TL;DR: I am no longer getting screen lockups after a full clean/reinstall of the game. Repair did not fix it and was not a hardware issue.
That might work for some use-cases (which is great!) but didn’t work in my case: I already had V-Sync turned on and was still getting the screen lockups. After working through the possible issues and making sure my Mac wasn’t the culprit I bit the bullet and completely scrubbed WoW from my machine: WoW application folder, addons, preference files, and everything Battle.net-related. Installed everything from scratch, haven’t had a screen lockup since. I have had a couple of game crashes but those are sporadic and uncommon.
Blizzard pointed the finger at Apple and hardware but the hardware tests came back clean and I did not experience lockups or screen freezing in any other application…it’s definitely game-related and I’m not sure why a full clean/reinstall fixed it.
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May just be a placebo fix… as the problem may return.
Hardware tests are basically inconclusive, so the fact that the system shows fine, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s fine. Sort of like a virus scan… it can find a virus it knows about, but it can’t find one it doesn’t.
There are definite issues with multiple displays on the new ARM Macs. Plenty of bug fixes have been pushed with mixed results.
Blizzard can’t fix what is inherently a problem at Apple’s end. They can try to mask issues, but unless Apple does their part, the problem will never truly be resolved.
Given those sporadic and uncommon game crashes… it is clear that there are still issues under the hood that really shouldn’t be there. That’s the sad reality of having pretty much no Mac development team and Apple’s lackluster interest fixing bugs in Metal.
Basically, par for the course.
I don’t disagree. Just as a follow up to my specific case: I only have the one display.
Yeah, same here. Happens to me using a 2017 iMac Pro (intel chip) with Studio Display. It’s not all that frequent, but at least 3-4 times a week. It completely freezes my entire computer, can’t use the mouse or keyboard even to tab out. Usually lasts about 1-2 minutes then resolves itself, but occasionally I am forced to do a hard reboot of the entire system.
Two diff issues can both cause this
- Resizing window causes freeze. try to avoid doing that
- playing with vsync off can cause freezes, turn vsync on.
I’m glad I found this thread. I’ve been having this problem with my 32c Mac Studio as well running on a 3440x1440 Ultrawide. I’ve tried switching cables and switching monitors, but the issue persists - usually multiple times per day. I’ve turned V-Sync on so hopefully that helps.
Well, it’s been two days with V-Sync on and no screen freezes so far. Thanks for the tip!
I started having this issue multiple times a day, but only since 12.4
For me though it crashes back to the login screen.
I have been testing with Vsync On, and so far so good. I also created a separate volume and installed 12.3.1 and haven’t had any issues
I have been working with Apple support and have sent them some diagnostics.
Hoping this will be get a fix soon
if vsync on solves it, then you should be fine, with metal, it’s really meant to be on. if anything blizzard shouldn’t even let you disable it anymore. that’s more of a legacy thing pre metal. metal has flexible vsync (ie it doesn’t force 15, 30, 60 fps like opengl vsync).
Following up on this thread now that I’ve had a little more time to play with the setup (post-reinstall). I haven’t experienced any screen lockups. I have experience a little bit of stuttering, very occasionally, but only stutter for 2-3 seconds before coming back.
@Omegal – specific to V-Sync: I was seeing the lockups with V-Sync enabled. It took a full re-install (not repair) of WoW to fix it…but that did fix it!
By chance you using an older HDD or hybrid drive (ie something that isn’t a fast SSD)?
Reinstalls can help defragment the poorly optmized file system (CASC) that wow uses to store data and that can help slower disks a lot. I can very much see that causing some hitching/stuttering/freezing too
Sorry, I Just saw this response. I am running a Mac Studio with an M1 Ultra — no old drives. From earlier in the thread (this isn’t passive-aggressive, it was just buried 
) –
“I do have an M1 Ultra Mac Studio connected to an Odyssey G9 via TB4-to-DisplayPort that is having the issue. My lockups have been random: Sometimes it’ll happen five minutes into playing, sometimes I can go three hours without an issue. Happens in outdoor content, raids, dungeons, all over the place.”
Just got my M1 Ultra today and started playing some WoW and was experiencing this EXACT issue.
I have now enabled VSYNC and will let you know. Should I change Display Settings in Mac OS to be variable instead of 144hz?
Generally speaking if you can enable promotion in macOS, do it. just be aware it’s only actually full variable refresh rate in metal full screen, elseise it’s usually interval static like 144hz when scrolling or draggig or maybe 60hz when watching a video or something. it’s not super variable outside of vsynced metal full screen.
did anyone ever find a fix for this? I am also running on a Macbook pro and have the same issue where the game screen freezes, but is still able to open menus and click things, then when i alt+tab out and back into the game it fixes itself and everything works fine again.
I have been getting this on my M1 Max Mac Studio and the M2 Max Mac Studio as well. Tried all the solutions and not work consistently…
Two things I have noticed… when the screen freezes if I move the mouse just a little it starts working again… Second: If I change from Fullscreen Windowed to just Windowed it works without any freezes…
I am running this on the HDMI port, with an 8k cable… Never had this happen at all on my 2020 27in IMac…