I’m seeing the same thing from the launcher. However, I’m able to get into the game by launching directly from the .exe. It just seems to be an issue with the launcher.
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Same issue here.
Relieved to see it isn’t just me. I did a scan and repair of the launcher, and also tried the beta version of the launcher to no avail. Was just contemplating uninstalling and reinstalling when I saw this thread.
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Yup i’m stuck at initializing too
my brothers in waiting. glad its not just me
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i can confirm this, I’m in the game now.
Beta update took a long time to start but it did, retail on the other hand doesn’t starts.
So I was stuck too and dug around. Clearing my cache for the battle .net app solved the problem for me. Option three on this troubleshooting website walked me through it.
edit: broke the first link so people didn’t waste time clicking it
14 Likes
There is a loophole for the moment.
You can right click on the WoW desktop icon → Right click it then go down to Properties → Open File Location → Click on Retail → Click on the WoW icon (mine sits underneath a couple .dll links). This takes you to the login screen where you might have to enter password, authenticator, etc.
Hope this helps.
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Was hoping it was about to let me into beta lol
I’m stuck also - tried scan/repair and now that’s looping - gets near the end and says ooops something’s broken.
Was able to get into PTR ok.
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Throwing my hat into this pool as well. How many more players need this issue before blizzard puts up a blue post?
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I have the same issue and I was just online, stuck on this after restarting my PC.
Same. Also tried to launch WoW directly from the retail folder…does nothing. WoW is going in my task manager but not actually launching.
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im stuck also
Reset dns and network does nothing. Running wow from retail folder results in a dead process in task manager.
1 Like
Also having the same issue, from Oceanic location. Just sitting there on 0% initialising.
Edit: I did try closing the launcher, when I restarted it showed me a Play button for a few seconds, then went back to initialising.
Like the rest of us here, I’m stuck too. No amounts of pausing/unpausing, restarting, etc. worked. Beta updated just fine, but it’s retail that’s messing up all of a sudden. I’ve seen a couple people in my Discord servers having this issue too. 
Launch it from wow.exe
That’ll launch the game and finish the initializing
4 Likes
This is what finally gave the launcher the kick in the patootie that it needed.