effects, ground effects, etc.). Often that leaves me dead, as I would’ve been unable to avoid the mechanics during that time frame.

During and after the freezes, the game shows my latency to be fine (usually in the 15-20ms range), and none of the addons showed high memory usage. The issue is not an FPS issue as that would look like a slide show–when the issue happens, my character appears to be able to move about smoothly. It definitely feels like there is just a pause in communication between the server and my client, or all of the in-coming packets got batched up and eventually executed.

When the freezes happen, other applications like Discord are still functioning, and Task Manager doesn’t show any abnormal CPU, memory, or network usage.

I notice the freezes more during instanced content (delves, dungeons, raids), but they also happen in the open world. They seem to happen most often during combat.

My freezes don’t lead to a disconnect and are not caused by ALT+Tab.

I’ve noticed a bunch of random posts about people experiencing these same freezes, and a bunch of new ones from people that only started seeing them in 11.1, but it doesn’t seem to happen to everyone.

Things I’ve tried (based on inputs from other people’s posts) with no success:
2 different computers (one high end)
Updated bios and drivers
Different graphics settings (low on old computer, low and ultra on high)
Unchecked the new graphics settings that came in the pre-patch
windowed and full screen
closing the bnet app
removing all addons

I’ve seen some people suggest that maybe it’s caused by a Windows patch and to roll back to one from 2023, but I find that hard to believe because then you would see the forums flooded by everyone not playing on a Mac reporting this issue. Also, it seems like a really bad idea to rollback all the security fixes, etc.

I noticed there’s a Logs folder. Is there anything in there that would be useful for debugging this?

Anyway, please support this loyal customer with this issue that has been plaguing me for over half a year. Thanks.

2 Likes
3

Sounds like an isp problem

4

If this is an ISP problem (that’s been happening for over half a year to me coinciding exactly when TWW pre-patch dropped, and started for a bunch of other people exactly when 11.1 dropped), how do I determine that? Blizzard long ago removed the information on what IPs to perform WinMTR against.

1 Like
5

From the start menu, type resource monitor and open it. Go to the network tab and check the TCP section for WoW related IPs. One of them will be the server IP (other ones are for chat, battlenet, voice comms, etc).

But yeah, what you’re describing is 100% network related(sounds like heavy packet loss or a desync) and until you run a trace to figure out where in the route it’s happening, all we can do is speculate.

Do you use a VPN by chance? If so, disable it for WoW and retest for an evening or something.

6

You could try running a WinMTR to Google’s DNS (hostname will be 8.8.8.8). Then look for packet loss or high ping values in the test.

7

Ok, I tried WinMTR tests. The ping times were always pretty low. Every now and then there would be a lost packet (like 1 in over a thousand packets). I don’t think that minimal amount of loss would cause what I’m seeing. Also, the packet loss didn’t coincide with the occurrences of the freezes.

I logged a customer support ticket 2 weeks ago. The first GM gave the following instructions:

  1. Uncheck the “Optimize Network for Speed” option in the in-game Network settings.
  2. Perform an ipconfig /flushdns, ipconfig /release, ipconfig /renew.
  3. Prioritize the game in Task Manager to High Priority.
  4. Perform a “Scan and Repair” in the Battle.net client.
  5. Shutdown computer. Unplug router and modem. Wait 60 seconds. Plug modem back in and wait for it to come up. Plug router back in and wait until it is ready. Turn computer back on.

I did all of the above. The problem seemed to be fixed–for two days. And then the freezes started happening again. I tried repeating all the same steps, but this time the freezes continued to happen.

I re-opened the ticket, and the next GM gave these instructions:

  1. If you’re using a wireless connection (which I never was), try wired.
  2. Reset your user interface.
  3. Reduce the size of the game packets (i.e., the first step that the first GM said to do).

So, that wasn’t helpful, since I’m wired, I had previously tried the interface reset, and had already turned off the setting.

In a dungeon last night when I experienced the freeze, over voice coms I told my group that I was frozen. Whenever I freeze, I will continue to move my character around with the hope that I won’t die to targeted ground mechanics, and will try to keep casting my rotation (though on my side, I never see any casts complete). Another guy in the group told me that even though I said I was frozen, he saw my character moving around and casting spells.

So, This is definitely an issue related to packets from the server. It seems like when the issue occurs, all of the incoming packets from the server are batched together, and eventually get processed all at once. I don’t know if the server is batching them, I don’t know if Windows is batching them, and I don’t know if the client is just delaying pulling them off its message queue (while it continues to be able to send messages to the server).

A third GM recommended reaching out to the Technical Support Forums for further assistance, providing my observations.

Anyone have any other ideas of other diagnostics or logs I can look for to figure out where the packets are getting delayed or if they are getting batched or anything else?

8

Several players over the last two weeks have attributed long lag spikes and disconnects to the Windows 24H2 update. Something about a flood of TCP requests.

9

I’ve been having this issue since TWW pre-patch, long before that Windows update. When it occurs, other programs that use the network (e.g., Discord) are working fine. I don’t know if the Windows 24H2 is a red herring, the cause, or exacerbates the issue in some way. Looking at Microsoft’s Known Issues for that patch I don’t currently see anything related in the list. Regardless, Blizzard should be working with their partner Microsoft to determine if it is involved with the issue, and then push them to fix it if it is.

At the same time, Blizzard should be giving us (and themselves) tools to help debug what is going on, e.g., add logs or something. I feel like I’ve done everything I can with the tools I have available to characterize the issue, and all Blizzard does is tell me that’s great information that I should share with the Technical Support forum to see if the community has any ideas.

If this is related to Windows 24H2, then I would think every single Windows 11 WoW user would be experiencing this issue, and you would see non-stop posts.

And let’s say Windows 24H2 is the culprit–how do we fix this? Rolling back Windows (if that’s even possible) seems like a bad idea as we would likely be rolling back security fixes, etc. That is not an option.

1 Like
10

I’ll ask again, but are you using a VPN?

11

No, I am not using a VPN.

12

The behavior you’re describing sounds like a VPN built into a security suite or browser add-on. Something holding data locally, then bursting through.

13

Yeah that’s along the lines of what I was thinking, that or it being some kind of ISP related shenanigans where they deprioritize high packet per second traffic(online games use high packets per second, but low packet size, which still costs a lot of CPU time on the routing servers) or them deprioritizing detected VPN traffic.

Could also just be bad drivers or a router getting bogged down as well. Far too many possibilities to even begin to speculate though.

14

Yeah, I’m not using a VPN nor any special security suite nor browser add-ons.

15

Roughly where in the world are you playing from and what server are you connecting to? I know there was some Canadian ISP that was having routing issues recently and the OCE->US routing is always hit and miss with issues as well.

16

I’m playing from a Chicago suburb, connecting to a Chicago server.

17

What about on the router? Perhaps QoS settings?

18

Also try disconnecting any smart TVs from the network. We recently had some intermittent network headaches and it turned out that our TV was periodically flooding the router with thousands of packets per second, probably farming ads or something. If you were playing a game like WoW or an online shooter, it would choke you out for seconds at a time with packet loss and rubber banding.

2 Likes