Wow Classic crashes immediately on new install, macbook pro

I can’t play world of warcraft classic on my macbook pro because it crashes at log in. Can I get some help?

After downloading [battle.net](http://battle.net) and world of warcraft classic (which wasn’t easy to do ), I clicked “play”. It loads the cinematic trailer and then goes to the log in screen.

From the log in screen, it freezes and produces the colorful spinning wheel and then the app crashes and creates a crash report.

I tried uninstalling and re-installing both [battle.net](http://battle.net) and world of warcraft twice. Each time, I manually removed all the associated files via Finder, Library, Preferences, etc. I also tried using the scan and repair function on [battle.net](http://battle.net). Nothing works.

Anyone else having this problem? Can someone please help me?

Here is my systems report:

Model Name: MacBook Pro

Model Identifier: MacBookPro16,2

Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Core i5

Processor Speed: 2 GHz

Number of Processors: 1

Total Number of Cores: 4

L2 Cache (per Core): 512 KB

L3 Cache: 6 MB

Hyper-Threading Technology: Enabled

Memory: 16 GB

System Firmware Version: 2022.100.22.0.0 (iBridge: 21.16.4222.0.0,0)

OS Loader Version: 580~1678

Serial Number (system): C02CL9J6ML7H

Activation Lock Status: Enabled

Running: Sonoma 14.4.1 (23E224)

Change the permissions on the World of Warcraft folder to read/write for everyone (right click → get info → sharing and permissions and there’s an action button next to the +/- and select the apply to enclosed files/folders option that’s there) and then also apply it to enclosed folders and you’re good to go.

can also just type the following in the terminal to do this recursively:

sudo chmod -R u+rwX,g+rwX,o+rwX /Applications/“World of Warcraft”/*

If your default install is in /Application… otherwise change the path to your folder. It’s probably trying to read a protected file and crashing is my guess.

that probably won’t fix the crash. The issue is that’s an Intel Iris Plus running macOS sonoma. Prob a dozen threads on issue already but basically those machines crash, lockup and even kernel panic due to a broken graphics driver since macOS 14.0. the ONLY work around is to downgrade to macOS 13.x if user is on an Intel Iris Plus

The issue was investigated and it was concluded that it can’t really be worked around or fixed by blizzard since it’s a kernel level issue with the driver itself. Unfortunately apple isn’t fixing it either cause they don’t care about hardware they are phasing out (hell, i can barely get them to care about the hardware they do still support. USB host controller on apple silicon is prone to kernel panics when using external docks/drives still).

So the ONLY solution is the user one, :\

1 Like

Gotcha. Permissions would definitely not fix this if its a graphics issue. I guess downgraded is the option then which is disappointing.

1 Like

That’s too bad. Sounds like I’ll have to downgrade to Ventura.

I’m planning on getting a mac mini for work when the new one comes out, so I’ll take your advice on adjusting the permissions on the new Apple silicon.

In the meantime, I’m wondering if I can copy over the game file from a different mac? I don’t understand the tech stuff well enough to know if this might be a solution or not. That other mac runs wow fine, and it’s an older i mac running sonoma. Unfortunately, it’s not my computer to use when I want.

If not, I’ll go ahead and consider a downgrade.

Appreciate all the insight and time into helping me out!

Some people with newer m3 macbooks don’t see the issue from what I’ve read. I am not sure if the issue is isolated to m1 macbooks or not. It will be very obvious if the new macbook has issues because you will get stuck at “initializing” when downloading wow clients only… works for other games.