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How to Fix “A Character With that Name Already Exists” Error in World of Warcraft

Well, of course I know him. He's me.

Massive online multiplayer games are not only amazing and extremely big in size, connectivity and community wise, but do their own nature, are prone to some errors, bugs and glitches. World of Warcraft is the prime example of just that: a massive, classic and legendary title that has suffered, throughout its history, several bugs and glitches that go from the most innocent to the most apocalyptic. You can even find Top 10s of the biggest glitches in the game through the years. Today, we’re going to deal with a case of apparent identity theft. Spoiler alert: it has nothing to do with such a thing. Here is how to fix “A character with that name already exists” error in World of Warcraft.

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How to Fix “A Character With that Name Already Exists” Error in World of Warcraft

Like I already said before, this has nothing to do with identity theft or hacking. At least in 99% of the cases, anyway. With its counterpart error that states “Character already online”, this is a well known error in World of Warcraft that implies that your character was not properly logged out from the server in which it resides. According to the official Blizzard website, here are a couple of things you can do in order to fix the issue:

  • Try logging into a different character and then logging fully out of the game.
  • Reset your user interface to make sure your files and add-ons are not corrupted. Follow Blizzard’s official guide to do so.
  • You may need to wait to allow the server to remove the character, which happens after 30 minutes of inactivity.

If everything else fails, try visiting Blizzard’s forums or contact them directly.

Related: World of Warcraft Classic Login Queue

Probably your best chance of logging back to your character is to just wait, but be sure to try the other steps if your life depends on it. Be sure to always log out completely when you finish playing, and you will prevent this from happening in the future.


World of Warcraft is available on Windows and macOS. If you like our WoW content, be sure to check out Whats the Best Class in WoW? Answered andWorld of Warcraft WOW51900314 Error Fix.

Author
Image of Alejandro Josan
Alejandro Josan
A musician with a heart of a gamer, Alejandro's life has always been accompanied by adventures on Nintendo platformers, countless hours of fantasy RPGs and several third-party FPSs. Currently, he is studying Game Design and Development, preparing for a long career in the video game industry.