Battle.net Desktop App Forum

After the 2014-01-18 patch, Battle.net started failing to start. It would show
"Checking for Battle.net updates...", then "Updating Battle.net Agent..", and finally fail saying:
"Battle.net Installation: Something went wrong while trying to launch a program. Please wait one minute and try again. If it happens again, try restarting your computer."
After hitting the close button, there are several Agent.exe processes that continue to run, consuming lots of processor. You can kill them with:
killall Agent.exe

Temporary work-around:
rm ~/.cxoffice/Battle.net_Desktop_App/drive_c/users/Public/Application Data/Battle.net/Agent/Agent.dat
Then open the Battle.net app like you normally do. This must be done every time you start battle.net.

If someone has a perm. fix, please post it!

Edit: Formatting.

Hello,

Unfortunately all I can give you at this time is two workarounds:

1. create a little script called bnet.sh and put this code into it:

BOTTLE="BNet"
$HOME/cxoffice/bin/cxrun --bottle "$BOTTLE" "$HOME/.cxoffice/$BOTTLE/drive_c/Program Files/Battle.net/Battle.net.exe"

Adjust the bottle name and path for cxrun accordingly (it may be /opt/cxoffice/bin/cxrun).

runt it with: sh bnet.sh

2) Open the bottle manager. Select the bottle where the BNet app is. Click the Run Command button and navigate to where it's installed. Usually in Program Files. Select Battle.net.exe file. Then click on Debug Options. in the box there enter -all. Click on Run. It will prompt you to choose where to save the log. Don't worry, there won't be much in it.

I'm not sure yet what happens. In one log file there was a lot of this:

err:wininet:open_http_connection create_netconn failed: 12029
err:wininet:open_http_connection create_netconn failed: 12029
err:wininet:open_http_connection create_netconn failed: 12029
err:wininet:open_http_connection create_netconn failed: 12029
err:wininet:open_http_connection create_netconn failed: 12029
err:wininet:open_http_connection create_netconn failed: 12029
err:wininet:open_http_connection create_netconn failed: 12029
err:wininet:open_http_connection create_netconn failed: 12029
err:wininet:open_http_connection create_netconn failed: 12029
err:wininet:open_http_connection create_netconn failed: 12029
err:wininet:open_http_connection create_netconn failed: 12029

You might also want to take a look on WineHQ

Have been playing with it, and just deleting the .dat file isn't consistent. Deleting both the .dat and the .db file has so far worked repeatedly.. So I just wrote a script that does the following:

rm "/home/sephtin/.cxoffice/Battle.net_Desktop_App/drive_c/users/Public/Application Data/Battle.net/Agent/Agent.dat"
rm "/home/sephtin/.cxoffice/Battle.net_Desktop_App/drive_c/users/Public/Application Data/Battle.net/Agent/agent.db"
sleep 2
"/home/sephtin/.cxoffice/Battle.net_Desktop_App/desktopdata/cxmenu/StartMenu.C^5E3A_users_Public_Start^2BMenu/Programs/Battle.net/Battle.net.lnk" %u

And have been good so far for running it.

I have tried reinstalling with a new bottle, and it fails the same way, so I figured this affects everyone? Is it just me?

People using vanilla wine are also affected

Thank you. For a bit I wondered if I was the only one!
At least there are work-arounds.

I took down the crossties for both this program and Hearthstone until a proper fix is available. Sorry peeps :/

It seems that it's not all smooth sailing for Windows users either:

http://us.battle.net/en/forum/topic/11306220599

Guess what? This problem is familiar. I remember it happening with Diablo III, World of Warcraft and Starcraft II. I'm sure I don't recall the exact issue but if I remember correctly, "Agent.exe" got an update and there's either a version mismatch or an extra "Agent.exe" process hanging around (I believe it's the former).

The workaround is "easier" than deleting things from your folders though that will be as effective.

You will need Silvu Cojocaru's tie file, two terminals and a little patience (not much, I promise). Also, CrossOver will need to be installed prior to starting these instructions. The instructions assume the ".bin" installer was used (as in CrossOver's home is ~/cxoffice/bin/crossover) so if you used the debian or rpm installer, please make the necessary adjustments (as in, ~/cxoffice/bin/crossover becomes /opt/cxoffice/bin/crossover).

1. Start the CrossOver installer with the tie file:
   ~/cxoffice/bin/cxinstaller --tiefile="/path/to/Battle.net Desktop App.tie"

CrossOver's software installer will launch and begin the installation of the Battle.net Desktop App. Hooray!

...and then it fails. Exit out of it and out of the software installer and get back to the command prompt. Don't close this terminal! Make your life easy!

2. In the other terminal, you will be starting the proper Agent.exe process. It should be:
   ~/cxoffice/bin/cxrun --bottle "Battle.net_Desktop_App" ~/.cxoffice/Battle.net_Desktop_App/drive_c/users/Public/Application\ Data/Battle.net/Agent/Agent.beta.2581/Agent.exe

Note that there is a possibility that your version number may be different (2581 in my case). Let that run to it's heart's content in the terminal.

3. Come back to the first terminal. Use the up arrow to re-populate the command you used in the first step. This will again launch the software installer.

Before you click "Install"... SELECT THE SAME BOTTLE YOU USED IN STEP ONE!!!!!

You need the same bottle because you need the right version of Agent.exe to already be running (so that you don't get in the update loop that causes it to fail). A few moments after starting, you should be prompted for where you want the desktop app created and if you want a shortcut created on the desktop. Then, with a little luck and patience, it will patch and eventually let you sign in.

EDIT: We went back through these steps here in-house. It's really important to get the Battle.net installation going while Agent.exe is running. If you take too long, Agent.exe will shut down the connection and the Battle.net Desktop App will not be able to find it. If you're having trouble with this, you can change your command for step 3 to the "installers" folder and find the executable that represents the Battle.net App... it would be something like:

~/cxoffice/bin/cxrun --bottle "Battle.net_Desktop_App" ~/.cxoffice/installers/###numbers###.Battle.net-Beta-Setup-enUS.exe

Note that you can see the application patching in the terminal. If that's still moving, it's not stuck. Blizzard applications have a tendency to appear stuck at around 65% and then make a large jump. If you're worried that it did get stuck, click cancel and repeat steps two and three.

I'm on my third round of using these steps. I haven't tried them for Hearthstone yet, I only made sure I could download and update the Battle.net application itself. I'll go turn the CrossTie for this title back on after I send out this post. Many thanks to Silvu Cojocaru for being attentive on this application and turning the CrossTie off when it wasn't working.

Some good news from the Battle.net Desktp App tech support forum:

http://us.battle.net/en/forum/topic/11306220599?page=2#22

Yes. Patching in general should not have problems on unix systems,
though of course if we do find that the issue is unix specific, we
may choose not to fix it since it is not an officially supported
platform by Blizzard (aka insert standard disclamer here).
[b]However, one of the lead engineers on our team exclusively uses
linux to game, so he has some extra incentive to help you out[/b].

So, hopefully, at some point we can get this little mess sorted :)

Hello,

For the past few days I've been working with two developers at Blizzard to fix this problem. After I sent them some wireshark captures and logs. They sent me two test builds of Agent.exe which allowed the Battle.net Desktop App to install and run.

I'll let you know when I have more news.

Cheers,
Silviu

Silviu Cojocaru wrote:

Hello,

For the past few days I've been working with two developers at
Blizzard to fix this problem. After I sent them some wireshark
captures and logs. They sent me two test builds of Agent.exe which
allowed the Battle.net Desktop App to install and run.

I'll let you know when I have more news.

Cheers,
Silviu

That's great! If there's more they need or any help we can provide them, they are more than welcome to contact us. We've worked with a few of the Blizzard developers before and we'd happily do it again.

Hey Caron,

I'm hoping that it's something that they can work out seeing that there are Windows users showing the same symptoms. However, if they determine that there's a defect in wine causing our troubles I'll point them your way.

Thanks for your support :)

I've now got the launcher starting without any problems with the agent!

Of course I don't know exactly what fixed it, that'd be too easy... but this is what I did:

I'm on Ubuntu Gnome 13.10 64-bit

Installed all the packages in linux which are recommended by the crossover client for blizzard games (SC2, WoW, Diablo3).
in my case:
lib32nss-mdns
libldap-2.4-2:i386
libxcursor1:i386
libmpg123-0:i386

Installed all the software in the bottle which is recommended by the crossover client for blizzard games (SC2, WoW, Diablo3).
My bottle contains:
Battle.net Desktop App
CrossOver HTML engine
Hearthstone
Microsoft File Patch Application API
Microsoft Rich Edit 2.0
Microsoft Rich Edit 4.1 (Msftedit.dll)
Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 (8.0) Redistributable
Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 (8.0) SP1 Redistributable
Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 (9.0) Redistributable
Microsoft XML Parser (MSXML) 3.0
msls31
Core fonts
Uniscribe
Wine Gecko (32-bit)

I already had the Battle.net launcher installed in this bottle, so I don't know if the laucher installs without problems. But at least it starts without problems.
I hope this helps you make a fix for everyone...

Hello,

Actually, Blizzard fixed it but did not let people know.

In c:/users/Public/Application Data/Battle.net/Agent you'll find a folder called Agent.beta.2638. The last build I received for testing was 2635 so... there you have it :)

Thanks for letting me know though. I need to re-publish the crosstie for Hearthstone. It will be back online some time tomorrow, hopefully.

That's weird, because I noticed the new agent earlier while I still had this problem.
It wasn't until I started installing all those packages that my client actually started working without workarounds

Your problem may have been directly related to the missing libs (mdns and ldap). The Agent.exe problem was not caused by that.

That must've been it then =]
I'm just glad it finally works right.

Yup.

I dread getting the "it's not working" post only to find out that it's caused by missing libraries. A problem which I cannot fix. It's a packaging issue. There's a thread about this in the advocate forums which will hopefully bring some changes to the way packages are created.

I suffered from Battle.net App installing (clean/fresh) OK via WoW .tie file, then Battle.net App crashing upon login. The error was related to crypt, as the Battle.net app uses PCKS #11.

For me personally, a debug provided the error:

p11-kit: couldn't load module: /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/pkcs11/p11-kit-trust.so: /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/pkcs11/p11-kit-trust.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

The missing and unforementioned package for the Battle.net app (installed via WoW .tie) was:

libp11-kit-dev:i386

My system:
Linux 3.13.0-37-generic #64-Ubuntu SMP Mon Sep 22 21:28:38 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Description: Linux Mint 17.1 Rebecca
Release: 17.1
(AKA Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr)

Hope this helps!