Game is freezing when I alt tab

Johntrabolta-tortheldrin · February 16, 2025, 12:10am

Not sure what is causing this to repeatedly happen. Any help fixing this would be greatly appreciated.

Bubblebuddyz-illidan · February 16, 2025, 12:44am

Download more ram

Kinsington-stormrage · February 16, 2025, 12:50am

check if the “Max Background FPS” option is enabled in the graphics menu
if yes disable it/increase it

Demoniclily-kiljaeden · February 16, 2025, 1:50am

Been happening to me since the last major window update. I think it changed something.

Trenbøløne-tichondrius · February 17, 2025, 2:52pm

Also having this problem. I want to say it started like 1 or 2 weeks ago? If I alt tab out sometimes my game randomly just freezes for like 5-20 seconds and then my text is usually blurry after it restores.

Valandra-chogall · February 17, 2025, 8:11pm

That exact same thing has been happening to me. Usually when I alt tab out, it’s to check something on wowhead. I go back into the game and it’s frozen for a few seconds and then the font is smaller and completely different looking. The only way to get it back to the normal font seems to be to close everything out, delete the font folder, then start the game back up. My transmog on my main on the warband screen keeps jumping back and forth between my old transmog and my current one during that time too. I also get a weird loading screen during that time where the image looks like the normal one but looped instead of stretched. It’s very strange. Tried alt tabbing and going to other sites, youtube, etc. and haven’t had the same effect as when going to wowhead so far.

Crystalinn-aerie-peak · February 19, 2025, 1:21am

I’m getting this issue as well, and it started after installing W11 24H2

Windows 11 24H2
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
32GB RAM
Nvidia 4070 Super

Drspock-4919 · February 19, 2025, 3:06am

Have you tried rolling back the update?

Crystalinn-aerie-peak · February 20, 2025, 12:14am

I’ve done so, back to 23H2. No weird frame drops, discord is behaving again, and not a bobble from WoW thus far.

Werlang-stormrage · February 20, 2025, 12:57am

Major frame drops/stutters after updating to the 24H2 version of Windows…

Bianca-blackwater-raiders · February 20, 2025, 4:25am

I have also been having this problem. My windows recently updated and also my Nvidia graphics card updated for Avowed

Solär-frostmourne · February 22, 2025, 2:16am

It’s a problem with Windows 24H2. I haven’t found a workaround even with the latest drivers so I’ve had to uninstall the feature upgrade multiple times since it was released.

Amaratsu-amanthul · February 22, 2025, 7:06am

how do you roll back?

Leafbeard-medivh · February 22, 2025, 5:40pm

I found that disabling Hardware Acceleration in the Bnet Launcher App, Chrome, and Discord solved most of my crashes.

Apparently my GPU (RTX 4070 Ti Super 16GB) doesn’t like handling multiple apps at the same time, and tabbing in and out between them causes issues, so I just disable acceleration in those three apps and let the CPU handle the rendering for those.

Seems to fix things for me.

You’ll only maybe notice some minor screen tearing in those app windows when scrolling up and down through content, but who cares if the rest of your system is running better?

NOTE: I also noticed that launching WoW from the Bnet launcher is much faster - used to take a long time after hitting the PLAY button to get WoW to launch. Now it launches in less than 6 seconds. Not sure if related or just coincidence.

Solär-frostmourne · February 22, 2025, 11:45pm

Suspend bitlocker or backup your recovery key (if applicable).
Press Windows+I to open Settings.
Click System
Click Recovery
Click Go back

Aternatively, hold shift while restarting through the start menu and find the go back option.

That said, I just installed the latest AMD chipset drivers, NVIDIA drivers AND the Win11 cumulative update, PLUS renamed the “fonts” folder in the game directory, the OS has been stable for the last 18 hours. Fingers crossed.

Origin-velen · February 23, 2025, 5:34pm

Hello, I have the same issue.

Lulu-nesingwary · February 23, 2025, 6:11pm

Same hopefully a fix soon -)))

Rayen-sargeras · February 24, 2025, 5:28pm

Yep same issue, started as of yesterday with a forced windows update.

Johntrabolta-tortheldrin · February 25, 2025, 9:24pm

Hopefully we get a fix soon!

Volley-khadgar · February 25, 2025, 9:24pm

Similar issue here, game pauses randomly when alt-tabbing, no problems with 11-23H2, upgrade to 24H2 – problems, roll back to 23H2 no problems. Waited a month for this issue to be fixed, upgraded again to 24H2, problems persist and now past the 10 day limit, so I can’t revert to 23H2 anymore. So bizarre.

And as you know, for us World of Warcraft collectors & achievers–there is a LOT of alt-tabbing.

Checked Windows Event viewer, sure enough nvlddmkm (nVidia’s crash label) shows with the same timestamp when WoW is alt-tabbed. Google Chrome also running in the background.

Disabling Hardware Acceleration in Google Chrome is not an option for me, it’s amazing how much slower Chrome is with that turned off, and some stuff doesn’t even work with that off. (Web games for example) and the screen tearing drives me nuts.

System specs: Core i9-12900K, 32GB DDR5-6000, GeForce RTX 4080 Super -latest drivers, latest BIOS, latest UEFI, latest everything. Disabling GSYNC does not change anything. Game capped at 144Hz/FPS for several years now. Disabled background FPS limiter. Game runs in Windowed-Fullscreen and DirectX12.