How to potentially fix 'a character with that name already exists' in WoW

The 'a character with that name already exists' error in World of Warcraft (WoW) can be frustrating for gamers. Many players have complained that they are greeted with this error message while logging into the game, effectively restricting them from launching the title. While the recently released WoW The War Within expansion has attracted many new and veteran players who stopped playing it, the error is ruining their experience.

This guide explains how to fix the 'a character with that name already exists' error in WoW based on the troubleshooting steps provided by Battle.net.

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What is the 'a character with that name already exists' error in WoW and how to fix it?

Some methods have been shared to fix the issue (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

According to various reports, the error occurs when a character is not properly logged out of the server. Seeing the stacking reports of this error ruining the experience for players, Battle.net has shared a few methods that can help fix this issue. These are the steps:

1. Try to log in with another character in your account. After that, completely log out of the game.
2. Reset your user interface. After resetting, make sure your files and addons aren't corrupted.
3. Wait 30 minutes. The servers will remove any characters that are inactive for 30 minutes. This means if your character is stuck in the server and not active for half an hour, the server will automatically remove it.

These methods should fix the 'a character with that name already exists' error in WoW.

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How to reset your User Interface in World of Warcraft

An in-game screengrab of the game (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

To reset your user interface, follow these steps:

1. Close World of Warcraft.
2. Uninstall any addon managers to prevent them from reinstalling the addons you've removed.
3. In the Blizzard Battle.net desktop app, click on Options (the cogwheel next to the Play button) and choose Show in Explorer (Windows) or Reveal in Finder (Mac).
4. Navigate to the World of Warcraft folder.
5. Go to the folder corresponding to the game version you're working on (retail, classic_era, or classic).
6. Rename the Cache, Interface, and WTF folders and change them to CacheOld, InterfaceOld, and WTFOld, respectively.
7. Restart World of Warcraft to apply the changes.

Following these steps will reset your user interface. However, we recommend taking this action only if it's absolutely necessary because if any mistakes were made when resetting the UI, the game could lose some important files or they could get corrupted. Therefore, try all the other methods before following this method.

Read more articles here:

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• WoW The War Within: How to get the Lil Moss Rosy pet
• How to reach Dornogal in WoW The War Within