While I don’t promote the actual throwing of stones at birds, I do promote a figurative way of dealing with two highly annoying bugs, that have plagued me since I got into VRChat.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s the two video playing related issues I’ve been having; the ‘white screen’ on video players issue, and the Help Videos (of the tutorial world) not working.
But I finally have some fantastic news.. I FIXED THEM! 😀
Basically, I wanted to show my friend just how bad these issues were (while asking him to teach me how to set up a Video Player in my little shack). Now that he saw the problem for himself, we spent what felt like a good 1-2 hours trying to diagnose it.. but it was not looking promising for me. It was like the problem simply refused to be fixed.
However, we were able to deduce that Windows Defender Firewall isn’t the problem causing it (even going as far, as disabling the firewall).
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But that was until I tried something I never had; attempting to execute the file, and then immediately getting an error of a ‘MSVCR100.dll is missing’ issue. I did a quick Google search, bypassing the “easily fix MSVCR100.dll errors by clicking here’ scam sites, and may had discovered the reason from Microsoft’s website; I’m missing Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 SP1 (which includes said .dll).
Though the problem was related to something else, so I felt “this isn’t going to help me.. :P”
A bit later, my friend asks me if my version of Visual C++ is updated. After showing him pics of what I had installed (and matching it with what he has), he gives me this link, stating “there’s a newer version” than what they have.
Attempting to get every version since 2008, I was forced to use my old Microsoft account (including having to reset the password). And even with that, I also had to use Microsoft Edge just to see the fucking download links (as Firefox didn’t want to play nice).
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After seeing 2010 SP1 in the list, suddenly my brain began to click… could installing this, actually fix both issues? Since my friend had all the required versions, he too tried to run the executable.. and got no errors. This is highly promising, that this could be the fix I’ve needed for a long time! So I uninstalled all the versions I had, and went straight for it. Getting it installed, I tried once again executing that file.. and got no error this time!
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Went into VRChat, and then to the Karaoke world and went over to the screen. I expected to see that dreaded white screen again. Instead, I saw something different! OMFG IT’S ACTUALLY WORKING!!!
But there was another problem. Unity now no longer wants to run, due to the same error. So I thought “I’ll try installing 2017, that should fix it”. Tried, still having the same error. Then I tried installing 2015, and I was getting an error that “another version of this product is already installed”. I saw something he didn’t, that it felt likely I would be forced to install every version in order by it’s release year. He felt Microsoft wouldn’t be this dumb (and attempted to look it up).
And surprise surprise!… they are that dumb! lol.. Had to uninstall what I had (again), and did what I said (installing every version by order of year), and that worked. But it still didn’t make Unity work.
I was forced to reinstall it, and during its installation process.. it was downloading Visual C++ 2010. I… I… I wanted to scream bloody murder! I had, JUST got that thing installed! But Unity is all NAO!! I want THIS version of 2010!!!
Whatever, Unity is now working again (and all of my work is safe). The reason why I wanted it working, was so I could test to see if my own video player would work. Plus, we were both kind of worried that I may had un-fixed my fix (with all of those versions of Visual C++).
Got into my test world… and I see the white screen again. Oh no. I walked into the house….. and suddenly the video I had starts playing! The fucking thing was trolling me! WOW!
With that done (while also having some bizarre issues with my mic randomly cutting off on his end), he helped me to set up some special triggers to stop, pause, and play the videos (including going to the next (or previous) video in a queue that you need to setup).
But the mic cutting off issue was really starting to get annoying. On my end, my mic was working fine. But on his, it just randomly cuts out without warning. I tried restarting Discord, and now suddenly.. he’s too quiet. Thankfully I was able to solve that issue by finding out some of my playback settings were muted (including Discord).
But this unfortunately didn’t stop the issues with my mic, and it got to a part where we both had enough of this issue, and he called it a night. I kept working on the buttons afterwards, and managed to get some pretty good results. I also (with the help of the VRChat Discord of course) got a trigger to turn off and on the screen (so it wouldn’t play as soon as I got into my world).
The only problem with the video player in general, is it shows a white screen for nearly 10 seconds before the video pops up. My only guess is, this is probably a buffering issue. But maybe my friend (when he comes back), could help to fix it (if it can even be fixed).
Perhaps it’s perfectly normal to have a delay. Because I went to another world (that had a video player), and I saw a delay before it too popped up.
And finally, I checked the Help Videos world before heading to bed. They’re also working! Not to mention I saw just how outdated they are.
I felt confident enough to tell the devs to close my ticket, while also telling them what was causing the issue and how it was fixed. And the next day, the dev that’s been handling my ticket, felt it was “kinda obscure”. Yeah, I definitely agree. I would had never thought of doing something so simple, would be causing an issue that has been happening for over a month now!
Thank goodness it works! Now I can finally stop saying “I only see a white screen” and “I can’t hear anything” to my friends! I’ll be able to see what they see, and hear what they hear.