'SDL_Image IMG_Load fails on png with: "Failed loading libpng16-16.dll:"

Whenever I try to load a PNG using SDL_Image's IMG_Load function it gives the error Failed loading libpng16-16.dll:. I have all the right dll's in the right path and I can use other parts of SDL_Image, but for some reason it can't load the libpng dll. How can I fix this? Any help is appreciated.

Solution 1:^[1]

See my article "SDL2: Loading Images with SDL_image":

If you're going to run from Visual Studio, make sure the image is in the same folder as your main.cpp file; otherwise if you're running straight from the executable, the image should be in the same folder with it.

Needless to say, what I wrote about the image here goes for the DLLs as well.

Solution 2:^[2]

It appears that libpng16-16.dll has a dependency on zlib1.dll for MinGW-w64 (32-bit). Try to include zlib into your dependnecies--include the DLL in the folder where the executable runs.

Solution 3:^[3]

The VS do not searches dlls on anywhere except the execution dir, so you probably need to copy that dll to the Debug/ directory on your solution's path.

Solution 4:^[4]

Very niche answer, but for those running into this issue because of pySDL2, it could be caused because your python interpreter is sub-par. For me, using the windows store install for python interpreter 3.10, gave this issue. However, when I switched to 3.10 from python.org all my issues were fixed.

Solution 5:^[5]

This link show you how to set up SDL library/libpng16-16.dll to be available for acceess by the compiler.exe (the last step right before the sample code)

yourProgram proprety page -> Builds event-> post-build event
in my case i have
copy “C:\Users\MehdiB\Desktop\C Program\Library\SDL2-devel-2.0.4-VC\SDL2-2.0.4\lib\x86\SDL2.dll” “$(OutDir)SDL2.dll”;
copy “C:\Users\MehdiB\Desktop\C Program\Library\SDL2_image-devel-2.0.1-VC\SDL2_image-2.0.1\lib\x86\SDL2_image.dll” “$(OutDir)SDL2_image.dll”;
copy “C:\Users\MehdiB\Desktop\C Program\Library\dll\libjpeg-9.dll” “$(OutDir)libjpeg-9.dll”

here where you can get this dll

Solution 6:^[6]

i just replaced zlib1.dll in system32 and SysWOW64 with the one downloaded from https://github.com/OctaForge/OF-Windows/blob/master/bin_win32/zlib1.dll .and worked nicely

Sources

This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Overflow and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Source: Stack Overflow

Solution	Source
Solution 1
Solution 2	CinchBlue
Solution 3	TalesM
Solution 4	Yamm Elnekave
Solution 5	Mehdi Benkirane
Solution 6	mahdi

'SDL_Image IMG_Load fails on png with: "Failed loading libpng16-16.dll:"

Solution 1:[1]

Solution 2:[2]

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