Valorant Vanguard Errors and How to Fix Them All

Struggling to get into VALORANT thanks to the anticheat? Here’s all the Valorant Vanguard Errors and How to Fix Them.

Easy Vanguard Errors to Fix

When logging in you’ll get a specific error code that tells you the source of the problem. This code will usually be a 1-2 digit number. Here are the easiest error codes specific to Vanguard itself that stop you from logging into VALORANT.

• 0, 1 and 38: Used interchangably, these are just connection issues. Restart your game and the Riot Client and this should be resolved.
• 44 and 45: You’ll see these if Vanguard failed to initialise when opening up Riot Client, or if it needs a restart. Restarting the Riot Client should allow for Vanguard to reboot and get you into the game. If the problem persists, you’ll have to resintstall Vanguard to get it ready for your next VALORANT launch.
• -81 and 128: While not always a Vanguard issue, if restarting the PC and Riot Client doesn’t fix the “Service Start Failed” issue. Then it sometimes is Vanguard’s fault. Uninstalling it and resinstalling it can fix this issue. If even this doesn’t work then you’ll need to submit a ticket.
• 138: Usually caused by trying to run Vanguard on a virtual machine. Unfortunately this isn’t something Vanguard allows for, you’ll need to install it and VALORANT on a native copy of windows.

VAN Error Codes that demand troubleshooting

All of the error codes that start with VAN are slightly different, these are the ones that are to do with Vanguard.

• VAN -1: You’ll need to reinstall your Vanguard to fix this issue. It usually happens if you had an issue uninstalling Vanguard in a previous attempt.
• VAN -81, -102, -104, 128: Another connection issue, another code. You’ll need to restart your PC before attempting to reconnect here. Sometimes that fixes the issue, other times you’ll have to uninstall vanguard and VALORANT and do fresh installs of both.
• VAN 138: Another Virtual Machine conflict. You’ll need your VALORANT and Vanguard installs to a native windows machine.
• VAN 9006: You’re running an older version of windows unsupported by Vanguard. Update to at least Windows 10 20H1 or later.

Vanguard Errors with multiple steps to fix

Some Vanguard errors require their own little guides due to specific issues with getting them back to working normally. If after following the specific guides for these you’re still getting the error, then your best course of action will be to follow through with a ticket to Riot Support.

1. Vanguard Error VAN 9002

This usually happens when your Vanguard is on but the CFG (Control Flow Guard) isn’t enabled. To sort this out you’ll need to go through a couple of steps.

1. Search for Exploit Protection in your Windows search bar
2. Set all of the following to “Use Default”

• CFG (Control Flow Guard)
• DEP (Data Execution Prevention)
• Mandatory ASLR (Force randomization for image)
• Bottom-Up ASLR (Randomized memory allocation)
• High-Entropy ASLR, SEHOP (Validate exception chains)
• Validate Heap Integrity

1. BEFORE restarting, head to program settings in the Exploit Protection window.
2. Locate Riot Games, VALORANT, Riot Vanguard and any of your other installed Riot games
3. Remove all of them, then restart your device

2. Vanguard Error VAN 9005

This error requires you to hop into your BIOS. It pops up if your version of Vanguard requires UEFI compliant hardware to use Virtualization based Security. If you can’t change your Bios to UEFI and enample TMP 2.0 then you can still play Valorant by disabling the VBS for Windows 10. First you’ll need to check for UEFI mode support and TPM2.0

For UEFI

1. Type Msinfo32 to the Windows Search bar
2. In leftmost panel click System summary and scroll to BIOS Mode. It should be UEFI

For TPM 2.0

1. Type tpm.msc into Windows.
2. If its unsupported you’ll see a message that tells you, otherwise it’ll boot up the Trusted Platform Module.
3. If working as expected, its status should say “ready for use” and the version is 2.0

With both of these enabled, your next boot of VALORANT should work fine even with VBS enabled. IF this isn’t working, due to not being able to change one of the settings, you’ll have to disable VBS on your PC

1. Check if its enabled by typing MSinfo32 into the Windows Search bar again.
2. Scroll and look for “Virtualization-based security”. If that’s on then VBS is enabled.
3. To disable it run command prompt as an administrator
4. type ” bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off “
5. after running it, restart your computer and use msinfo32 to confirm that your VBS is turned off.
6. If its still running, you can try turning off HVCI to disable Core Isolation. Type Core isolation into your Windows Search bar and toggle Memory Integrity off before restarting your PC