VALVE, please FIX The Lab. I even tell you how. (Fix for "not loading" bug)

[LeakyAbstraction]

It's been reported by countless users for a long time that The Lab has an issue loading:

The loading screen is stuck inside the VR headset, while an empty window appears on the monitor.

The "output_log.txt" log file contains the following error:

"OpenVR Error! OpenVR failed initialization with error code VRInitError_Init_PathRegistryNotFound: "Installation path could not be located (110)"

Cause:

To cut it short, this can happen if your Windows user folder name contains special characters, because there is a bug in the first version of "openvr_api.dll" which leads to incorrect handling of some unicode characters in usernames.

Fix:

All you need to do to fix this issue is to replace the two instances of "openvr_api.dll" in The Lab installation package with the updated version of the file, found e.g. here:
openvr_api.dll on GitHub[github.com]

(Users can also fix it individually if they simply replace this file in The Lab install folder. They can simply do this instead of having to rename their user folder.)

Valve, could you please fix this so users with special characters in their username could run The Lab?

[Buon Tia]

Your post just helped me make progress with the issue.
I have none of that "special character" stuff going on, but I looked at the log and the "installation path could not be located" made me think.
It seems moving the game to the C drive was the solution (you know, most people keep their games on D now because SSDs are pricy and not everyone can have a 1TB main drive).
Or part of it it apparently, robot repair now starts but it crashes halfway through. This is so terrible, I can't believe Valve is getting so bad at making games.

[Killane]

your .dll replacement fix worked perfectly for my rift, thank you :D

[LeakyAbstraction]

Originally posted by Killane:

your .dll replacement fix worked perfectly for my rift, thank you :D

Happy to hear it worked. Now imagine if Valve took that few minutes to update this .dll, so we wouldn't need to look for a fix. ;)

[nou 死神]

I have same issue. Strange thing is that it works fine on Windows 7, but after I upgraded on Windows 10 it stopped working.

[TheUnskilled]

THANKS!!! Worked like a charm

[chancan]

Originally posted by Buon Tia:

I can't believe Valve is getting so bad at making games.

What does one have to be smoking to make a statement like this about the one company that's always creating amazing, innovating games and hardware?

[<BlankGuy>]

When I look for openvr_api.dll there are 3 versions that are all Identical

[jag]

Thank you very much for fix!

[Skambavr]

THANK YOU!! It helped to replace the file in the game folder! (The Lab\RobotRepair\bin\win64)
I'm surprised why after so many years this problem is still not fixed by the developers...