I’ve had an issue with WoW client. When I launch WoW (either through Battle.net or directly through the exe file in the folder), WoW appears in my Task Manager processes but doesn’t launch.
If I launch it several times, it creates several processes, each taking very low CPU, GPU, memory, etc. Then in a couple of minutes several WoW windows open at once.
I tried all the solutions that I found online, reinstalling seems to work but only temporarily – in some time the issue comes back.
This is 100% not an issue of my PC as literally every other application runs perfectly.
I’ve seen this issue being reported on Reddit with quite a number of users having the same problem. I’ve also seen several forum topics with no solution from Blizzard.
Given the above, I suppose the issue is in some temp files that WoW creates.
You know that Wow is not “Every other application” right? You can’t compare apples to cotton candy, and say “Its the apples fault, it doesnt taste like cotton candy”.
90% of these "delayed startup"s have been traced to either a slow hard drive, a faulty hard drive, or an antivirus program.
If it was a problem endemic to WoW, then EVERYONE would have this issue, and they don’t.
Also Reddit is not a place for reporting bugs about wow. Its a place for keyboard warriors who think they are experts.
In most recent cases this delayed startup has been caused by Bitdefender. If you have Bitdefender, try disabling it or temporary uninstalling it and checking if it still happens.
If not, please get in touch with Bitdefender support on how to prevent Bitdefender from delaying the startup of WoW.
Bitdefender is also just the recent most likely example and any security software may in theory cause this.
You can try, what Shockdmyself said, or temporarily uninstall the Antivirus (with potential removal tool, which exists for some antivirus software), reboot your PC and check. After the test it can be reinstalled. If it worked, get in touch with the developer of the antivirus software. If not, we can take a look at what else might be causing it.
I think deleting my Interface folder also helped for a while. I also noticed that sometime the game freezes when I open settings of an addon or another (happened with Ability team tracker and Threat plates).
So I’ve been thinking it might have something to do with Interface files.
Just a guess – I will still have to confirm this. Can I reach you somehow in case this topic gets closed before I can confirm anything?