[Bug] Fresh Windows installs without Media Foundation go B O O M

[SketchFoxsky]

Pre-submission checklist

• (If using Mods) I ensured the issue occurred without using mods by renaming version.dll to version.dll.disabled
• I checked that no other Bug Report describing my problem exists.
• I accept that this issue may be closed if any of the above are found to be untrue.

Platform

Steam PC

Operating System

Windows 10

Game Version

2025r179

Branch

Stable (Default branch, use this if unsure)

Describe what happened as precisely as possible.

The game explodes with null references and the audio settings that apply to video players including the MASTER and VideoPlayerUI don't adjust volume resulting in bleeding eardrums and crying.

Describe what you expected to happen instead.

A warning that windows Media Foundation is not installed and prevent video players from working.

Content GUID

No response

In as much detail as possible, describe the exact steps you took to make the problem appear.

Do a complete reinstall of windows and DO NOT install Windows Media Foundation.
Launch ChilloutVR
(PlayerLog blows up after logging in with Null References)
Go to a video player and paste in a livestream using HVEC codec
Cry as your eardrums explode.

Other remarks

Here is the player.log from the sacrificed user Stokyll (I'm so sorry your ears got blasted to Hyper Japanese EDM)

Player.log

[Malthbern]

From what I know someone is looking into LibVLC again. Hopefully it'll be good enough to just replace WMF this time around

[ddakebono]

someone eh?

[SketchFoxsky]

From what I know someone is looking into LibVLC again. Hopefully it'll be good enough to just replace WMF this time around

Not how that works, the issue is on VLC too. You need WMF to process media on windows devices. The game video players use AVPro and optionally LibVLC as solutions for in game video playback. The issue is that there is no warning to the player that they do not have WMF installed.

[ddakebono]

Actually, that is how that works.

If LibVLC gets implemented to a point where it could replace AVPro we would no longer have any dependency on WMF.

[hanetzer]

The game explodes with null references and the audio settings that apply to video players including the MASTER and VideoPlayerUI don't adjust volume resulting in bleeding eardrums and crying.

basically the experience on linux before libvlc or using ge-proton-rtsp, lol.