Battle.net app launcher fails during load of characters

I am new to ISBoxer and am trying to set it up to run three World of Warcraft accounts that are all on the same Battle.Net account.
I am on a 64-bit Windows 8.1 machine using ISBoxer 41.13.0408.1.
If I use the default profile, it launches Wow.exe (32-bit) and I have to enter a password and an authenticator code, then I can play the game.

I am trying to set ISBoxer up to use the Battle.Net app's ability to keep me logged in so I do not have to enter my password and an authenticator code every time I want to play.

Whenever I launch a character set using Inner Space (right click, mouse over ISBoxer Character Sets, select character set from flyout) or when I launch a character set from ISBoxer (expand Character Sets in upper left, select character set, right click, select Launch), the following usually happens:

• First character: Battle Net Launcher opens normally, selecting account and clicking play launches an ordinary World of Warcraft window without any ISBoxer/Inner Space hooks into the game. Battle Net Launcher closes.
• Second character: Battle Net Launcher opens normally, selecting account and clicking play launches a World of Warcraft window managed by Inner Space with all the expected ISBoxer/Inner Space hooks into the game. Battle Net Launcher closes.
• Third character: Battle Net Launcher opens, but instead of a Play button there is an Update button. Clicking the Update button causes a progress bar that says Initializing which sits there for half a minute or so and then fails with an error message.

Sometimes the first character launches with the ISBoxer/InnerSpace hooks and the Battle.Net Launcher fails on the second character, sometimes it fails on the first character.

The error message states: "We couldn't launch a program we needed to use. This happens for many reasons, please click the code below for more information. Sorry about that!"
Clicking the code opens this web page: https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/BLZBNTAGT00000871?utm_medium=internal&utm_source=app-other Failed to Launch Agent or AgentSwitcher

Here is the diagnostic info from ISBoxer http://www.privatepaste.com/e0b6ab94f1

For my setup, I looked at the instructions for HOWTO:Autologin through Battle.net http://isboxer.com/wiki/HOWTO:Autologin_through_Battle.net, but the instructions do not work because the default profile does not launch the Battle.Net launcher, it launches Wow.exe, which does not have an option to check for "Keep me logged in" and does not have a "Play" button.
So, these instructions need to be updated before trying to send me to them again.

Following the tiny piece of information found in the timeslice 0.22-0.28 in the video ISBoxer -- Using the Battle.Net Launcher, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-Ci8mY3pjo, I added a new game profile in Inner Space for World of Warcraft that points to World of Warcraft Launcher.exe.

The first problem I already overcame was Battle.Net launcher failing to open because there was already an instance open, so I have already set the configuration in Battle.Net to exit the launcher whenever it is closed and whenever a game is launched as described in http://isboxer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=5853.

The three characters all have settings like this: http://privatepaste.com/71e34689e3
My InnerSpace GameConfiguration is set up like this: http://privatepaste.com/bf1857cca1

I saw a thread http://isboxer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6494 where someone seems to have set up an InnerSpace profile to launch Battle.net.exe instead of World of Warcraft Launcher.exe, and were looking for additional command line switches, but cannot understand how this was done.

[bob]

For my setup, I looked at the instructions for HOWTO:Autologin through Battle.net http://isboxer.com/wiki/HOWTO:Autologin_through_Battle.net, but the instructions do not work because the default profile does not launch the Battle.Net launcher, it launches Wow.exe, which does not have an option to check for "Keep me logged in" and does not have a "Play" button.
So, these instructions need to be updated before trying to send me to them again.

The information is right, just not necessarily in the correct order. The default game detection does not appear to create a game profile that points at the World of Warcraft Launcher.exe. The need to change the game profile that the characters use is mentioned at item 3 of the "Adding this capability to an existing character set" so I can see why it is easily missed. It doesn't help that there is no mention of how to do this, or where to get this game profile from. I will look into updating this page to make this clearer. Thanks for pointing out the deficiencies.

Following the tiny piece of information found in the timeslice 0.22-0.28 in the video ISBoxer -- Using the Battle.Net Launcher, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-Ci8mY3pjo, I added a new game profile in Inner Space for World of Warcraft that points to World of Warcraft Launcher.exe.

Super. Saves going through that.

The first problem I already overcame was Battle.Net launcher failing to open because there was already an instance open, so I have already set the configuration in Battle.Net to exit the launcher whenever it is closed and whenever a game is launched as described in http://isboxer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=5853.

Yes, the launcher process must close before Inner Space/ISBoxer will launch the next instance. If ISBoxer is virtualising the configuration files for Battle.net correctly you will need to do this for each launcher window that pops up. It sounds like this might be the problem, in that you have set the setting on the first launcher but not the others.

ISBoxer makes sure that each character gets their own set of configuration files, so anything that is not correct in the standard default configuration files will be not correct in the per character configuration files. As the per character configuration files are copied from the standard set when that character is first launched, and then they are used forever after, you cant go back an update the default config files without either 1. doing the same for the per character files, or 2. deleting the per character files and letting them recopy from the originals once you have sorted the setup outside of ISBoxer.
The ones in question are probably.

Original:
Battle.net.config
Software/Blizzard Entertainment/Battle.net/

ISBoxer copies:
Battle.net-{CHARACTERNAME}.config
Software/Blizzard Entertainment/Battle.net-ISBoxer/{CHARACTERNAME}/


Note: you also may want to lengthen the delay between launching characters a little to allow the launcher to shut down other sub processes. This is a setting on your Character Set in ISboxer. Try upping it to 5 to 10 seconds.

I saw a thread http://isboxer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6494 where someone seems to have set up an InnerSpace profile to launch Battle.net.exe instead of World of Warcraft Launcher.exe, and were looking for additional command line switches, but cannot understand how this was done.

Command line switches go in the parameter box when you use the Add Game process in Inner Space, or if you are XML keen you can edit the PARAMETERS node in the GameConfiguration.xml for a given profile (you need to exit Inner Space and reload it for it to take effect), or you can edit the game profile http://www.isboxer.com/wiki/Game_Profile.

ISBoxer makes sure that each character gets their own set of configuration files, so anything that is not correct in the standard default configuration files will be not correct in the per character configuration files. As the per character configuration files are copied from the standard set when that character is first launched, and then they are used forever after, you cant go back an update the default config files without either 1. doing the same for the per character files, or 2. deleting the per character files and letting them recopy from the originals once you have sorted the setup outside of ISBoxer.
The ones in question are probably.

Original:
Battle.net.config
Software/Blizzard Entertainment/Battle.net/

ISBoxer copies:
Battle.net-{CHARACTERNAME}.config
Software/Blizzard Entertainment/Battle.net-ISBoxer/{CHARACTERNAME}/

Hi bob,

I finally found the Battle.net-{CHARACTERNAME}.config files under %SystemDrive%\Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\Battle.net.
I deleted the Battle.net-{CHARACTERNAME}.config files.
I also used regedit and deleted the entire HKCU/Software/Blizzard Entertainment/Battle.net-ISBoxer set of registry keys so they could be recreated.

I started over and set up my three characters using the quick setup wizard, exported to InnerSpace, and tried to launch one of the characters by right-clicking InnerSpace, hovering over ISBoxer Character Slots, hovering over the name of the character set, and clicking on the Slot 1 character.

After logging in to the launcher and supplying the authenticator code, the Battle.Net app opened up.
It immediately switched to the Initializing progress bar with a greyed out Play button, and then changed the Play button to Update.

This is a repeat of the problem I am trying to fix.

Do I have something wrong with my World of Warcraft Launcher profile?
Is there some way to force the Battle.Net app to stop checking for updated files?
The Battle.Net app sometimes requires elevated privileges (run as administrator) on my Windows 8.1 machine, is this part of the problem?

I have spent about 30 hours on this so far over the past 4 weeks, and am very frustrated that I can't find any information on how to get the Battle.Net app to just launch the game when it is started by InnerSpace calling World of Warcraft Launcher.exe

[MiRai]

Do I have something wrong with my World of Warcraft Launcher profile?

Every so often someone comes around saying that they have the issue that you're having, but I don't know how to fix it. If it was a widespread issue then I imagine it'd be easy to fix. I tested the launcher in the WoW directory just now with a Character Set, and I am not seeing the same behavior.

I mean, it could be one of the several background processes you have running that is interfering somehow, but I really wouldn't know where to start besides telling you to just shut down every single thing that isn't required in order to run the game.

Is there some way to force the Battle.Net app to stop checking for updated files?

I doubt it.

The Battle.Net app sometimes requires elevated privileges (run as administrator) on my Windows 8.1 machine, is this part of the problem?

Inner Space requires that its launched as admin, so therefore it launches everything else as admin automatically.

[bob]

It immediately switched to the Initializing progress bar with a greyed out Play button, and then changed the Play button to Update.

I can only get this if I don't let Battle.Net and WOW fully patch/install outside of ISBoxer. But I don't use the authenticator, so I don't know whether that changes anything.

This isn't an actual solution to your problem, but something I wanted to mention based on my own experiences.

I too, am one of very few people that seem to run into the issue of the Battle.net launcher constantly wanting to update when I use it like this, and was never able to fix this. Whenever I'd start it manually, things would always work just fine. But being virtualized through ISBoxer always resulted in the launcher wanting to update World of Warcraft - and no amount of tinkering seemed to resolve this.

In the end, I simply gave up and decided to log in manually for the time being. As it turns out, that's no longer something I want to change. The reason for this is that when using the Battle.net launcher, it will have to open and close once for each account you want to log on. And even on a fast computer, that still takes noticeably more time than simply waiting for all your game clients to launch, turning on broadcasting (and turning off keymaps) and then typing in your password to log on all your accounts at once.

The only drawback I've noticed is that this means that once a week, upon logging in, you will be requested to enter your authenticator code (you do have an authenticator, right?). If this happens, I cancel the request. Then I log in one account manually along with the authenticator code, and then exit the character selection screen to log them all in simultaneously again.

For me personally, the convenience that the Battle.net launcher offers (not having to enter a password) doesn't feel like much of a convenience anymore when I can log in much faster manually - and you might feel the same way.

Whatever you decide, good luck and happy boxing!

Every so often someone comes around saying that they have the issue that you're having, but I don't know how to fix it. If it was a widespread issue then I imagine it'd be easy to fix. I tested the launcher in the WoW directory just now with a Character Set, and I am not seeing the same behavior.

I am noticing an extra config file (895b4f72.config) in my %SystemDrive%\Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\Battle.net folder next to the battle.net.config file.

Whenever I launch battle.net.exe normally, both the battle.net.config and the 895b4f72.config files are updated.
Whenever I launch a character using battle.net.exe through ISBoxer, both the battle.net-{character-name}.config and the 895b4f72.config files are updated.

I am wondering if there is some other process that is virtualizing the battle.net.config file, but I can't figure out what it could be.

[bob]

The 895b4f72.config file appears to be a user configuration structure used for Battle.net which is storing values different to the defaults, or at least those considered User specific. I'd even go so far as to say it looks like a bit of JSON.
Based on the number, the fact that mine are different numbers, and that I have several different files of the same with different numbers, I guess that the number is specific to the battle.net account.

In the end, I simply gave up and decided to log in manually for the time being. As it turns out, that's no longer something I want to change. The reason for this is that when using the Battle.net launcher, it will have to open and close once for each account you want to log on. And even on a fast computer, that still takes noticeably more time than simply waiting for all your game clients to launch, turning on broadcasting (and turning off keymaps) and then typing in your password to log on all your accounts at once.

It looks like this may be the only solution for me, as well.
When I log in manually instead of using the Battle.net launcher, I am able to play without any problems.
The convenience of being able to log in automatically has become very inconvenient.