Video playback fails on Steam Deck using Proton 9.0-4 while audio plays normally.

Development Programming & Scripting
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(This is a translation of a [Japanese [Content removed] by Ishii Yuki.)

Thank you for your continued support.

I have a question about an issue I am seeing with our game on Steam Deck.

When setting the Steam Deck package compatibility option to Force and running the game under Proton 9.0-4, videos sometimes play with audio only and no video being displayed. In some cases, the game fails to detect that the video has finished playing, leaving the game unable to proceed.

After checking the logs, I found the following error:

LogElectraPlayer: Most recent log messages:

0.000: Opening stream

0.074: Got master playlist

0.074: Got initial playlists

0.109: Initial buffering starts

0.109: Video bitrate change from 0 to 4417683

0.109: Buffering ended

0.150: Playback paused

0.150: Error: error=1 in Audio decoder: code 10, “Converted wave format struct has a channel mask of zero!”; platform message “0 (0x00000000)”

0.150: Stopped

When investigating the issue, Epic Developer Assistant suggested it could be addressed by using Electra Protron. However, I guess Electra Protron can’t be used in UE 5.4. This is because there is no Electra Protron Factory entry in Project Settings, even after reloading the plugins. Also, Electra Protron Player does not appear in the reference documentation until UE 5.6. So, I believe it is not available in UE 5.4.

Below is the response I received from Epic Developer Assistant:

(* Note: This is an English translation of a response originally provided in Japanese.)

1. Use the “Electra Protron” player (recommended)

UE 5.4 comes with the Electra Protron player, which is specifically designed for local file playback and improved platform compatibility. It is more stable than the standard Electra player in Proton environments. So switching to it is the most reliable solution.

How to configure it:

Open Project Settings.

Find Plugins > Electra Protron Factory.

Under the Preferred Player Override section, set In-Game to Protron.

This will make Protron the player used in the packaged build (Steam Deck) instead of the standard Electra player.

Is there any workaround or other solution available for this issue when using UE 5.4?

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再現手順
Set the compatibility option to Force for a Steam Deck package built with UE 5.4, and run it using Proton 9.0-4.

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Hello,

for licensing reasons the Steamdeck does not support codecs for which licensing or patent fees need to be paid, meaning that your video cannot use H.264 or H.265 or AAC audio.

You will need to enable the Opus and VPx codec plugins for Electra and provide your video in VP9 and Opus format.

Regards,

Jens Petersam

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[mention removed]​

(The following is a translation of a post originally written in Japanese by Ishii Yuki.)

Thank you for your reply.

So, in conclusion, as the codecs are not supported under Proton 9.0-4, our options are either to use Proton 11, or to address the issue by enabling the Opus and VPx codec plugins for Electra and providing a video with VP9 video and Opus audio. (Is my understanding correct?)

I will share this information with the person in charge so that we can address the issue accordingly.

Thank you for your support.

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I do not think any version of Proton supports H.264/5 or AAC due to licensing reasons.

What may change is that instead of getting an error you will instead see color bars, which is displayed instead of the actual video.

You will almost certainly need to switch to VP9 and Opus for the Steamdeck builds.

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[mention removed]​

(The following is a translation of a post originally written in Japanese by Ishii Yuki.)

Thank you for your advice.

I will be implementing the necessary changes to switch codecs when the Steam Deck platform is detected.

(Please close the thread.)

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