I have seen many others reporting the same behavior in this forum, but so far no Blizzard response to the problem.

Starting several weeks ago, WoW began freezing up an average of once every 3 hours of gameplay or so. Sometimes it would freeze immediately after logging in, sometimes I could play for several hours without freezing.

Last night it was especially bad. I tried for two hours but was unable to play for more than 5 minutes before WoW froze up again, making the game completely unplayable.

Honestly, if this isn't resolved before my current game time expires in a few weeks, I'm not going to renew my subscription.

Freezing has happened at any time after launching WoW -- even at the account login screen, before the dark portal graphics have finished rendering.

There are a few different variations of freezing. In all cases, my entire system locks up, and I must hard boot.

Video variations:

* Everything looks fine, but simply freezes up. The cursor is normal but nothing on the screen responds to clicks, and there is no response to keyboard input. (Most common)
* Same as above but cursor is spinning beach ball.
* The screen goes completely black. (Uncommon)
* The screen goes wacky with pixelated stripes of color/black, all graphics wiped out. (This is usually accompanied by the stuttering audio variation.) (Uncommon)

Audio variations:

* Audio continues functioning normally. iTunes keeps playing, Pandora keeps playing (in web browser), game sounds -- atmospherics, music, and toon/environment noises -- are still audible as normal. Presumably indefinitely but I've never waited longer than about 5 minutes before rebooting. (Most common)
* Audio continues normally for 30 to 60 seconds, then stops and a "stuttering" sound is heard, like a half-second sound sample caught in a repeating loop. (Usually accompanied by screen freakout.)
* Audio continues normally for about a minute, then completely stops. (Less common)

When rebooting after a WoW crash, the duration of reboot (gray screen loading) alternates between very long (5-10 minutes) and very short (<1 minute). This pattern is fairly consistent. I.e. long boot, short boot, long boot, short boot, etc. I used to have the impression that there was a higher chance of freezing after a short boot, but tonight it's been freezing all over the place, regardless of boot length.

There are no errors recorded in any logs -- console.log, system.log, ~/Library/Logs, WoW/Errors. No information at all is left behind from these crashes.

Removing the Interface, Cache, and WTF folders has absolutely no effect. The game still freezes even without them.

It does not appear to be a heat-related issue. I've used smcFanControl to monitor the temperature and there has been no correlation between temp and WoW freezing.

I might think that my game files were corrupted except for the fact that I've seen so many other users complain of the same behavior (seems unlikely that SO MANY people would all have corrupted files? that would still point to a Blizz problem!), and some users reported that reinstallation did not help. I have not yet attempted reinstallation.

Incidentally, after the 2.4 patch, graphical artifacts in WoW became common -- missing/lagged textures, spikes of solid color crossing the screen, sometimes obscuring large parts of the game field and varying as the view, characters, and environment move. It is easily fixed by either changing the resolution or switching between full screen and windowed mode, but still annoying. I have no idea if this graphical problem is related to the crashing, but they both started happening around the same time period.

Please, Blizzard, can you at lesat acknowledge that this is a problem and you are working to fix it ASAP??

Following are my specs from System Profiler.

Hardware Overview:
Model Name: MacBook Pro 15"
Model Identifier: MacBookPro1,1
Processor Name: Intel Core Duo
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per processor): 2 MB
Memory: 1.5 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP11.0055.B08
SMC Version: 1.2f10
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

ATI Radeon X1600:
Chipset Model: ATY,RadeonX1600
Type: Display
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 128 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x71c5
Revision ID: 0x0000
EFI Driver Version: 01.00.068
Displays:
Color LCD:
Display Type: LCD
Resolution: 1440 x 900
Depth: 32-bit Color
Built-In: Yes
Core Image: Hardware Accelerated
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Supported
Display Connector:
Status: No display connected

System Software Overview:
System Version: Mac OS X 10.4.11 (8S2167)
Kernel Version: Darwin 8.11.1
Boot Volume: Macintosh HD

This issue isn't mod related, it may be settings related. Have you tested at default settings (set aside or rename your config.wtf file)?

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Q u o t e:
I had been having serious video/system crashes after the patch prior to WOTLK. I was able (seemly) to correct them. It had something to do with TimeMachine (i now play with it turned off and have made sure it excludes my wow folder).

I've had a week of error-free play. It was wonderful.

Starting yesterday, i once again am having total system crashing video errors. Did something change from friday to sunday on the blizzard side?

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Nothing's changed, but you could be looking at some different content, which could be triggering a bug.

If you experience a system lockup, please grab a copy of your system.log file after you reboot and mail it in for us to look at. (Also include a system profile so we know what your hardware is)

-> wowmacteam123@blizzard.com

The X1900 boards have pretty poor longevity in our experience. I have a few dead ones sitting in my office, and many Mac WoW players have had to have their X1900's replaced by Apple.

Have seen much higher lifetime and stability from the 2600/3870 ATI generation and the NVIDIA 8800 generation.

Morning Shadowawesom,


To be honest I was going to lock this thread but it seems that lots of people have had some use out of it for well over a year from when it was started.

With your issue, I would refrain from force quitting the game, I ran some tests a while back and prolonged force-quitting eventually corrupted the game, so I would go with a force restart of the computer instead. Also force quit = Option + Command + Esc, no need for the shift button.

For the error report, see if you have anything in the Errors Æ’older in your World of Warcraft Æ’older, and if you do and if it's recent, do me a huge favor and post the report please.