Quick Start

Quick Start

Get WKVRCProxy resolving videos for VRChat in about 60 seconds.

Requirements

• Windows 10/11 x64.
• VRChat installed on the same machine, and launched at least once so it has dropped its bundled yt-dlp.exe into %LOCALAPPDATA%Low\VRChat\VRChat\Tools\. The watchdog needs to preserve that file as the fallback.
• Administrator access on first run — adding the hosts-file entry requires one UAC prompt.

Install

1. Download the latest WKVRCProxy-<version>.zip from Releases.
2. Extract anywhere except Program Files — the bundled updater can't swap files there without elevation. Your home folder or C:\Tools\ is fine.
3. The folder contains WKVRCProxy.exe, WKVRCProxy.Updater.exe, WKVRCProxy.Uninstaller.exe, and a tools/ subdir with the patched yt-dlp build and a vanilla yt-dlp fallback.

First launch

1. Run WKVRCProxy.exe before VRChat. UAC prompts once to add 127.0.0.1 localhost.youtube.com to your hosts file. This is load-bearing for public-instance support — declining it leaves private/friends instances working but breaks playback on URLs that aren't on AVPro's trusted-host allowlist in public worlds.
2. The watchdog backs up VRChat's yt-dlp.exe to yt-dlp-og.exe and swaps in the patched build. Console prints Patch applied. Watching for VRChat overwrites — Ctrl+C to quit.
3. Start VRChat. Watch for [mesh] connected in the watchdog window. Play a video in-world.

What you'll see

• [mesh] connected / [mesh] disconnected — <reason> / [mesh] reconnect attempt N in M s — server connection state. Disconnects fall back to vanilla yt-dlp transparently; you don't have to do anything.
• [patch] yt-dlp.exe was overwritten — re-applied. — VRChat replaced the patched file (usually during launch). The watchdog restores it within 3 seconds.
• yt-dlp-og.exe was missing — restored from bundled fallback (vNNN). — the fallback was restored from the bundled vanilla build so the patched yt-dlp's server-down fallback path stays functional.

When the watchdog isn't running

You aren't in a broken state. The patched yt-dlp.exe execs yt-dlp-og.exe (the vanilla copy preserved alongside it) for resolution and you get vanilla yt-dlp behaviour. Same as never installing this tool. Failure mode rundown: Troubleshooting.

Closing it down

Ctrl+C in the watchdog window. The watchdog restores VRChat's vanilla yt-dlp.exe from yt-dlp-og.exe, writes a clean-exit flag so the next launch knows we shut down cleanly, and exits within ~12 s.

To remove WKVRCProxy entirely, see Update and Uninstall.