You accepted the invite, the party frames are lit up, and your teammate is nowhere in sight — before you log out and back in, know that in WoW: Forever joining a group no longer auto-phases you onto your teammates' layer. The official way to sync is the blue prompt on the lower right of your screen: click it, pick Refresh Now in the popup, and you land in the same phase as your group.
Why it works this way
The sixth official podcast covered the design: forced world refreshes drop sharply after launch, and groups no longer drag you across layers, so the world stops fragmenting (see our podcast write-up). The trade-off is one manual sync per group. In a November 5 bug-report thread, Kaivax confirmed the flow with screenshots: blue message on the lower right → click it → a popup offering Refresh Now → confirm, and you are phased together. The prompt also appears in towns.
Two known exceptions
- Wowhead's guide points to an arrow at the top-left of the chat window instead — if the arrow is what you see first, clicking it leads into the same manual transition. The two write-ups describe different entry points into one flow; go by what actually appears on your screen.
- Some players in the same thread report the blue prompt occasionally never shows up, and the only fix was walking across a zone line and back to force a layer change. Blizzard has not said under what conditions the prompt goes missing.
Confirm you stand in the same phase before a dungeon: meet up, target each other, then step through the portal together.