WoW Realm Incompatible: How To Fix World of Warcraft Error & What It Means

With World of Warcraft being an online game, there are bound to be a handful of issues and errors you encounter when attempting to play or connect to the game. One of the more common issues is the Realm Incompatible notification that happens when trying to log into the game.

When you encounter the Realm Incompatible notification, you won’t be able to start the game or choose what character you want to play. You’ll be booted back to the main menu of your desktop, left trying to figure out how to fix it. Here’s what you need to know about how to fix the Realm Incompatible error in World of Warcraft and what it means.

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What to do when you get the Realm Incompatible error in World of Warcraft

The solution to this approach is quite simple, and the problem behind the Realm Incompatible error is relatively common. What’s happening is you do not have the correct version of World of Warcraft on your launcher. You’re behind a patch or two for the current version, and you will need to update the game on your launcher to proceed further.

You will need to go down to the Battle.net launcher and click on the Options menu. Here, you can check for updates for your installed game, such as World of Warcraft. Click on the Updates tab for World of Warcraft, and make sure you are using the latest version of the game.

The update might take a few seconds to a minute or two to run through, but once it’s complete, attempt to relaunch the game. You should be able to get into World of Warcraft following this short update.

However, if you continue to encounter issues with attempting to run World of Warcraft, you may need to run the Battle.net repair tool, which you can do by clicking the Cog icon next to World of Warcraft and confirming you want to repair it. The repair process takes a few minutes to complete.

Should you continue encountering problems, the next drastic measure is to uninstall and reinstall the game, which will take significant time. We recommend making this the final option to get World of Warcraft to work.

The final step you can take if the reinstalling World of Warcraft does not work is to visit the Blizzard Technical Support forums or directly contact the Blizzard Support team for assistance.

About the author

Zack Palm

Zack Palm is the Senior Writer of Gamepur and has spent over five years covering video games, and earned a Bachelor's degree in Economics from Oregon State University. He spends his free time biking, running tabletop campaigns, and listening to heavy metal. His primary game beats are Pokémon Go, Destiny 2, Final Fantasy XIV, and any newly released title, and he finds it difficult to pull away from any Star Wars game.

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