Compatibility Report

• Name of the game with compatibility issues: World of Warcraft (via Battle.net)
• Steam AppID of the game: N/A. non-Steam game (Battle.net launcher)

System Information

• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 (AD103, rev a1)
• Video driver version: NVIDIA 610.57.04
• Kernel version: 7.1.10-200.fc44.x86_64
• Proton version: Proton Experimental 11.0-20260826.

I confirm:

• [x] that I haven't found an existing compatibility report for this game.
• [x] that I have checked whether there are updates for my system available.

Symptoms

Battle.net Agent updated to build 9775 (version 2.41.0.9775). Since then, World of Warcraft is permanently stuck on "Updating" / "Initializing... please wait" and cannot be launched from the Battle.net client.

• All other Battle.net games update and launch correctly through the same prefix
• WoW itself runs flawlessly when launched directly via Wow.exe the installation is fully intact at version 12.1.0.69587
• This is a regression: Agent build 9700 did not have this issue
• Tested across every available Wine/Proton variant with identical results

Root cause: COM apartment initialization failure in Agent.exe

The Proton log shows Agent.exe (PID 018c) failing immediately on COM:

280050.541:018c:0190:err:ole:com_get_class_object apartment not initialised

AgentHelper.exe (PID 0360) hits the same error:

280051.940:0360:0364:err:ole:com_get_class_object apartment not initialised

This cascades into 16 marshal_object failures:

err:ole:marshal_object Failed to create an IRpcStubBuffer from IPSFactory for {00020404-0000-0000-c000-000000000046} with error 0x80004002
err:ole:marshal_object Failed to create an IRpcStubBuffer from IPSFactory for {00000114-0000-0000-c000-000000000046} with error 0x80004002
err:ole:marshal_object Failed to create an IRpcStubBuffer from IPSFactory for {e89f726e-c4f4-4c19-bb19-b647d7fa8478} with error 0x80004002

And ultimately 30 RPC failures:

err:ole:ifproxy_release_public_refs IRemUnknown_RemRelease failed with error 0x800706ba

The Battle.net Agent log confirms the downstream effect which is the CASC install handler cannot initialize:

[W] Build marked non-playable for agent: Failed Install Handler - 2110

Because the install handler fails, the agent reports WoW as not installed to the Battle.net client despite the game being fully present:

{
  "active_config_key": "00000000000000000000000000000000",
  "installed": false,
  "local_version": "",
  "playable": false
}

The agent also performs emergency_fix_com_flags on COM class {257A53D9-0BBB-476B-9500-A888092E0260} and validate_helper_service operations, both of which appear to fail silently.

The agent simultaneously discovers the running WoW process if WoW is started by itself:

[I] GameProcessManager - DISCOVERED: process - uid:wow, pid: 312, pid path: C:/Program Files (x86)/World of Warcraft/_retail_/Wow.exe

Why this is a regression

Agent 9700 didn't have this problem.

Reproduction

1. Add the Battle.net installer as a non-Steam game, force Proton Experimental
2. Install Battle.net and World of Warcraft (or point at an existing WoW installation)
3. Agent auto-updates to build 9775
4. WoW is stuck on "Updating" / "Initializing... please wait" — cannot be launched from Battle.net
5. All other Battle.net games continue to work
6. WoW launches and runs perfectly via Wow.exe directly

Troubleshooting attempted (none resolved the issue):

• Reinstalling Battle.net from scratch
• Deleting Agent folder, cache, product.db
• Fresh Wine prefix
• WINE_SIMULATE_WRITECOPY=1

Attached files:

1. steam-15388811218227560448.log — Proton log showing COM errors
2. Agent-20260903T021527.log — Agent log showing install handler failure and full JSON state

steam-15388811218227560448.log
Agent-20260903T021527.log