# Helloworld sample returns null elements (Windows, VS Code)

**URL:** https://discourse.gstreamer.org/t/helloworld-sample-returns-null-elements-windows-vs-code/4864
**Category:** General Discussion
**Tags:** windows
**Created:** [July 15, 2025, 9:16am UTC](https://discourse.gstreamer.org/t/helloworld-sample-returns-null-elements-windows-vs-code/4864 "2025-07-15T09:16:02Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![marshallarts](https://discourse.gstreamer.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/bc8723/32.png) [@marshallarts](https://discourse.gstreamer.org/u/marshallarts)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2025, 9:16am UTC](https://discourse.gstreamer.org/t/helloworld-sample-returns-null-elements-windows-vs-code/4864/1 "2025-07-15T09:16:02Z")

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Complete newbie to GStreamer here. I have installed GStreamer on Windows11 and have tried building and running the HelloWorld sample in the development tutorial, using VS Code. It compiles and builds OK, and I can step through the code with the debugger. In the code that creates the pipeline and its elements, only the pipeline object is a valid pointer - all the other create-element calls return a null pointer. What could I be missing here? Could it be because it cannot find some DLLs that it needs at runtime? I would have thought (hoped) that some sort of error message would appear if that was the case, but there are no errors appearing.