VPK.exe is not working anymore

[RoxTF]

So I just installed the recording tool and it downloaded everything normally. But then as it opens I get like 5 times the error "VPK.exe is not working anymore" one after another.

I thought it was alright and wanted to start TF2 with it but got the error I quoted above again. If I close it I get it again and again and it won't stop. So I cannot start TF2 with the recording tool.

So where's the problem here? D:

[quanticc]

Hi, can you try validating TF2 files and check if this persists?. Then if you can, send me the log file called "lawena.0.0.log"

Lawena calls vpk.exe that's located in the bin folder one level above "tf" folder.

[RoxTF]

I did what you told me and I still get the same error. There you have the error file: http://puu.sh/8aQGH.log Some stuff there is in German because I'm from Germany. But I hope you can detect the problem anyways.

[RoxTF]

I tried to copy the recording tool somewhere else too but it still didn't work.

[quanticc]

By somewhere else, what folder do you mean? It must be outside SteamApps/TF2 folder. That's the main reason, you can't extract the program in tf's custom folder because of how lawena works, it will cause all sorts of problems. Sorry that it's not clear in the FAQ

Also, I didn't see the vpk error you said. I was hoping to find the particular vpk.exe error in the logs.

[RoxTF]

Well maybe I'm just too dumb to understand the FAQ stuff there. Sorry for causing trouble. But anyways thanks for the help. It's the best recording tool with the best quality by far. :D

[RoxTF]

Actually I put it on my desktop now and validated all the tf2 files again. Opened up the new downloaded Lawena and still get the VPK error. But if I look in the log you wanted to see there is nothing about any errors. Weird.

[AGSPhoenix]

I have this issue as well. My lawena.0.0.log also contains no reference to the error. Here's a picture of the error in question. The files extracted by vpk.exe are 0 bytes. If you run the same command that Lawena does in the command line, vpk.exe doesn't print anything to the console, though I don't know if that's normal.

If you need more info, just ask.

[RoxTF]

So.. Any solutions?

[AGSPhoenix]

It seems like the error only occurs when Lawena is trying to extract custom skyboxes, so just leave it at default and if it pops up, keep mashing 'Close the program' until TF2 starts. If you have AutoHotKey, the following script will automatically close the window whenever it pops up:

loop
{
    WinWait vpk.exe, Check online for a solution and close the program
    WinClose
}

[RoxTF]

I have tried to close the window all the time already. After 5 minutes if closing I just got frustrated. But that script seems good. I'll try that out, thanks for the help! c:

[quanticc]

I will patch something to avoid relying on vpk extraction for the moment. This is a Valve issue.

Current workaround is to just have skybox files already extracted. Get them from https://github.com/iabarca/lawena-recording-tool/tree/fc0dca8d6a256622432bcee6a2726b7a12965246 or from older 3.1.1 version. They are to be extracted in "skybox" folder.

Also avoid using only parts of the pldx particles. Only use the full vpk or no particles because it would trigger an extraction otherwise.

Thanks for reporting!

[RoxTF]

Alright, thank you for your quick help too!

[quanticc]

The vpk.exe crashing issue is not fixed yet (valve tool), but lawena is now avoiding it by dropping the skybox.vpk file in favor of already extracted contents (inside skybox folder).