fix(windows): bundle vulkan-1.dll to fix startup crash #1006
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Windows users without the Vulkan runtime installed were experiencing "vulkan-1.dll not found" errors that prevented the app from starting. This affected systems without dedicated GPUs, VMs, and clean Windows installations. The fix bundles vulkan-1.dll from the Vulkan SDK during CI builds. Since Tauri places resources in a subdirectory rather than next to the exe, NSIS installer hooks move the DLL to the correct location after install. Once the DLL is present, whisper.cpp gracefully falls back to CPU transcription on systems without GPU/Vulkan drivers. Fixes #829, fixes #840
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🚀 Preview Deployment Ready!Whispering Preview: https://whispering-pr-1006.epicenter.workers.dev Worker Name: This preview will be automatically updated with new commits to this PR. Built with commit be5519f |
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December 8, 2025 18:57
The humbletim/install-vulkan-sdk action extracts the SDK with a different directory structure than expected. Instead of hardcoding the path, recursively search for vulkan-1.dll and add debugging output to help diagnose issues.
The previous action (humbletim/install-vulkan-sdk) only installs the Vulkan SDK development tools but NOT the runtime (vulkan-1.dll). This caused the Bundle Vulkan DLL step to fail since vulkan-1.dll was not present in the SDK directory. Switched to jakoch/install-vulkan-sdk-action which supports install_runtime: true option that installs the Vulkan Runtime containing vulkan-1.dll at runtime/x64/vulkan-1.dll.
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Windows users without the Vulkan runtime installed were experiencing "vulkan-1.dll not found" errors that prevented the app from starting. This affected Windows 10 systems, machines without dedicated GPUs, virtual machines, and clean Windows installations.
The root cause: our migration to transcribe-rs (PR #791) introduced a hard dependency on Vulkan through whisper-rs. Windows checks all DLLs in the import table at process startup, so the app fails immediately before any code runs.
The fix bundles vulkan-1.dll from the Vulkan SDK during CI builds. Since Tauri's
bundle.resourcesplaces files in aresources/subdirectory rather than next to the executable, I added NSIS installer hooks that move the DLL to the correct location after installation. Once the DLL is present, whisper.cpp's GGML backend gracefully falls back to CPU transcription on systems without GPU/Vulkan drivers.Note: This fix works for NSIS installers (the default). MSI installers don't support the same hook mechanism, but NSIS is the primary distribution method.
Fixes #829, fixes #840