Second time this has happened.
Installed update and now the game won’t launch.
Unfortunately I can’t find the fix that worked last time. I think it involved rename a file or folder and having the launcher make new versions.
1 Like
You can try a Full UI Reset.
If that doesn’t work, you might need to run a Repair on your game files.
Hopefully one of those works for you.
2 Likes
If Perl’s suggestion is not the right one, could this have been it?
3 Likes
No luck with those.
Didnt work either
A few steps that could possibly help:
- Make sure all your drivers and operating system is up-to-date
- Disable any VPN’s if using any.
- Configure your firewalls or any security system to allow for any Blizzard applications to run incase there has been put a block from running.
2 Likes
Try what Ayukama said next. You did the the easier steps already. Next is examining what might block your ability to launch. Security and drivers are the two usual suspects.
I do have to ask…did you reboot by chance? If you have not, it is always worth a shot and hurts nothing.
2 Likes
I myself have the same issue as OP, and have tried all the suggested things thus far. did these in the following order to no avail…
-Rebooted
-renamed cache + wtf + interface folders (exited addons manager before doing so so it didn’t try to re-add addons)
-Attempted scan and repair
-updated gfx drivers
-cleared gfx cache
-rebooted again after update of gfx driver, then scan/repair again
Still, When hitting the “play” button on launcher, it says it’s launching, WoW doesn’t show up in task manager strangely enough (that I can spot notably enough), then the launcher goes back to saying “play” again.
System specs of note?
Windows 11
AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT
32 GB RAM
WoW installed on SSD with still 35GB free space available
Windows on separate SSD with 77GB free space available for any cache’ing
I do NOT use VPN’s, and my security systems have already been configured to allow Blizzard stuff through. Was playing the game this morning before the maintenance, and then had to go to work just before maintenance hit. Got home a bit ago and this surprised me to be unable to launch, and then to see someone else with similar issues. Tried all the steps suggested to no avail 
1 Like
Can you uninstall, reboot, and try again?
This would help narrow it down. A lot of time exceptions or disabling are not enough.
kind of hard / impossible to uninstall windows defender LUL …
Still the craziest bit is the fact that the WoW process doesn’t even show up in my task manager at all. it doesn’t even show up an extra battle.net process when I hit Play button.
My game hasn’t launched on my work computer for several months now. Home computer is fine. Work computer has Sophos and HitManProAlert (freaking over-kill for a tiny business…) so I think one or both of them are seeing WoW’s ‘anti-cheating scan’ as an assault on the computer and blocks WoW from launching. I can’t do anything with those programs because they are ruled with an iron fist by our IT company. 
Task Manager shows all the WoW’s running (I clicked ‘play’ about 20 times LOL) and shows my CPU % at 100 with all of them running, but the game window does not open. I’ve just resigned myself to only playing from home from now on. 
Having the same issues since reset yesterday. did all of the above so here’s to… ??
2 Likes
I dont remember it doing this when I played years ago.
What about updates for Windows? Or the Visual C++ Redistributable?
attempted an optional windows update, to no avail. Still, attempting the launch of WoW still yields no appearance of it in the task manager. I’m noting there was another thread where some others were having similar issues that I didn’t post in… haven’t pulled that up yet to see if anyone had any luck yet… I suppose I’ll resign myself to derping around in Factorio until next update comes around, unless the other thread proves something in it (if so I’ll post that in here)
((War within wont launch - #5 by Calestri-magtheridon was the post I was seeing that was deeper in, no-one had helped in it, nor has there been any help in it yet, and similar issues as in this thread basically))
All of us green text people are volunteers and fellow players, so we’re not always in every thread — especially when there are duplicates of a topic.
Curious what’s happening in the Windows Reliability History/Tool, or Windows Event Viewer. Can look under Windows → System logs or run an MSInfo, export, then read the error reporting section.
I had been having the same issue, when I restarted my computer it let me see updates i previously wasnt able to and fixed it for me. hopefully that helps
1 Like
yeah, I know the greens are volunteers 
and I appreciate it.
I’m previous tech support for USMC and other places after I finished serving the country many years ago. Not trying to show off or anything, as I’ve been “out of the tech field” for many years now … and things have wildly changed on the software front of things. But I tend to do the “standard operating procedures” for what tends to work when S*** breaks. I like to try and help provide as much info to those that are trying to figure out solutions and the WHY something broke, so that a fix can be made as fast as possible. Or, like, if others are having the exact same issues, if there is a “linked” occurrence of some sort that is the same across all affected individuals (IE: same vid card, similar setup of game installed on different drive, etc etc), so that THAT issue could be narrowed down and solved / fixed on the dev side of things.
The fact that this all was working previous to the update / server downtime is kind of wild. I came back to the game thanks to this expansion, and have been having a blast, and was working on doing some of this 20th anniversary stuff for the fun of it on my downtime from work, but now can’t do that… I’m hoping this gets solved before this weekend or within this following week! … I have surgery tomorrow and have a week recovery time where I’ll be sitting at my desk doing just gaming for relaxation and recovery, so it’d be awesome to try and catch up / grind my ilevel up LOL
Additional note:
Just attempted to run WoW.exe from the retail directory… error window -.-
[Window Title]
D:\Games\World of Warcraft\_retail_\Wow.exe
[Content]
D:\Games\World of Warcraft\_retail_\Wow.exe
Invalid access to memory location.
[OK]
attempted to rename it, and do a scan + repair, still didn’t yield a good result -.- So, next, I shall attempt a full uninstall and reinstall…
It’s an interesting case for sure. I’m not running into this issue and my hardware is overdue for an upgrade, so it’s even more difficult to troubleshoot.
Some players in the Overwatch forum were able to resolve this by reinstalling the Visual C++ Redistributable from Microsoft.
Just getting home from work, attempted launching after it had finished downloading everything after uninstall / reinstall from this morning before work and it didn’t work. So, attempted installing the Visual C++ Redistributable, and still same result. after rebooting.
Attempting to add a whole exception in windows defender for the wow.exe and the launcher just in case … rebooting, then will do a scan and repair afterwards to see if it finds / repairs anything…
Edit: Alright, So, not sure what PART of that all tail end worked… if it was adding in the exception for both WoW.exe, or the patcher itself, and then scanning and repair, or what … but I can now launch the game again… wee … I will have something to do tomorrow afternoon after surgery!
I am still stuck in the same situation. I did a repair then an uninstall… optional updates… still working on it