MW4 Beta crashing on startup on PC / Steam – Error 0x00001338 (0x723AC2A5) – VPN currently fixes it

Posting this because quite a few people seem to be running into the same problem and most of the usual fixes did absolutely nothing for me.

MW4 Beta would crash every single time on startup with:

0x00001338 (0x723AC2A5) N
KERNELBASE.dll
cod26-cod.exe

BO7 and other games work perfectly on the same PC.

I tried pretty much everything:

• Verified Steam files
• DDU + latest NVIDIA driver
• DDU + older NVIDIA driver
• Secure Boot + TPM 2.0 confirmed working
• Activision Secure Attestation passed
• Reset DNS/Winsock/network settings
• Removed the latest Windows security update
• Changed Windows region
• Cleared Steam download cache
• Changed MW4 Steam language
• Disabled overlays/background software

Nothing fixed it.

I eventually checked the actual MW4 crash report (info.json) and found:

DEV ERROR 0x723AC2A5 [cod26\sa_code_pre_gfx.ff]

It also shows:

region_code: "sa"
fileio_open_id0: "sa_code_pre_gfx.ff"
db_zone_last_ff: "sa_code_pre_gfx"
is_bootcrash: true

What makes this strange is that sa_code_pre_gfx.ff does not exist anywhere in my MW4 Beta installation. The file I actually have is:

cod26\ww_code_pre_gfx.ff

I’m in Saudi Arabia, so there seems to be some kind of regional/content selection issue going on.

The only thing that has actually worked so far is using a VPN.

With a VPN connected, the game finally got past the crash. It then told me that some downloaded/patch files were broken and asked if I wanted to clear/re-download them. I selected Yes, the game restarted, and I was finally able to reach the menu and start shader preloading.

However, after turning the VPN off, the startup problem returned.

So at the moment this looks much more like a regional/backend/CDN issue than a GPU, Windows, Secure Boot, or hardware problem.

If you're getting the same 0x00001338 error, try launching once through a VPN and let me know:

• What country you're in
• Whether the VPN fixes it
• What region_code says in your info.json
• What file appears next to DEV ERROR 0x723AC2A5

Hopefully Activision sees this because there clearly seems to be something wrong with how the beta is handling certain regions.

Other people reporting the issue:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/modernwarfare4/s/Ss3O0ZWRj0
• https://www.reddit.com/r/modernwarfare4/s/VXTCr69cmE
• https://www.reddit.com/r/modernwarfare4/s/XK2jiIJoMc

I’ll update this post if I find a permanent fix or Activision responds.