How to Fix “Error Code: 0x00001338” in Call of Duty Vanguard?

Call of Duty Vanguard is the latest game from the CoD franchise, but despite the gameplay and new modes and features, the game comes with a few issues and error codes that the players find annoying. One of the most common error codes that people are encountering is the Call of Duty Vanguard 0x00001338.

Call of Duty Vanguard 0x00001338 error

This error is happening while they are playing the game, causing it to crash. A message appears on their screen with the error code and a button that is not doing its job to fix the game. This issue is typically encountered on PC.

After many complaints were made by a lot of affected users, we’ve done an in-depth investigation of this error and come up with a shortlist of culprits that might cause this error to occur on certain PC’s:

  • Full friend list glitch – This error could be happening because you have too many friends on your Activision account. You can fix this by removing some of the inactive friends or players that you don’t play with anymore.
  • Incompatible Antivirus – In case you are using a 3rd party AV or a firewall, in both cases, they might interfere with the game’s files and not let the game work properly. This can be fixed by disabling the 3rd party antivirus and firewall or to make sure you can uninstall the antivirus completely.
  • Reserved VRAM is not enough – On top of the RAM, this game is heavily dependant on VRAM usage too. If you’re experiencing this issue, you might be able to fix the error entirely by adjusting the available VRAM to  70%.
  • Corrupted settings file inside the player’s folder – If this problem is rooted in a setting that you previously enforced before the game stopped working, then deleting the players folder should revert these settings allowing you to re-launch the game once again.
  • Glitched skin – Many people have reported that this error is caused when using Daniel’s operator’s second skin because this skin is causing the game to crash. In order to fix this you need to change the skin to any other skin in the game, maybe try to even change the operator.
  • Missing Visual C++ x86 and x64 packages – Another cause for this error might be the missing of the latest Visual C++ x86 and x64 packages on your PC. This can be simply fixed by downloading and installing the packages from the Microsoft official site.
  • Corrupted Game cache – This problem might be also caused by the game cache files that your computer has stored. To fix this, you need to delete the game cache files from the CoD Vanguard folder because this won’t affect your game at all, they will be redownloaded once you play the game.
  • Incompatible Overlay – As it turns out, the Nvidia GeForce Experience overlay might be the problem causing the Call of Duty Vanguard 0x00001338 error to occur on your PC. You can disable the overlay directly from the Nvidia GeForce Experience application.
  • Incompatible Xbox Game Bar – The Xbox Game Bar might affect your CoD Vanguard game because the game could not work as it should be. You can fix this by disabling the Xbox Game Bar from the Gaming settings of your computer.
  • The instability brought by GPU overclock – If you previously used MSI Afterburner to overclock your GPU before Call of Duty Vanguard stopped working, chances are your overclock is causing it. In this case, you should access your MSI Afterburner and remove the overclocked settings.
  • COD Vanguard is limited by Task Manager settings – If you previously did some modifications in regards to how certain processes are prioritized by Task Manager or you’re using an optimizer that does this for you, chances are the game throws this error because it’s being limited by Task Manager. In this case, access Task Manager and modify its priority to High. 
  • Corrupted files – A few affected players have reported that their game was affected by some harmed files that their Battle.net launcher had. This can be simply fixed by uninstalling the Battle.net launcher, then installing it back.

Now that you are aware of what is making your game to crash repeatedly and act this way, here are some methods that will help you fix the Call of Duty Vanguard 0x00001338 Error for good:

1. Delete Every Activision friend

The first thing you can try is to free up your Activision friend list by deleting a few of your friends. This method doesn’t really have an explanation of how it’s working, but a few players have managed to stop the game from crashing by doing this. 

Note: Most likely, it’s just a glitch that Activision refuses to fix (or doesn’t care about it). This is most effective in situations where you have more than 100 Activision friends on your account. 

You don’t need to delete all your friends from the list, so delete some inactive friends or people that you’ve stopped playing with.

In case you don’t know how to delete your Activision friends, here is a quick guide:

  1. Go to the Social menu of your Call of Duty Vanguard account.
  2. After that, select the friends that you are willing to remove.
  3. Now you need to choose the profile and press Delete.
  4. At the confirmation prompt, hit Confirm. 
    Remove Activision friends
  5. After you are done with deleting every player you want to, test the game to see if the error still occurs.

If you’re still seeing the Call of Duty Vanguard 0x00001338 error, go check the next method.

2. Disable Antivirus or Uninstall Firewall (if applicable)

This error might be also triggered by a 3rd party AV or an external firewall. This is happening because the AV or firewall is quarantining some files belonging to the game after a security scan.

If this is the case for you, you can start by disabling the real-time protection of your antivirus.

Most 3rd party antiviruses will allow you to do this directly from the tray bar icon of your AV suite.

Disable Permanently

In case you are using a firewall and you think that this might be the trigger for your Call of Duty Vanguard error, simply disabling the real-time protection might not be enough to fix the problem since the same security rules will remain in place even after active network filtering is disabled.

In this situation, the only fix is to uninstall the 3rd party firewall conventionally and ensure that you don’t leave behind any files that might still cause this issue:

  1. Press the Windows key + R to open up a Run dialog box and type ‘appwiz.cpl’, then press Enter to open up the Programs and Files menu.
    Open up the Programs and Features menu
  2. Now that you’re inside the Programs and Files menu, scroll down through the list of installed applications until you locate the 3rd party firewall tool that you want to uninstall.
  3. After locating the 3rd party AV, right-click on it and choose Uninstall from the newly appeared context menu to complete the uninstallation.
    Uninstall AV program
  4. Now you need to follow the uninstallation prompts to complete the process, then reboot your PC and see if you still encounter the error.

Move down to the next potential fix in case the error is still occurring.

3. Set Vram usage to 70%

A few players have managed to fix the Call of Duty Vanguard 0x00001338 error by simply changing the in-game VRAM settings. The setting is by default on 90% usage, but you can fix the error by lowering it to 70%.

Note: It’s important to understand that the game relies on VRAM a lot, even if the system where Call of Duty: Vanguard runs has a lot of available free RAM. VRAM is just as important of a dependency, but you’ll need to tone it down so that the game prioritizes RAM instead of VRAM.

A few players have managed to fix the Call of Duty Vanguard 0x00001338 error by simply changing the in-game VRAM settings. The setting is by default on 90% usage, but you can fix the error by lowering it to 70%.

  1. Inside the game, access the Settings menu.
    Now inside the Settings menu, access the Graphics tab, then select the Quality subtab.

    Accessing the quality menu
  2. After that, search for the VRAM Usage Target setting, then select it and lower the usage percentage to 70%.

    VRAM usage Target
  3. Once you’ve done that, save the changes and test the game to see if you still encounter the error.

If this method wasn’t helpful, go check the next possible fix below.

4. Delete ‘players’ folder

In order to fix the Call of Duty Vanguard 0x00001338 error, you can also try to delete the ‘players’ folder located in the documents of CoD Vanguard. After doing that, you will have to set some game settings that were reverted back to default, but your problem should be fixed.

Note: This will be effective in those situations where you started experiencing these issues immediately after you changed some graphical related settings.

Follow the next steps in case you don’t know how to delete the ‘players’ folder:

  1. Open File Explorer and go to the Documents folder of your computer.
    Accessing the Documents menu
  2. Now inside the Documents folder, access the Call of Duty Vanguard folder, then right-click on the players folder and click on Delete.

    Deleting the Players folder
  3. After that, launch the game and change the settings to your own preference, then test it to see if the error still appears.

Go to the next fix in case this one hasn’t fixed your Call of Duty Vanguard 0x00001338 error.

5. Unequip the Daniel operator Second skin

A lot of reports were made about this particular trigger that causes the game to crash. While trying to play the game, they keep getting the same error code, not being able to complete even a match.

But fortunately, they have managed to fix the issue by changing their skin. They were all using Daniel’s second skin, and as it turns out, that skin was the motive that was causing their game to crash because it was bugged.

Daniel Skin

So before going to the next practical method, make sure that you don’t have Daniel’s second skin equipped because this might be the principal cause. There is nothing to do besides changing the skin to any other skin.

Now if this scenario is not applicable to you and your error has another trigger, go below to see the next method.

6. Install the latest Visual C++ x86 and x64 packages

Another fix that you can try in order to fix the Call of Duty Vanguard 0x00001338 error is to make sure that you have both the latest Visual C++ x86 and x64 packages installed on your computer.

You can check that by downloading and installing the latest packages available from the Microsoft official site.

Here are the steps on how to do that, in case you don’t know the steps:

  1. Access the Microsoft official site and download both the Visual C++ x86 and x64 packages.

    Download the missing Visual C++ packages

    Note: If you’re downloading the files through Chrome, you need to confirm that you give permission to download more than one file.

  2. After the installers are fully downloaded, double-click on both installers (in any order) and follow the instructions that appear on your screen to complete the installation.
    Downloading the missing Visual C++
  3. Once the installation is complete, restart your computer and wait until it boots back, then launch Call of Duty Vanguard to see if you still encounter the error.

If the same problem is occurring even after following the instructions before, move down to the next method.

7. Delete the game cache

You can also try to delete the game’s cache files from the ProgramData folder. This method has helped a few players to fix their Call of Duty Vanguard 0x00001338 error.

Cache files are some hidden files that don’t affect the app directly because they are not needed for the correct operation of the app. It is simply some information from an app that is stored on your device to make the browsing process faster.

In order to see how to delete the cache files for CoD Vanguard, follow the next steps:

  1. Open a Run dialog box by pressing the Windows key + R, then inside the box type ‘%programdata%’ and press Enter to open the ProgramData folder.
    Accessing the Program Data menu
  2. After you are inside the ProgramData folder, go to the Blizzard Entertainment folder, then double-click on the Battle.net folder and open the Cache folder.
    Accessing the Cache folder
  3. Now that you are inside the Cache folder, make sure to delete all the files that you find inside that folder, then close the folder and test the game to see if your problem was fixed.

8. Turn off GeForce Experience Overlay

The Call of Duty Vanguard 0x00001338 error might be also caused by a common glitch that is happening when a screen overlay is detected on your screen.

A screen overlay that was reported causing this problem is the GeForce experience overlay. Players have managed to fix it by disabling the overlay from the GeForce experience application.

If you don’t know how to disable the overlay, here’s a guide that will help you do it:

  1. Open the Nvidia GeForce Experience application. You can do this from the hidden icons menu located on the right side of your taskbar.
    Accessing Nvidia Experience
  2. After you are inside the Nvidia GeForce Experience app, go to the General tab from the next-hand section, then move over to the right side and search for the In-Game overlay option.
  3. When you find it, click on the toggle next to it to disable the feature.
    Disable the in-game overlay
  4. After that, save the changes and close the Nvidia GeForce Experience application, then launch the game to see if the error still occurs.

If the game is still crashing with the same error code even after disabling the screen overlay, move down to the next method.

9. Disable Xbox Game Bar

A few affected players have reported that this error could be caused by the Xbox Game Bar that is by default enabled on every Windows version.

The Xbox Game Bar is a tool designed for gamers that comes with a lot of features including capturing videos, taking screenshots, and more. But sometimes it may cause errors to some games due to incompatibility, so can fix this by disabling the Xbox Game Bar.

Here’s a guide that will help you disable the Xbox Game Bar, in case you don’t know how to:

  1. Press the Windows key + R to open up a Run dialog box and type ‘ms-settings:’ to open the Settings menu.
    Accessing the MS Settings menu
  2. Inside the Settings menu, click on the Gaming section.
    Accessing the Gaming menu
  3. Now that you are inside the Xbox Game Bar setting, click on the button under where it says Xbox Game Bar to disable the tool.
    Xbox game Bar
  4. Now you can close the Settings tab and launch CoD Vanguard to see if the same error still appears.

In case you still encounter the Call of Duty Vanguard 0x00001338 error, go to the next guide below.

10. Revert GPU overclock (if applicable)

In case you are using the MSI Afterburner application and you have overclocked your GPU, the CoD Vanguard error might be caused by this.

People are recommending reverting the GPU overclock back to default if this scenario is applicable to you. You can do this by deleting the profiles created inside the MSI Afterburner application.

Note: Before deleting the profiles created on the MSI Afterburner app, make sure you screenshot or remember the settings you’ve made, in case you will need them afterward.

In case you don’t know how to revert the GPU overclock back to default, follow the next steps:

  1. Open File Explorer and go to the disk you have the MSI Afterburner application installed on, then access the Program Files (x86) folder (or wherever you have the app installed).
    Accessing the Program Files menu
  2. Now open the MSI Afterburner folder and go to the Profiles folder.
    Accessing the Profiles menu
  3. Inside the Profiles folder, select all the files inside that and delete them.
    Deleting the Contents of Profile menu
  4. Now reboot your computer, then test it to see if you still encounter the same issue.

In case this method hasn’t fixed your CoD Vanguard issue, check below the next guide.

11. Set COD Vanguard Priority to High in Task Manager

If you are still encountering the Call of Duty Vanguard 0x00001338 Error, you can try to set the priority for CoD Vanguard to high in Task Manager.

This process will boost your FPS because you are basically telling your CPU to prioritize the CoD Vanguard process, but could also fix your error code.

In case you don’t know how to set the priority higher for Call of Duty Vanguard in Task Manager, here are the steps you need to follow:

  1. Launch Call of Duty Vanguard and open the Task Manager by pressing the Windows key + R to open up a Run dialog box and type ’taskmgr’ inside the, followed by pressing Enter.

    Accessing the Task Manager
  2. Now inside the Task Manager, click on More details to extend the drop-down menu, then right-click on the Call of Duty Vanguard process and click on Go to details.
    Accessing the Details menu
  3. After you are inside the Details tab, right-click again on the CoD Vanguard process, highlight with the click where it says Set priority to extend the menu, then click on High to set the priority.
    Set the Priority to High

    If this method didn’t work as well, check below the last method.

12. Reinstall Battle.net

In case neither of the methods before has helped you fix the Call of Duty Vanguard 0x00001338 error, the last thing you can try is to uninstall, then reinstall the Battle.net launcher.

By doing a clean installation of the launcher, if there are any harmed files they will be removed and freshly installed.

In case you don’t know how to do that, here’s a guide that will help you reinstall the Battle.net launcher:

  1. Open a Run dialog box by pressing the Windows key + R and type ‘appwiz.cpl’, then press Enter to open the Programs and Features menu.
    Open up the Programs and Features menu
  2. Now that you are inside the Programs and Features menu, search for the Battle.net application, then right-click on it and click on Uninstall. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the uninstallation.
    Uninstalling the program
  3. After doing that, visit the official Blizzard site and click on the Download on Windows button to download the installation.
    Downloading the latest version of Battle.net
  4. After the download is complete, open the installer and follow the on-screen instructions in order to complete the installation.
  5. Once you’ve done that, launch the game to see if you Call of Duty Vanguard 0x00001338 error was fixed.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kamil Anwar


Kamil is a certified MCITP, CCNA (W), CCNA (S) and a former British Computer Society Member with over 9 years of experience Configuring, Deploying and Managing Switches, Firewalls and Domain Controllers also an old-school still active on FreeNode.