How to fix VALORANT Vanguard Not Initialized Error

One thing VALORANT players dread more than normal connection issues is dealing with problems regarding Vanguard, the anti-cheat service Riot Games uses for the game. 

One of the most common problems is Vanguard not re-initializing after a player restarts the game, which means players won’t be able to access the game since it the software is required to play. 

Issues like this can lead to players being unable to launch the game at all after trying to restart. And, in some cases, players will receive matchmaking restrictions and losing MMR as a result of the crashes, even if it is a problem on Riot’s end and not their own when they get kicked from a match. 

Recently, this Vanguard problem has gotten so bad that professional players have had trouble scrimmaging and competing, specifically in North American.  

Even though some aspects of this issue might be new, the fixes for the Vanguard issue are the same as any other problem players might have faced in the past because of the anti-cheat software. Here is what you can do to try and fix the re-initializing problem, along with most of the other issues with VALORANT’s Vanguard. 

Check for updates

Before you do anything specific to Vanguard, make sure you have at least tried to update VALORANT to its latest version. Some Vanguard issues will keep you from updating the game, so this might not be an option. However, it is easier to check and see rather than just skip right to one of the other, more time consuming fixes. 

Uninstall and Reinstall Vanguard

This is the main fix Riot recommends when dealing with any Vanguard problems, since the VALORANT client itself might not be the root cause of the issue. 

You can end the program using the Task Manager first to see if that will fix it, but if restarting the game doesn’t do the trick, this might not help either. Here is how you can uninstall and reinstall Vanguard without entirely uninstalling VALORANT. 

• Go to Settings in your PC after exiting out of VALORANT completely
  • You might need to make sure Vanguard is also closed
• Go to the Apps menu
• Find Riot Vanguard and click Uninstall
• Once the program is removed, simply launch the VALORANT client, which should prompt Vanguard to reinstall

Uninstall and Reinstall VALORANT

If individually uninstalling and reinstalling Vanguard didn’t do the trick, you might need to bite the bullet and do the same with the entire VALORANT client. 

This will take longer, but if this doesn’t work you will know that the issue isn’t something you can fix and that something has gone wrong elsewhere. . 

If none of the above work to fix the issue, you will just need to wait until Riot fixes things on its end. This could take some time, but just keep an eye on the VALORANT support pages and server status checker.