UE 5.7 Shipping build fails on fresh Windows 11 laptop — convai_http_helper.dll Bad Image 0xc0e90002

Integrations Unreal Engine Plugin
1

What do you need help with?

Bug report

Installation method

Manual installation / GitHub

Issue area

Build / Packaging

Impact

Blocker - I cannot continue

Unreal Engine version

5.7

Convai Unreal Engine Plugin version

Github Release-> 4.0.0-beta.13

Project setup

Blueprint and C++

Target platform

Windows build

Where does it happen?

Only after packaging

Short summary

Packaged UE 5.7 Shipping build fails to launch on a fresh Windows 11 laptop because convai_http_helper.dll returns Bad Image error 0xc0e90002.

What happened?

The Windows Shipping package builds successfully and runs correctly on the development laptop. However, after copying the complete packaged folder to a fresh Windows 11 laptop, launching InterviewSim.exe immediately fails before the application starts.

Windows displays:

InterviewSim-Win64-Shipping.exe - Bad Image

convai_http_helper.dll is either not designed to run on Windows or it contains an error.

Error status: 0xc0e90002

The x64 Visual C++ Redistributable was installed and the laptop was restarted, but the error remained. SHA-256 hashes of convai_http_helper.dll match on both laptops, so file corruption during transfer has been ruled out.

What did you expect?

The packaged Windows Shipping build should launch successfully on a standard Windows 11 laptop without requiring Unreal Engine, Visual Studio, or a development environment.

The Convai runtime DLLs included in the packaged application should load normally after the standard x64 Visual C++ Redistributable is installed.

Steps to reproduce

  1. Package the Unreal Engine 5.7 project for Windows 64-bit using Shipping configuration.
  2. Copy the complete packaged folder to a fresh Windows 11 laptop.
  3. Install vc_redist.x64.exe from the packaged prerequisites folder and restart the laptop.
  4. Launch the top-level InterviewSim.exe file.
  5. Observe that the application fails before startup with a Bad Image error for convai_http_helper.dll and error status 0xc0e90002.

Unreal logs or error messages

Packaging result:
BUILD SUCCESSFUL
AutomationTool ExitCode=0 (Success)
Target: Windows 64-bit
Configuration: Shipping

Windows startup error:
InterviewSim-Win64-Shipping.exe - Bad Image
convai_http_helper.dll is either not designed to run on Windows or it contains an error.
Error status: 0xc0e90002

SHA-256 on both laptops:
8D04E0DE18556014C85760BC876B68ED0A35D384A1E421AB193A82F2BB0643EF

Authenticode result for convai_http_helper.dll:
Status: NotSigned
SignerCertificate: None

Screenshots, recording, logs, or minimal repro

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I checked the relevant documentation, resources, and similar forum posts before posting.

on

I confirm that I did not include API keys, tokens, passwords, secrets, private character data, private conversation logs, or customer data.

on

2

Hello,

Thank you for the detailed report, it was very helpful.

Based on the information you provided, the package appears to have been built successfully, and since it runs correctly on your development machine, this doesn’t look like a packaging issue. The fact that the DLL has the same SHA-256 hash on both machines also suggests that the file wasn’t corrupted during transfer.

Could you please check a couple of things on the fresh Windows 11 laptop?

  1. Open Windows Security → App & browser control → Smart App Control and let us know whether it is On.

  2. Open Event Viewer and navigate to:
    Applications and Services Logs → Microsoft → Windows → CodeIntegrity → Operational

    After attempting to launch the application, check whether there are any entries mentioning convai_http_helper.dll and, if so, please share them with us (a screenshot is perfectly fine).

Additionally, could you let us know:

  • Which Windows 11 version/build is installed on the fresh laptop? (winver)
  • Does the issue also occur if you package the project in Development configuration instead of Shipping?

This information will help us determine whether Windows is preventing the DLL from loading or whether we’re dealing with a different runtime issue.

We appreciate your help, and we’ll investigate this further once we have the additional information.

3

Update: Smart App Control has now been confirmed as the trigger.

We performed a controlled test on another Windows 11 laptop:

  • With Smart App Control Off, the packaged InterviewSim Shipping build launched successfully.
  • We then enabled Smart App Control.
  • With Smart App Control On, the same package immediately failed with the identical convai_http_helper.dll Bad Image error 0xc0e90002.
  • After turning Smart App Control Off again, the application launched successfully.

No package files were changed between these tests.

This strongly confirms that Smart App Control is blocking the unsigned convai_http_helper.dll.

I actually forgot to check the Smart App Control. Without you asking for me to check, I couldnt have solve the issue.

Thank you for your reply
Asif Tanjim