I’m playing on the new Mac mini M1 but the games keep freezing to were o have to force quit and restart the game. I adjusted the video settings to see if that help it did increase the time between the freezing but still froze. Is there any thing else I should try.
I am having the same issue on my Macbook Air M1 base. I have the arm64 version of Wow installed. It was working the other day fine but every time I play now it freezes after being in a few minutes in game. The curser also changes to the color wheel. It does it in both windowed mode and full screen window mode. I end up having to do a force quit to get it to stop. I don’t think it is thermal throttle as the notebook does not get that hot underneath.
When this happens, if you are able to CMD-TAB out of the game, could you do so and check the stats in Activity Monitor (found in /Applications/Utilities/)? These systems use “unified” memory, which means the GPU portion of the ARM SoC eats up RAM just like Intel’s IGPs do.
The stats you need to check are in the Memory tab of Activity Monitor. The ones that are most important are compressed, swap used, and your max memory stat.
Also, make sure you aren’t leaving Safari open in the background while you play the game. It’s known to cause significant problems, including freezing for several seconds at a time.
8GB configurations. I worry about this. wow can use up to 4GB on it’s own of ram, plus can need just as much vram. an 8GB configuration as tia said would be radically memory starved. The low memory configurations of the M1s are probably it’s weakest point. 16GB is literally the minimum memory you need in 2020 and yet that’s the expensive MAX configuration of M1.
I was so close to ordering one but between low memory, storage options being super expensive, and no egpu support, is why i didn’t. I’m hoping these are things they address next generation…
Anyways back to problem, yeah close any programs that may be open before playing wow to get as much free memory as possible. I agree that it’s probably running out of memory and that’s why it beachballs.
I was just updated on this issue. It’s caused if vsync is turned off. Vsync must be on to avoid this problem on M1 macs.
2 Likes
I had vsync on and it still freezes. The weird thing is that somebody said that the initial m1 patch worked great a few days ago and I experienced no issues then also. It seems to be acting up after the hotfix on November 18 of 9.0.2. Also on the eu mac forms somebody is having the same issue with a Macbook Pro M1 with 16GB. His memory only showed 4.5GB with enough to spare.
One thing I would recommend trying is disabling all add-ons, and testing from there. I have a Mac mini that slowed to a crawl during the warlords intro. I tried turning all graphic settings down, reducing the resolution, and while things improved a small bit, the issue persisted. After turning off all add-ons, I was able to isolate the issue to an out of date wow pro leveling guide. I was able to increase the graphics settings after turning that off, and everything worked smoothly.
Same issue here on retail, Mac mini 8GB Apple M1
All hotfix did was make it so vsync on was mandatory, (disabling it doesn’t actually disable it on an M1)
So now makes me wondering, maybe signals got crossed. BEFORE the new patch last night, did you have vsync off? those who had no problems until the latest patch
I did some more research. I looked at the activity monitor when the freeze happened. The memory looked fine it was only using 6.5GB total. I notice when the issue happens the CPU for Wow goes to 100 percent. I was able to get an event log on the console about the issue. I have a copy of the log below on macOScpuresource.diag Let me know if this is helpful. :
Date/Time: 2020-11-19 18:36:56.557 -0500
End time: 2020-11-19 18:38:44.451 -0500
OS Version: macOS 11.1 (Build 20C5048k)
Architecture: arm64e
Report Version: 32
Incident Identifier: DE016FDC-D8F8-4BFC-B930-BB96BCF0AAF2
Data Source: Microstackshots
Shared Cache: 53EC1B7B-5B57-3C9A-BABD-C852BE940E8E slid base address 0x1938f0000, slide 0x138f0000
Command: World of Warcraft
Path: /Applications/World of Warcraft/*/World of Warcraft.app/Contents/MacOS/World of Warcraft
Identifier: com.blizzard.worldofwarcraft
Version: 9.0.2 (9.0.2.36671)
PID: 2935
Event: cpu usage
Action taken: none
CPU: 90 seconds cpu time over 108 seconds (83% cpu average), exceeding limit of 50% cpu over 180 seconds
CPU limit: 90s
Limit duration: 180s
CPU used: 90s
CPU duration: 108s
Duration: 107.89s
Duration Sampled: 104.32s
Steps: 45
Hardware model: MacBookAir10,1
Active cpus: 8
Heaviest stack for the target process:
44 start + 4 (libdyld.dylib + 94004) [0x193bf3f34]
44 ??? (World of Warcraft + 427324) [0x10433053c]
42 ??? (World of Warcraft + 44374876) [0x106d19b5c]
42 ??? (World of Warcraft + 44592524) [0x106d4ed8c]
42 ??? (World of Warcraft + 39450028) [0x1068675ac]
27 ??? (World of Warcraft + 28246960) [0x105db83b0]
Powerstats for: World of Warcraft (Wow) [2935]
UUID: 476EF036-0BE4-3FDA-AEB4-E7FFE13A86EB
App Version: 9.0.2
Build Version: 9.0.2.36671
Path: /Applications/World of Warcraft//World of Warcraft.app/Contents/MacOS/World of Warcraft
Architecture: arm64
Footprint: 3526.67 MB
Start time: 2020-11-19 18:36:59.349 -0500
End time: 2020-11-19 18:38:43.672 -0500
Num samples: 45 (100%)
Primary state: 40 samples Non-Frontmost App, Non-Suppressed, User mode, Effective Thread QoS Unspecified, Requested Thread QoS Unspecified, Override Thread QoS User Initiated
User Activity: 0 samples Idle, 45 samples Active
Power Source: 0 samples on Battery, 45 samples on AC
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1 <Frontmost App, Override Thread QoS Default>
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1 objc_msgSend + 68 (libobjc.A.dylib + 24996) [0x193a711a4]
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1 ??? (World of Warcraft + 43070488) [0x106bdb418]
1 ??? (World of Warcraft + 39429216) [0x106862460]
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1 _pthread_start + 320 (libsystem_pthread.dylib + 28780) [0x193bd806c]
1 HALB_IOThread::Entry(void) + 88 (CoreAudio + 3068848) [0x1956c33b0]
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1
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My wife on her M1 Mac Mini never had any freezes until today (Nov 19 2020). She has had two hard freezes in Classic today. (Of course it’s still x86 code). She started having hard lockups and had to force power down in retail on the arm64 M1 release.
She has been able to consistently reproduce this multiple times. She goes to Snug Harbor Inn in Boralus and pats the cat, Noelle. As soon as the “petting” bar is near completion the M1 Mac Mini crashes. This always crashes the system. We are going to test tonight and make graphic changes and try to isolate this issue.
The graphics right now are all on 10 with shadows on the lowest possible setting. Everything aside from shadows is maxed. The M1 Mac mini is getting 75 fps (the sync rate, and vertical sync is enabled) in the inn with many others around. Anyone else care to test this?
Update. The above action above still hard locks the M1 Mac Mini when moving the graphics slider to 5. Just FYI, there are still background WoW sounds during this freeze.
Came to report similar freezing with Mac mini.
However the only time my game freezes is when I cast Mind Sear.
I have not found any other spells or situations that caused it to lock up… though I’ve only played around on a couple of classes four a couple of hours since I got the new M1 mini. I lowered or turned down all graphics settings, same problem.
1 Like
The only testing I’ve done on my M1 Mac is load Retail WoW, login, and check frame rates in various settings. I didn’t get any freezes in those limited tests. At the moment I’m still preparing some last minute things for the Shadowlands release so my M1 testing is limited.
Disabling Add Ons seems to have worked for me
Been on for an hour since this post and without add ons, I haven’t crashed once
Same problem with freezes here. Mac Mini w/8GB. All add-ons disabled. I can get it to exhibit the freeze up every time by casting mind sear. Everything was perfect for the first two days. What’s going on?
Following up on my post before and comments since. I just logged in and disabled all Addons. I casted a few spells and then Mind Sear, instant freeze up. I haven’t had issue with it freezing in any other situations or spell casts yet. Just Mind Sear.
I just wanted to say I’ve reproduced the hang issue with Mind Sear and am looking into the issue. Hopefully a fix can be hotfixed out quickly
8 Likes
Regular Wow still crashes for me. Now I have not been having trouble with Wow classic. I have no adding loaded. It does go to 100 percent CPU when it freezes. The strange thing is it usually freezes up when I am fighting.
Rommax,
My wife’s Mac mini (M1) crashes every time she pets an animal that produces the “petting” cast bar. Such critters include the cats around the Pumpkin Patch in Stormwind, the cats in Snug Harbor Inn, and animals in Rough Waters.
Can anyone else reproduce this? It happens every time. In the meantime, we are not petting critters. 
But, it does happen at times when interacting with other npcs. We did have the same hard lockup in Classic once. Thanks much Rommax for checking into this. Otherwise, the M1 processor plays WoW way beyond my expectations.