media_plugin_cef still failing even when whitelisted.

[Toshi Exodus]

I'm stuck.

Returnee, so old account but basically a new player again.

What I've done so far:
- Turning it off and on again
- Whitelisting media_plugin_cef
- Whitelisting the whole Second Life Folder
- Turning off all AV software altogether
- Running SecondLife Viewer (and alternatives) as administrator
- Fresh reinstalls
- Attempts with alternative viewers
- Downloading media_plugin_cef.dll from elsewhere and swapping it in
- Making sure all PC drivers are up to date

Still getting this error. Unsure whether or not this is related to my Voice Chat also being greyed out, but one step at a time I guess.

The error reads: "The following Media Plugin has failed:
- media_plugin_cef

Please re-install the plugin or contact the vendor if you continue to exerience problems."

I'm not really sure what else I'm to do.

Computer specs if it helps:

AMD Ryzen 3 3200G
16GB RAM
Onboard Realtek HD Audio
AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT

Is there anything else I can do or am I doomed to this error forever?
 

[Qie Niangao]

I've seen this error pop up occasionally lately, but I rarely use media so haven't bothered to investigate. I wonder, though, in this case does it happen immediately when the viewer launches, or is it only after a while?

(Not sure that it really matters, especially since I have no clue what brings it on for me, either.)

[Toshi Exodus]

Both. There is one before I’ve even logged in, and then dozens when I’m playing. 
 

Does your voice chat work? I’ve been wondering if it’s why my voice chat is greyed out and if the errors during play are when others nearby are talking. (Because no matter what troubleshooting I do, including all of the above but with SLvoice, it still won’t work.)

[Qie Niangao]

Yeah, voice chat isn't greyed-out at least, although I rarely have it on so I'm not sure it actually works. (Guess I'll find out this afternoon at the Land user group meeting.)

One thing I notice is that in the Windows Task Manager, expanding the Second Life process group, I see eight dullahan_host.exe processes (which I thought was the CEF wrapper) and a couple slplugin.exe processes and one SLVoice.exe. I can kill off the slplugins and then the dullahans and SLVoice and not get this message, and if I actually turn on some media stuff, they'll all happily spawn back the way they were.

All that may be irrelevant. I'm just surprised I can't seem to find a way to force the error. It only happens randomly and infrequently in my case and (so far) never right after the viewer launches, so I think you're chasing a different problem than my little glitch.

Wish I could be more helpful. Maybe it's time for a support request unless a third party viewer developer or somebody recognizes this problem.

Edited September 27, 2023 by Qie Niangao
("you're" not "your")

[Chike Nightingale]

I get this error message occasionally, on start up of the viewer. If I log out and restart the viewer, then it has gone. I have never been able to get voice working. I can hear voice but not actually talk. I have never worked that one out, as it only happens in SL, not for other apps I use on my PC.

[Toshi Exodus]

Yeah, if it's *unrelated* to the voice issue I'd just leave it, but I have no voice chat either. At all. Can't hear anyone and all functionality is greyed out. I wouldn't mind so much but I was invited to a place that seems more VC heavy and I miss out on a lot of voice conversation. I figured the two things might be related, but I'm not sure.

[Aishagain]

@Beq Janus do you understand what is reported above?

[Beq Janus]

On 9/28/2023 at 5:45 PM, Aishagain said:

@Beq Janus do you understand what is reported above?

I understand only in the sense that it is a problem that some people get; there's not always a simple answer as all of us have different hardware and network setups, and so it is very hard to do more than give a list of steps to follow and hope that the affected person is able to follow them well enough to resolve their issue. 

The people best equipped for this in general are the wonderful people on our support teams. They deal with more varieties of these types of issues than any other group in SL and are almost certainly the best place to ask. ( @Toshi Exodus you can join the Firestorm Support English group and explain your issues there and one of the team will do their best to help you.) You might want to point them to this thread as well so that they can see what you have put here. 

The first thing I would expect them to suggest, though is that you work through each and every step in this page (even if a step seems irrelevant, you've got nothing to lose from following it) https://wiki.firestormviewer.org/fs_media That is our primary troubleshooting guide for media issues.

There is a nuance here, which is that you have no voice either. The troubleshooting guide for voice is arguably even more extensive as there are more varieties of failure. You can find that page here https://wiki.firestormviewer.org/fs_voice. Again I would advise following through step by step.

Finally, I would note that in the lovely and not at all overly complex and convoluted world of anti virus that there is Whitelisting and there is excluding from scans, which depending on the maker of your choice of AV and in some cases even which version, may be called many different things. What you want to ensure is two things.

1) Virus scanning of network connections is disabled. This messes with all manner of things and will kill performance by effectively disabling a number of HTTP streaming capabilities. Disabling this may occur when you whitelist the folders and executables, you may have to explicitly exclude it depending on your setup. 

2) Virus scanning of folders and files that the viewer is frequently updating. The cache and settings and logs being chief amongst those.

The definitive guide is https://wiki.firestormviewer.org/antivirus_whitelisting

In general, items like this are far more "user specific issues" as opposed to "bugs" so as a developer I am not equipped as well as the support team to diagnose it as they see far more of these than I, but I hope this might help a little and I strongly advise asking in support

Edited September 30, 2023 by Beq Janus

[Toshi Exodus]

Thank you Beq! The Firestorm guides have actually been the ones I've used for the most part, even with the Second Life Viewer and Alchemy. Firestorm seems to have the best documentation for things like this.

I should have said excluded, rather than whitelisted. But yes, that's the guide I followed too,

I've submitted a ticket with SL now too, and someone is going to check there's nothing wrong with my account at the official end, but if that fails I may well pop into Firestorm Support as it seems to be the most helpful Support team if the online guides are anything to go by! I suspect it to be a hardware issue, rather than an account issue, I just wish the softwares were verbose enough to tell me *why* these things are failing.