Absolutely nothing, it’s ridiculous. They owe us game time.
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yea this is absurd blizzard, refunds need to be issued at this point… cannot download the game and you have no response
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Hello again fellow Mac Users (and frustrated ActiBlizz customers),
After being AFK a few days due to travel I have revisited this issue and made some progress. I cannot guarantee positive results for others, but perhaps this information will be of use to you. Like others have pointed out above it seems some of the installation apps (i.e., Battlenet, Agent) require full 'Read/Write Access" to properly update the game. What I don’t think was communicated successfully is that you must enable R&W access for YOU, as in your log-in name, within each app by right-clicking > Get Info and then adding YOUR LOG-IN NAME under Sharing & Permissions (bottom of the Get Info screen that opens) with R&W permission as well. Think of it like this… when Battlenet/Agent asks for permission to update files it is asking for your LOGIN NAME password to access the system files. Therefore, the access listed within the GET INFO for these apps must indicate to the Mac OS that it has YOUR user-level of access at least. I don’t know why it doesn’t already recognize the admin-level access since it has that already listed under Get Info, but apparently Battlenet/Agent are not making the connection about the current user and admin-level privileges for R&W, or acknowledging properly that we already gave it permission to make changes. After implementing the previously described changes AND restarting WoW-WotLK fully installed/updated and I am back in game. Give this a try and good luck!
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thanks for this tip. But in looking at the info for battlenet and agent. everyone has access. also when restarting battlenet a new agent is created and does not have the person permissions. I did get it to not give the error, but battlenet kept spawning more and more agents until the mac was unusable. This is only on my M1 mac. I have an intel based one that still runs and updates.
Akttazha-pagle said “But in looking at the info for battlenet and agent. everyone has access. also when restarting battlenet a new agent is created and does not have the person permissions.”
That is my point, Akt! If you fail to add your current log-in name as an authorized user, then the install is not permitted b/c Battlenet and Agent cannot get sufficient access to modify the user files on your Mac. Before I modified my Battlenet and Agent apps Sharing & Permissions (under Get Info) to include my current user log-in name it already had listed ‘System, Admin, Everyone’… and it wouldn’t install the update! When I added my specific user name log-in as an authorized user… voila, it worked! I can’t explain why my Mac OS and Battlenet/Agent aren’t making the connection that I am the admin/everyone, but without the modification previously described it simply won’t. My wife and I both have Macs with the same hardware/software and her Mac completed the update just fine and mine didn’t. Want to guess what the difference was? Her Mac has her current user log-in/account already listed but mine did not. I can’t explain (yet) why that is the case, but it is the root of the problem.
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Thanks for the legwork on this. Logically it doesn’t make a ton of sense to have to add the logged-in user to the app permissions considering the logged-in user is an admin already and also BNET and agent have access (or were given) full-disk access to no avail in prior attempts to resolve this problem. But hey, if it works, it works. I’ll have to try it later as well.
The ticket I had opened is marked “answered”; they were throwing proverbial poo at the wall there to see what sticks. This BNET app and associated agent need an overhaul for Apple Silicon – make it native, fix the bugs, etc, all in one full swoop.
I’ll try this later and see what happens, though I’ve been preoccupied with D4 on other platforms as of late. 
Deleted the shared folders
Deleted from apps battle new and the wow applications
Downloaded a new version of battle NET
Checked permissions
Everyone has read and write, but added my local user to them
There was an agent in the battle.net/Agent folder and also the battle.net/Agent/Agent.8279 folders. I changed all
No agent was running.
Started battle net, went to the classic install, the install option was available. I clicked it.
Agent asked for password to make changes. Granted it
Right away one agent spawned at 100%. Battle net shows initializing. Network shows little to no traffic for this agents. 200kb 130kb received at most.
Finally the initializing stops and I get an update button instead of install. 2 agents are now at 100% cpu. No network traffic for them.
I do the update option and get the 138F error. Along with another agent at 100% cpu and no network traffic for them.
Closed everything down and restarted banner net
Now I get a verification step in the battle net app to select the orientation of a cat.
3 agents at 100% little to no network traffic for them. They do seem to be writing to disk but very slowly.
I deleted the wow setup on my intel based mac and did the install and upgrades with no issues. This appears to be a M1 chipset issue.
I just tried to install something else besides litch (base classic). it is at calculating size and spawns an agent every 30sec at mac cpu and keeps adding.
same thing for retail.
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I was able to get both classic era and normal WoW to install last night. I actually leveled a character to 10 today to post to the forum, as I have been mainly been playing classic era over the past month (first time playing WoW since original WotLK).
Anyways, here are the exact steps I took. I realize that some of these steps probably have nothing to do with resolving the issue, but I am including it, just in case.
- Fresh install of battlenet client
- Gave the full disk access to both Agent and Battlenet applications
- Failed install on WoW, classic, and WotLK
- Force quit the 10+ Agents in the activity monitor and force quit the battlenet launcher
- Relaunched the battlenet launcher and downloaded hearthstone, without any issues (likely not relevant)
- Played a few of the intro quests in hearthstone (likely not relevant)
- Closed battlenet, relaunched (I probably killed any Agent processes running), and checked out the settings
- Opted in/converted to the Beta Client (Settings, then look for the Beta menu)
- Tried to download classic era, failed again; quit the launcher and killed processes
- Opened the battlenet launcher again and noticed a green arrow on the battle.net logo, signifying an update to the beta launcher.
- Updated the launcher, relaunched, then noticed in the ‘last played’ section, there was an up arrow next to wow classic. I clicked that and it downloaded without issue. I then proceeded to install retail WoW the normal way and had no issues.
One thing I will mention, though, is the download transfer rate was very SLOW, like about 15Mbps/second. I normally get something 10-20x times faster. It could be my ISP throttled internet speeds since it was way later than I normally am online, or it could be the beta battlenet client was slow. Either way, the download was successful and I was able to play both games with no issues.
One other tip I can give that helped me is under the settings I selected to exit the launcher when starting a game. That has prevented and excessive background processes from battlenet running and given me a smooth gaming experience.
I am not an IT professional so I apologize to those more technical than me if the steps I outlined above aren’t very technical, but I hope it helps someone else get back into the game!
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Sorry my suggestion was of no help to those who have responded. Apparently it is not one issue, but many. My results were based off an install of the latest version of the Mac OS (13.4.1) and a full reinstall of Battlenet and Wotlk WoW Classic. I went to some extreme to try to make this work and that should not be absolutely necessary. For reference and thoroughness, my hardware is an M1 Max Mac Studio computer with 32 GB of memory and running 2 external monitors. Final comments, I also enabled full R&W permissions for the Wotlk Classic app, too, and I did not use the Launcher but directly accessed the Battlenet app. I truly hope ActiBlizz finds a solution to this issue soon for those unable to play the game they are paying to play. 
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In case it’s not obvious, in POSIX (Unix/Linux-like OSes’) file systems, there are three classes of permissions (literally different bits in a field describing every file and directory/folder): user (owner), group, and others. For some reason, the Command-I display describes these as “your_username (Me)”, “admin”, and “everyone”.
The relevant thing to note here is that “everyone” is really others, and does not include “Me,” the account you’re logged into while installing things.
I suspect, but do not know, that something in the Battle.net agent code uses system routines that check permission bits and for some reason, those bits have not been set correctly by the installer.
Hello,
I made a separate post involving potential workarounds that finally let me install the game on both my apple silicon Macs where as before nothing I was doing worked. Feel free to take a look if you’re still having by problems. Blizzard really needs to fix this asap.
Thank you for that explanation, Gao! That is what I was thinking but lacked the knowledge and expertise to explain it as you did. The modifications to the game files (i.e., Battlenet, Agent, and Wotlk app) that I made was basically the work-around that made d/l the installer possible for me. The ‘eureka moment’ was when I realized the installer was NOT recognizing the password I provided as legitimate access, thus spawning a parade of Agents and no install.
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I had success removing the Blizzard and Battle.net folders inside the /Users/Shared/ path
Still unable to access a game we’re paying for 
Sent a ticket days ago and got a canned response. This is ridiculous
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wtf kind of business is this lmao
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I actually threw classic in Wine Bottle using Apple porting toolkit libraries and called it a day. Working patching, and actually compatible with macOS 14.
Will still use on macOS whenever it works. but at least now I also have the bottle backup to use whenever mac is broken.
Solved for me.
- Delete the Battle.net.app out of Applications
- In ActivityMonitor force quit all of the Agent processes from Battle.net
- Delete your World of Warcraft games from Applications.
- In a terminal prompt: sudo rm -rf /Users/Shared/Battle.net (you will be prompted for an admin password … be VERY CAREFUL you typed this correctly!)
- Install the Battle.net client fresh. Quit the client after it starts.
- In ActivityMonitor force quit all of the Agent processes from Battle.net (there should be only one)
- System Settings->Privacy & Security ->Full Disk Access, toggle on Battle.
- Start the Battle.net client
- Download and install the Retail World of Warcraft game.
This worked for me.
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Probably could have just started at 7 IMO.
i have patching working just fine without doing the rest. it still does oops error after patching but still finishes. that’s cause even with full disk access, it still fails when it tries to check permissions (no permission to check permissions ironically) since agent’s bug with not having escalaed priviledges it’s supposed to, is only partially fixed by granting disk access.
In a great ironic twist, I was going to file a support ticket about this issue, but apparently the Customer Service website is also having “technical difficulties” and it will not allow me to upload my ticket.
This is outrageous, a monthly subscription game in which users literally cannot install the game for half a month now. And all the response we get is 2 short blue posts saying the issue will be fixed soon. Absurdly disrespectful to your customers, Blizzard.
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