WoW won't open, says "game is running". only happens on SSD

I just transferred WoW to my SSD to get ready for Shadowlands, but when I try to launch it, it says game is running, but nothing happens. The game appears in my task manager and its the only way to close it.
This happened a while back, I orignally had WoW on my SSD, but this error poped up after an update. I managed to get around it by transferring the files to my hard drive and so far that has worked, but had really slow load times. With Shadowlands coming up, I want to transfer it back to my SSD so it loads faster.

Ive made sure all my drivers are up to date and removed all my addons, yet it still doesn’t work

Have you restarted your computer?

You might want to do a fresh install on the SSD, and then just switch to that.

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Yes I have. same thing still occurs

How long did you wait between clicking “play” and closing it via task manager?

First time I tried, about 10 minutes.

Have you done a “Scan & Repair”? If not, I’d try doing that first.

I had the same problem on my HDD when I first got the game. I scanned and repaired, I believe.

Alright, Ive run a scan. it popped up and said “scan complete, no need for repair”

You might just want to do a fresh install on the SSD, and go from there.

I’ll give that a go. I currently have my wow folder installed in my documents, is that ok or is there somewhere better I can install it?

Update: I temporally disabled my antivirus (Avast) and the game launched, I enabled avast again while game was running and it crash immediately
(also, not sure why, but my profile pic/name keeps changing on the forums, but I am the same person sorry for confusion)

Hey there,

Thanks for following up with us! I’m glad to hear you narrowed down the issue by disabling Avast. I might suggest adding the game folders as an exclusion or exception to their software. They have info for this on their website.

Since the software itself is made by another company, please be sure to follow up with the Avast support team if the problem persists while Avast is running. They may be able to better assist with software configurations for their program.

I do hope the info helps. Let us know how things go!

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Ive added expceptions to the folder/exe. but it doesn’t seem to work. I’ll try to let avast know.
For anyone else who encountered this issue in future and is looking for help, here is what I learned. It appears to have something to do with Avasts boot-time scan. Im not sure why, but by default it is set to only scan your main drive, by setting it to scan all drives, it blocked wow from launching from any drive. So, you can get around this issue by putting wow on a drive other than your main drive and leaving avast on the default only scan main drive. Im gonna try load it onto a second SSD and see how it goes.

Realize my reply is a year since the last post, but if you are using Avast, the problem is the Anti-Rootkit shield/engine. With Avast One Essential (Free, not premium) I had to go into Explore → Scan Center → File Shield → Open File Shield → Advanced Settings and uncheck Detect rootkits. After that, WoW launches each and every time.

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