Spooky_NX already created a thread regarding this issue, but I think creating another one with the title clearly stating the problem may be better, so... here it is.

I'm a huge fan of experimental games (yes, this includes the dreaded "walking simulators" and "artsy" games), and I really wanted to try Her Story out, as it seems to be right up my alley. I immediately bought it as soon as it was available on GOG, and proceeded to download and install it. The problem is, when I tried running it, as soon as I click on a video clip, nothing happens. I can even play the mini game in the Rubbish Bin, in-game, but that's it, that's all I can play of Her Story. I tried holding the mouse button over the video thumbnail, over the 'Play' button, adding a video to the database and trying to watch it from there, I launched the game using various settings, configurations and even compatibility options, to no avail: the in-game videos simply won't play. I installed the game as administrator, ran the game as administrator, as well, and tried a different number of combinations of all these, with no success whatsoever.

Before submitting a ticket to GOG Support, I'd like to try and post this here, hoping someone might be able to help me faster than GOG Support would (I love the guys, but lately they have been rather slow and not that efficient, from my experience).

My specs are:

Windows Vista Home Premium (32bit)
Pentium Dual Core T4200 @ 2GHz
3 GB RAM
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4500 Series

I think all my video codecs are up-to-date, I usually install Media Player Classic and VLC, and both these programs come with video codecs that I assume would be enough to run the in-game videos in Her Story...

Have you tried playing the videos where you installed the game? It's located at Her Story/HerStory_Data/StreamingAssets folder.

The videos play outside the game just fine, I can open them with VLC... I've been installing every imaginable video codec after uninstalling the game, restarting the PC and then installing the game again, to no avail... I even installed CCCP, as per GOG's Support recommendation, and now all I get is a crash error saying I should send an error report log to the developer whenever I try to play a video in-game.

I tried playing the videos with glare on and subtitles off, like someone suggested in Spooky_NX's thread, but that didn't work as well... frankly, I've given up trying to play this game on this computer, I don't want to ask for a refund because I truly think I'll love the game, but for now I don't think there's a solution for me, other than trying to install it on an older desktop I have and hoping it'll work there.

Thank for the help anyway.

I have actually made a mod to the video files that fixes the problem for Windows users. I have posted it on Steam forums. Since I have no rep here, I can't post the link here. Basically, the reason you can play the videos in VLC is because VLC uses it's own codecs. Her Story doesn't utilize the VLC codecs or filters. It uses DirectShow through a plugin called AVPro Windows Media Player.

Thank you for replying! I'll try your fix out and update this thread to let people know if it worked.

Oh, and here's a link to the Steam thread and another one to the modified streaming assets themselves.

[UPDATE] Unfortunately, this solution didn't work for me, but, then again, it might have something to do with all the codecs I've been installng and uninstalling in the past few days in order to be able to play the game...

I still think it might work, but right now I must admit I'm a bit tired of downloading stuff, installing, uninstalling, rebooting, running as administrator, trying it not running as administrator after uninstalling, so, yeah... I'm giving up on Her Story for a while, like I said, maybe it'll run on my old desktop...

Thanks for the help, though, maybe your fix will help many others facing this issue!

It probably does have to do with the codec installations. Uninstalling a codec pack doesn't reverse codec filter changes or disabled codec filters. Codec guides Preferred Codec Tweaker might be able to revert the changes (no guarantee). It's a very small file download and needs not installation. A google search will bring it up. All you got to do is bring up the tool and hit Preferred Codecs, then make sure all codecs are set to decode by Microsoft.

Secondly, Windows Media Player should be installed and up to date (I'll have to add this to the guide). To do this, Click the Start button , click All Programs, and then click Windows Media Player. If the Player is currently open and you're in Now Playing mode, click the Switch to Library button (the 3 square button) in the upper-right corner of the Player.
Click the Help menu, and then click Check for Updates. To avoid the need to check for updates after this, you can go to Tools->Options->Player Tab, then change the updates to check for updates per week, or per day.

Furthermore, if you click the Help Menu, hit About Windows Media Player, then click Technical Support Information on the bottom left hand corner, you can scroll down the window to see a section called Video Codecs. Everything in this section should have a Binary and a Version. If it doesn't, it's been disabled or changed. The specific codec my modified files uses is the Mpeg4s Decoder DMO. In the format section of this, you should see the format "DIVX".

If these don't work in reverting your changes, or for some reason Windows Media Player didn't put DIVX in the update you can download the DivX Player/Installer from the DivX website, which will install the codec.

I had the very same issue under Win7, and the developer of the game pointed me to these MPEG4 codecs:

Haali Media Splitter
GDCL Mpeg­4 filter

Installing the first one did solve my problems, though I get occasional CTDs. Nothing on the magnitude that would seriously affect gameplay, though. I was also informed that FFDSHOW might cause problems, so you should disable or uninstall it in case it's installed on your system.

I'll try these ones, as nothing so far seems to have worked for me, thanks!

For me, installing the k-lite codec pack did the job.
I was looking through this forum;


steamcommunity.com/app/368370/discussions/1/530645446308071467/#p2