WTF is going on?

[WindupAtheist]

I can't go more than two weeks without WoW deciding some graphic file is unreadable and that I need to run the repair utility. Today alone it has happened twice. Which means I will get to repatch the fucking client twice in one day.

What sort of fucking bullshit is this? This is the sort of laughable shit I'd expect from Funcom or EA or something. I can't repatch the entire fucking client every god damn day. I am going to have to cancel over this.

EDIT:  Wiping out all the usual folders will fix it without having to repatch, I just lose any addons and have to reset all my settings. Which is still motherfucking clownshoes.

[Ingmar]

I don't know anyone else having this problem. I know Fordel *used* to have a similar problem, until he upgraded his hard drive - maybe you are seeing some early symptoms of hardware failure? That is often the case with file corruption in my experience.

[apocrypha]

Problem comes from the addons I suspect. Allowing user-created mods means that the actual complexity of any given WoW install is a lot greater than if they locked it down.

You have to make a personal choice - use few or no addons and have a smooth patching/install process or use lots of addons and be prepared to deal with a ton of crap every major update. I chose the lots of addons route, and accept that occasionally I will have to spend an hour or two (which for me is one or two days play time) fixing the addons.

I have to say too, that getting a new PC recently, meaning a fresh install of WoW on it, has made things a LOT smoother and easier, on this PC anyway. I know it's a total ballache but it might be worth a complete uninstall and reinstall from scratch, it might save you a lot of shit in the future. For a while anyway....

[K9]

I've never heard of this problem before. I'd try the technical support forum.

[Phred]

Problem comes from the addons I suspect. Allowing user-created mods means that the actual complexity of any given WoW install is a lot greater than if they locked it down.

Highly unlikely it's addons. More likely it's the cache files wow writes to the local hard drive. WUA, next time it happens, wipe out <WowDir>\Cache\WDB\enUS completely. If that fixes your proble, then try refining your search down to one or the other of the various files in there.

[WindupAtheist]

Will do. But you know, I don't recall having problems like this for a long time. Like all the years where WoW didn't feel compelled to include a "repair utility" in the first place. So I'm pretty sure it's not just me. :(

[Fordel]

To this day I don't know what part of my old machine hated WoW, or why, but I used to have to run the repair utility 1-3 times per day while playing. Nothing I did fixed it while I used my old machine. I don't know if it was my memory, or my hard drive(s), or a magical gremlin pissing on my mother board at night, but WoW (and only WoW) would just fail and fail and fail.


Patch days were especially bad, fresh installs the worst. I scoured the tech support forums, ran every kind of HD/Memory test I could think of, moved my installation around between my hard drives. Same corruption/fault error. The Repair utility thankfully got better over time and would fix it in a few mins, at first I had to reinstall the thing every time. Still stupid as shit. One of the reasons I stopped playing during classic.


Once I got my new system, everything worked, haven't had an issue since. So if you have what I had, you're probably fucked good and proper. Sorry.

[Dren]

I had the same issue for awhile.  I wiped the install.  Defraged my hardrive.  Ran every adware, virus, etc. cleaner I could.  Installed fresh.  Did all the updates as normal.  Redid all my add-ons. 

Before I did this, the issue would come up every other week.  After I did this, no problems.

Yes, no other programs on my computer had problems, but no other program taxed my system like WoW either.

[Kail]

I had a problem similar to this about six or eight months ago; kept telling me some asset file was unreadable.  Was having some problems with other programs, too (posted about it here, I believe), though, so it might not be the same thing, though WoW was by far the flakiest.  People advised me to defrag and run a full scan and so on.  I eventually ended up using "system restore" to revert everything (warning: this kills your registry, and sometimes your files, too), and everything's been peachy since then.

[WindupAtheist]

Thanks for the tips guys. I'll wipe/defrag/scan/reinstall soon.

[raydeen]

Check your drive for errors first. There may not be any physical damage, but the file table or even the permissions may be futzed. If you don't know how, right click your drive, go to Properties, then the Tools tab, then run Error Checking. You'll most likely have to schedule it for the next boot. Choose both options to be safe (the surface scan will take a while but it may be worth it). I've had to do this on occasion. Haven't had any bad sectors but something will occasionally get messed up enough that files get corrupted on the drive.

[WindupAtheist]

Will do. A defrag alone seems to have calmed things down, though the drive wasn't very fragmented.