WoW froze on the loading screen and now every character is stuck

if a fresh WTF still freezes on the same screen, look at the graphics side. update the driver, and on a laptop make sure wow is running on the dedicated gpu and not the integrated one. windows sometimes flips it back after an update and the game will just sit on the loading bar.

When every character hangs at the same spot it's almost always local files, not the account. Close the game fully and try these in order: 1. Rename the Cache folder in your WoW directory (_retail_ or whichever version you play) to Cache_old. The game rebuilds it on launch. 2. If that doesn't do it, rename Interface and WTF too. That turns off every addon and resets settings, and a broken addon is the usual reason a loading screen freezes. If it loads after this, add your addons back a few at a time to find the bad one. 3. Last resort, in the Battle.net app go to the game's options (cog next to Play) and run Scan and Repair. Renaming rather than deleting means you can copy your addon settings back afterwards.