Connection issues are one of the worst things that can happen in an online game—and World of Warcraft is no different. The World of Warcraft servers are almost always live, but they occasionally go down. Knowing when they go down and when they’ll be live again can help you plan your playing sessions.
On a weekly basis, WoW servers (both retail and Classic) go down for a short maintenance period around 9am CT. These weekly resets occur on Tuesdays in North America and on Wednesdays in Europe. Usually, that server downtime is listed as one hour, but it almost always takes significantly less time than that. Exceptions to this rule include patch days, which sometimes see servers down for seven-plus hours at a time.
Standard weekly downtime regularly lasts around five to 10 minutes—and sometimes it’s even less. During this time, weekly World Quests, Daily Quests, and raid lockouts get reset, opening up a fresh wave of content for you and your characters.
Less frequently, Blizzard will have extended server downtime that begins at the same time as regular weekly maintenance. With large patches, like content updates that include raids and new Arena/Mythic+ seasons, that weekly downtime will last significantly longer, and sometimes it will even be extended. If a major content patch or expansion pre-patch is being released, the servers can stay down for the entirety of a day, often leaving players disappointed. Just keep in mind Blizzard is doing everything it can behind the scenes to get the servers back up and running whenever significant patches hit the live servers.
To get an approximation of when extended maintenance should end, players can check out their Battle.net client prior to the servers going down and use these tools to confirm when they go back up.
How do you check WoW‘s server status?
Stay up to date with the forums for the latest updates
To get updated on server maintenance and other important in-game news, check out WoW’s Support forums.
Whenever an important event draws near that requires a server downtime, Blizzard adds an entry to the list above. If the servers go down due to an unexpected server outage, the developer also refreshes the webpage with relevant information.
Check out status updates on social media
Blizzard’s customer support account on Twitter will always post whenever there’s a server outage or maintenance. In addition to sharing details about maintenance or server downtime, the account also lets fans know when the servers come back online.
With over 1 million followers, the account also features an active support team that tries to answer all user queries. Whenever there’s downtime, you can spot the Blizzard CS account answering countless fans who are reporting outages.
Alternatively, you could continuously swap back and forth between the active realms pages in the WoW client if you want to be among the first players to get back into the game. Consistently keeping the game open and refreshing the realm list is the best way to get up-to-the-minute responses on WoW‘s availability, even before the large majority of the player base gets back into the game.
Keep up with your realm’s status
Meanwhile, if you ever find that your specific server is having issues, you can check your realm’s status on World of Warcraft’s website. In rare occurrences, the server that your realm operates on might go down while others continue to function normally. When this is the case, you’ll have no option but to wait for your realm to come back online while Blizzard diligently fixes whatever issue is plaguing your specific server.
The comprehensive list on the official WoW website shows every WoW: Dragonflight, WoW: Classic, and WoW: Wrath of the Lich King Classic realm across all regions. You can filter for your region and game as well as easily search for your realm by using a search function at the top of the list. You can also sort by seasonal and Hardcore realms to make sure you’re looking at the servers that most accurately apply to you.
A green checkmark next to your server’s name implies that it is online, while a red “X” means that the realm is offline. On server maintenance days, every realm listed will have an “X” next to it, implying that the game is unavailable to play.
