*FIXED* Diablo 3 Freezes / Hangs when Updating Patch

When you launch diablo 3 and a patch is available, do you get stuck on the “Updating Blizzard Launcher (0%)” screen? If so, join the tens of thousands who also experience this problem on the Windows 7 and Windows Vista operating systems.

Fundamentally, it comes down to a very buggy program they use to check for updates. The culprit is Agent.exe. This file is often corrupt or is unable to contact the appropriate server, or doesn’t have the appropriate permission to write files to your disk (thanks for prompting the Administrator window, Blizzard). And for a combination of these reasons, it causes the updated to fail.

The solution:

First thing’s first, kill that Agent.exe program by doing the following commands:

Step 1: Terminate Agent.Exe Process

1. Close the Diablo 3 updater window if it is still open
2. CTRL+ALT+Del
3. Start Task Manager
4. Click on the “Processes” Tab (You will start on the “Applications” tab -> “Processes” is right next to it)
5. Locate Agent.exe (Might also be Agent.exe*32 if you are running 64bit)
6. Click on Agent.exe so it’s highlted in blue, and click on “End Process” (button is on bottom right of window). It Should look like this:

Step 2: Re-Start Diablo 3 by Right-Clicking on the icon and selecting “Run as Administrator”

The Game should now be ready to Play.

If it’s not working for you, please post in the comments and I will suggest alternative methods. The above method should work for 80%+ of cases.