My pets are disappearing one by one

[Ilenya]

I am very sorry if this is a repeat topic. (I did a search, but didn't find anything related to my issue.)

I've started playing my hunter again after a year's hiatus. Last night was the first time I'd done some extended questing/combat and four times last night, my summoned pet disappeared after I sent it into combat. The pet was completely gone -- not on my toolbar, not in my stable, unable to be dismissed or resummoned. I tamed two new pets, and within the hour they were gone as well. I checked the WoW forums and read user comments that it is a known bug, and resummoning the pet usually worked. It didn't for me.

I submitted a ticket, and after quite a bit of wrangling, the GM actually logged onto my toon and poked around all my settings.

He said that it was likely a conflict between a macro and an add-on. I barely use macros at the moment (still fumbling around after a year) and my addons are up-to-date and stable on my other toons. When I asked if there were any particular types of macro or addon that might be suspect (e.g. an action bar addon, an abandonpet macro) he said he couldn't. Too many variables.

So I ended up with the suggestion to disable all my addons one by one, and then test them each until I find the culprit. The problem is... it means I have to tame and lose potentially a lot of pets. And also... the problem isn't consistent. Combat will go fine with the pet for 15-30 min. If the pet doesn't leave, does that mean the problem is fixed, or that I just haven't run into the glitch again?

This really has me in a bind. I've got some really rare pets (like the spirit wolf from Dustwallow, that was briefly tameable during BC) that I am afraid to take out of the stable. Has anyone else had this problem? Any ideas about how to fix it would be really appreciated. This is my very oldest toon, started way back in 2005, and I'm really upset that I can't play it now.

[Chimera]

Unfortunately it sounds like you have to take a few days with only one addon at a time to see if you run into the glitch or not. It'll suck im sure cause i dont know of this glitch and i dont know how long you can go before it attacks again but a days worth of playtime per addon should allow you to find the culprit. If the pets in the stable arent vanishing then thats a good thing, just tame a random pet for the day and if its an addon problem you'll eventually find it

[Nightsights]

hmm, i have not heard about this.

perhaps if you listed your addons, someone may have heard of something wrong with it.

[Acherontia]

Try turning your addons off, and seeing if you actually have the pet and it's just hidden. No addon conflict should actually delete your pets--in fact, I've never heard of pets actually, truly disappearing. I've had some duplicate or vanish, but it was a UI issue, not an *actual* one, and resolved itself.

Also, check your macros. Make sure you don't have an instant-abandon macro on your bars (I know you mentioned it, but you didn't say if you checked for one).

Lastly, if all else fails, check combat logs. Maybe if something is happening (some phase bug, or God knows what), the logs may give you a clue.

[Ilenya]

Thank you for your replies. I did reboot completely from scratch with no add-ons, and the pets were still gone. The GM told me, after looking over my logs, that he saw several pets had been abandoned during the time I was questing. I haven't a clue how that could have happened. He didn't, either.

So, I'm slowly rebuilding my user interface, add-on by add-on, using disposable pets (tamed in Goldshire. Thank god for instant leveling now...). So far, none have been lost. I'm barely 1/3 the way through my list. If this toon weren't my very first, I think I'd have deleted her by now. But only a few more days and she'll be back up and running.

Thanks again for your help.

[Melentari]

This is making me paranoid. If you can find out how this happened, please post and let us know. I'm sure a lot of people would like to know, myself definitely included.

[SpiritBinder]

I've got some really rare pets (like the spirit wolf from Dustwallow, that was briefly tameable during BC)

Did you every try to use the abandon pet macro to tame any "rare" beasts along your travels at all? (eg, K.Krush back in Wrath days, Visual Buff Pets, etc.)

If so where is that macro now? Is it still on your bar somewhere or somehow clickable? Could you possibly have clicked it by mistake and not realize?

I'm just stabbing in the dark here, but normally for the most complex of problems, the answer can be rather simple

[Acherontia]

Also, check your macros. Make sure you don't have an instant-abandon macro on your bars (I know you mentioned it, but you didn't say if you checked for one).

Lastly, if all else fails, check combat logs. Maybe if something is happening (some phase bug, or God knows what), the logs may give you a clue.

Did you check for the macro at all, in the end? It's a strong possibility!

[Foru21dr]

Same thing here.. I would suspect your macros. Check them over and make sure you don't have the abandon command in one of them.

[Helsinki]

Also, check your macros. Make sure you don't have an instant-abandon macro on your bars (I know you mentioned it, but you didn't say if you checked for one).

Lastly, if all else fails, check combat logs. Maybe if something is happening (some phase bug, or God knows what), the logs may give you a clue.

Did you check for the macro at all, in the end? It's a strong possibility!

Definitely agree with this. I have had macros as well as regular abilities appear on invisible bars with mystical keybinds, which seems to occur when I redo my UI on any toon. It was fun on my mage because I would hit some keys before alt-tabbing then tab back in to find myself in the undercity. I had a pet abandon macro for all of a day before deleting it (and quadruple-checking that it was in fact deleted) - I was so scared of that macro appearing on an invisible bar with a mystery keybind.

Have you petitioned a GM to have your missing pets restored?

[Meggers]

Also you can try asking in the bug forums for people to list out their own macros/addons to see if you have a common one.

[Worba]

One quick way to check your macros (esp if you're concerned about UIs or addons suppressing or altering them in-game), is to look in your toon's WTF folder:

WTF\Account\<your username>\<server>\<toon name>\macros-cache.txt

That file should contain all of your toon's macros in one place.

You can do the same thing for all of your "global" macros (the ones in your general tab):

WTF\Account\<your username>\macros-cache.txt

Good luck!

[Anyia]

You could also try the Windows search feature to look for files in your WoW directory that contain the string "PetAbandon". Any add-on or macro which manages to abandon a pet will have to use that function, and unless the add-on author has gone to ludicrous efforts to hide it, that string will show up on a search.