Quick Start

Quick Start

Get WKVRCProxy resolving videos for VRChat in about 60 seconds.

Requirements

• Windows 10/11 x64. WebView2 runtime must be installed (it usually is by default).
• VRChat installed on the same machine.
• Administrator access on first run — adding the hosts-file entry requires UAC.

Install

1. Download the latest WKVRCProxy-<version>.zip from Releases.
2. Extract it anywhere — but not into Program Files. The in-app updater needs to swap files in the install dir without elevation, which Program Files doesn't allow. Your home folder, C:\Tools\, or anywhere outside Program Files is fine.
3. The bundled updater.exe and uninstall.exe live next to WKVRCProxy.exe. Settings → Maintenance has buttons for both.

First launch

1. Run WKVRCProxy.exe BEFORE VRChat. The first launch prompts for UAC once to add 127.0.0.1 localhost.youtube.com to your hosts file. This is the trust-list bypass — see Relay Server for why. If you decline, resolution still works (the YouTube anti-bot fixes don't depend on the relay), but URLs from non-allowlisted hosts will fail at playback whenever AVPro's trust list is in force (typically public worlds with Allow Untrusted URLs off).
2. Start VRChat. WKVRCProxy patches VRChat's yt-dlp.exe on first run if autoPatchOnStart is on (default), swapping it for the Redirector. The patch is reverted on graceful shutdown and on uninstall.
3. Play a video in-world. Watch the Logs tab in WKVRCProxy — you should see Starting resolution for: <URL>, a tier decision, URL relay-wrapped on port <N>, and Final Resolution [tier1] [vod] in <X>ms.

What to look for if playback fails

• Demoted chips in the Logs view — the feedback loop caught a strategy whose URL AVPro rejected. Red dots on History entries show which specific resolutions failed playback. The next request for that host will re-cascade with the bad strategy demoted.
• [WARNING] [Playback] AVPro rejected resolved URL from 'X' — explicit demotion with the correlation ID so you can grep back through the log.
• Relay wrap skipped for <host> at INFO level — only expected for hosts on the deny-list (default vr-m.net) or on VRChat's trusted list. If you see it for a random CDN, that CDN slipped into the trusted-host table by mistake — file a bug.

Full failure-mode playbook: Troubleshooting.

Knobs you might actually use

• Settings → Network → Pre-Flight URL Probe — verify URLs are reachable before handoff. Catches dead cloud URLs early; adds up to 5 s on cold resolves.
• Settings → Network → Direct-Connect Hosts — chip-list of hosts (default vr-m.net) that need to see traffic from AVPro directly. URLs on these hosts skip both the relay and the resolution cascade.
• Settings → Advanced → Individual Strategies — toggle tier1:warp+default, tier1:warp+vrchat-ua, tier1:browser-extract, etc. The first WARP run starts a local WireGuard helper (wgcf registers an account once, then wireproxy exposes a SOCKS5 listener); subsequent invocations are zero-cost.
• Settings → Maintenance — manual update check, update apply, uninstall.

Full reference: Settings Reference.

Updating

WKVRCProxy polls GitHub for new releases periodically. When one lands you'll see a banner and a modal. Settings → Maintenance also has a manual Check now button. Clicking Update now spawns updater.exe, which closes the UI, downloads the new zip, verifies its SHA256, swaps the install dir atomically, and relaunches.

Full mechanism: Update and Uninstall.

Uninstalling

Settings → Maintenance → Uninstall WKVRCProxy (with confirm dialog) spawns uninstall.exe, which:

• Restores VRChat's original yt-dlp.exe from the Redirector backup.
• Deletes %LOCALAPPDATA%\WKVRCProxy\ and the install dir.
• Leaves the hosts-file entry in place — it's idle and harmless without WKVRCProxy running, but you can remove 127.0.0.1 localhost.youtube.com from C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts manually if you'd like.

Settings (app_config.json, strategy_memory.json) live next to the exe and are deleted with the install dir.