Blizzard, this game is STILL unplayable in windowed mode on modern macOS computers. This is absolutely unacceptable. You advertise this game as supported on macOS, so act like it and support us. Just because there aren’t 8901238940 people in this thread doesn’t mean this is not an issue. It is.
It’s obviously a bug with either the latest version of macOS (12.3), or the latest game patch, because this issue did not exist before macOS and WoW updated to their latest versions. With all the resources available to you this shouldn’t take more than a day to fix. At this point your inaction is just willful neglect.
I talked with blizzard about it. I know you hear this a lot, but they say the bug is on apples end, The reason it wasn’t triggered before is because they had diff window code. They changed it to something better, it doesn’t agree with apples code. They reported it to apple and are waiting on them to actually fix it in an OS update. Knowing apple it won’t be a small update but probably macOS 13 because they tend not to fix gaming or graphics related bugs in window server in minor updates.
As to severity of issue. Many users seem to over exaggerate the problem. You can literally play the game by not resizing window via corners. Blizzard has said resizing via drop down or even console commands works fine. It’s only drag resizing that hangs. I can confirm this on both my M1 Max and Intel machine. The game isn’t unplayable, so the severity rating on issue is low.
If you need to resize the window, do so using the methods mentioned for now. either via drop down in graphics options or console via /console gxWindowedResolution value
Thanks for the info, Omegal. You’ve been 10x more helpful than Blizzard has.
Can you provide any more information on the “window code”? Specifically, things like, which parts of macOS is causing the issue? Exactly which update of macOS was the code was changed in?
I’d like to post about this on the Apple forums and ask Apple to get on this. Thanks
It’s not a change that apple made that caused problem to start. it’s a change blizzard made in their code, but they aren’t doing anything wrong in their change. it’s that their change is triggering a bug in apples code that previous blizzard code didn’t run into. They reported findings to apple and that’s all they can really do.
Blizzard have even tried played with trying to figure out what part of new code is causing problem and they couldn’t isolate it enough to actually even attempt a work around, and full reverting a TON of code refactoring that was done for a reason was not an option. Plus as I said, they also don’t rate it as a super high priority issue since it has clear work arounds and only affects small subset of users.
not-being able to resize a window in 2022 is a massive, massive ####ing problem.
so blizz knowingly broke the code by changing something that absolutely did NOT need to be changed at all (as the game ran perfectly fine), and now they’re too lazy to fix it?
what the #### is reporting it to apple going to do? Apple isn’t going to change their entire OS because one small indie 40-billion-dollar videogame company downgraded their code.
at this point they should just say “we no longer support macOS”. saying otherwise is just lying to us.
Blizzard didn’t “knowingly change” the code to cause a problem. They changed the code to better comply with Apple’s Metal API specifications. The issue here, as Omegal noted, is that the code that was properly changed triggered a bug in Apple’s own code. This is a common occurrence in software engineering and isn’t unique to Apple or Blizzard. There was no malicious intent here. Blizzard does want their gamea to run well, it’s just that resources for macOS are virtually nil these days and this is the result - waiting for a fix. Only this time the fix had to come from Apple, not Blizzard, and Apple doesn’t do these kinds of fixes until a major OS update, thus the wait we’re going through.
Recently, NASA lost access to their helicopter because it burned all its battery power keeping instruments warm without retaining any energy needed to keep its internal clock running. Because the clock was now incorrect, it was failing to contact their rover at correct intervals. This meant that it was neither receiving commands nor able to transmit any information. After recovering the helicopter, it was then reprogrammed to … not do that.
There are other similarly incredible stories out of Microsoft, Intel, Amazon, pieces of software core to internet infrastructure, so on. We get that this problem is annoying and even frustrating, but with software, bugs are just part of life.
I guess the point I’m trying to make is that “small indie company” remarks don’t get very far with anyone with any background in IT or software development. It doesn’t matter how big or rich an organization is. Bugs happen.
okay, so Blizzard modernized their code, and now it’s not-working with the most modern Mac operating system, so Blizzard just sits there and does nothing?
They could put in an if/then statement: IF macOS version =< 12, do (old code); else do new code.
^ that would literally take like 10 minutes to implement, tops.
Yes, the bug is on Apple’s part, but Blizz DOES have code that works with the OS. They need to reimplement this.
They literally rewrote a signifiant part of code, they have no idea what part of the code apples bug is actually having a problem with. They can’t just if/else the ENTIRE code base (which was entirely rewritten)
Especially for something affecting literally a fraction of a fraction of their users. Even if they have 8.7% mac users, maybe 8.7% of that 8.7% are actually having a problem.
There is a big difference between unplayable and not being able to resize window via dragging. Can still resize via drop down, can still hit command-m to go in and out of windowed mode without issue. I think literally any company would leave this issue alone and wait for apple to eventually fix it…
If you want to be mad at anyone try filing bug reports to apple for purposely leaving things in a broken state constantly and making it hell for developers to even stay on their platform. Maybe if apple heard from users they’d realize there are gamers on their platform. The problem I think is apple doesn’t hear from them :\
Blizzard advertises this game as “Supported on macOS”. Knowing that, we purchase their product from them. We are paying customers and we deserve the support that is advertised and that we pay for.
Yes, Apple is at fault here. But Blizzard could easily fix the problem because THEY LITERALLY ALREADY HAVE CODE THAT WORKS
Please stop defending their inaction and laziness. Yes, it might be MILDLY challenging, but they have 42 BILLION DOLLARS. They can afford to have one of their thousand programmers look into it and fix it within a day. All they have to do is rollback code. This is routine for programmers.
Mate,
Do you have any IT or Dev background ?
Refactoring such a big app as WoW is not an easy thing especially when is running on Arm and intel chips. What blizzard do is to follow Apple specifications and as often happen in IT world not everything is working as intended , and they report back to the vendor in this case Apple.
WoW app is billion of rows and statements like write if statements are a joke , you cannot if the entire app .
If you want to complain go to Apple and see how you can reach to them - it’s impossible . They don’t listen to the users , they receive such feedback from companies they are working with , and then decide which one is priority.
Go to Apple open a case with them , raise awareness and let them give you timeframes .
Keep in mind you have work around it’s not like cannot be done - you can do it - setup window size and work with it.
yeah mate. I program. When something breaks, the people whose code caused a bug have to change it. If they refuse, they’re fired and we find someone who will do the job they’re paid to do, rather than make excuses and be lazy.
I can resize literally every single application by dragging the window, except WoW. The problem lies with Blizzard. They need to fix this, or at least exert a LOT of pressure on Apple to release a fix.
At the VERY least, they should be giving us information on the status of this, rather than ignoring us.
I’m not asking anything unreasonable from Blizzard. I’m asking them to support they game that I pay for, which they advertise as supported on Mac.
Anyone in the software engineering field will tell you, and rightfully so, that trying to maintain two distinct code branches in the same application is a nightmare and then some. And it only gets worse as time goes on and changes need to be made to be compatible with either newer OSes, drivers, and/or hardware. Ultimately the fix here is Apple fixing the bug and then Blizzard just putting out an announcement/sticky here that players should avoid X version of the OS entirely to avoid the problem. Thankfully the defaults for Apple’s OSes avoid incremental updates and go straight to the latest version.
What tia said. Blizzard literally converted to a unified codebase for a reason. One code, all platforms, as much as possible. It was a nightmare before maintaining multiple, adding in multiple game versions too and each version maintained by a different team. they split the window code back in two they have to ask classic team to also do so across multiple game versions that aren’t always synced. It gets messy. With unified code they can do a better job building and syncing.
Don’t get me wrong, there are many issues blizzard should be yelled at for not fixing (such as the performance regressions of 9.0.5+ that were never even reviewed despite extended reports and testing)…This however I do give them benefit of doubt.
“Better” does not break something that was already working well. Losing functionality for something as fundamental as resizing windows in a Mac-specific client that worked well across multiple versions of Mac OS and hardware does not improve the client.
“Not unplayable” is a very suspect standard of functionality. You can drive a car on flat tires.
Your suggested solution is to execute console commands every single time you want to resize windows in the midst of playing?
Where did Blizzard say “resizing via drop down” works fine? Link please. and while you’re at it, post some links to where to find the “drop down” across all the various versions of Mac OS listed by Blizzard as meeting system requirements.
EDIT:
The whole “only affects a small subset of users” tack is a specious argument. Might as well say the same about the small subset of users that have been having to redo mogs over and over again for the last few months every time the appearances from Recruit A Friend, more expensive editions of xpacs, subscription bonuses and the Blizzard Store disappear. Which can’t be blamed on Apple or any other third party.
EDIT 2: I’m sure I’m not the only one with more than one active account. If we are meant to use these kludges for the foreseeable future, how about posting the steps to have the windows different sizes when more than one client is open.
Again, Blizzard’s code is correct. Apple’s is not. Blizzard did not know this until after the fact, and reverting to the older codebase isn’t an option at this point. The changes were not insignificant on this one.
If you have a free space on your action bars you can create a macro that will do the resizing with just one click, no dragging necessary. It’s a cleaner workaround until Apple addresses the bug, which knowing them won’t be until 13.0/13.1 at the earliest.
The in-game settings referred to is the resolution pulldown menu in the game client, not the macOS dropdown.
Create a macro in each client that corresponds to the window size you want to use for that specific client. If you are reusing the original installation folder (multiboxing via a single install location), you’ll likely need to create multiple macros, labeled appropriately for each “client” you have open.
For creating the macros, the /console chat commands are what you would use for syntax, not the “SET” command lines, which are how they are stored in the config.wtf file.
if your new code makes it incompatible with a major operating system, then it’s not “good”, and it should be reverted until the OS is patched. leaving mac customers with a product that freezes upon interacting with the window is not “working” or “good” code, nor is it right.
it doesn’t matter if Apple’s code contains a bug. the bottom line is: WoW worked flawlessly. then blizzard changed something. and now it does not work as its supposed to in windowed mode.
i don’t care what changes they did to the back-end code. the game runs exactly the same now as it previously did. it’s not any more efficient, and it does not get any more performance. the only difference is they broke the game for mac users, and are refusing to take any responsibility, or to implement any REAL fix. telling is to use console commands to do basic UI interactions is NOT a solution.
Omegal, can you provide any information on exactly which part of Apple’s code base has errors in it? I want to bring this to Apple’s attention, but they’re going to need more information than “WoW iSnT wOrKinG!”. Is it some function in the API? What is it called? Is it a module? I don’t know. Please tell us. Thanks.
