[RESOLVED] Beginner issue involving font loading (Edit: Broken dll dependencies? Please advise)

[BlackholeMG]

Hey!

I'm new to Monogame and game development in general. I'm currently experimenting with the basics involved in getting a 2D game setup up and running.

It's going fairly well so far, but I've just run into an issue when attempting to utilize SpriteFonts for the first time. I have my program to set up to load in a SpriteFont from the content pipeline and then use it to print game text. However upon attempting to build my project I get the following error:

Severity Code Description Project File Line Suppression State
Error Processor 'FontDescriptionProcessor' had unexpected failure! Game1 c:/users/blackhole/documents/visual studio 2017/Projects/Game1/Game1/Content/Fonts/Default.spritefont

Severity Code Description Project File Line Suppression State
Error The command ""C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\MonoGame\v3.0\Tools\MGCB.exe" /@:"c:\users\blackhole\documents\visual studio 2017\Projects\Game1\Game1\Content\Content.mgcb" /platform:DesktopGL /outputDir:"c:\users\blackhole\documents\visual studio 2017\Projects\Game1\Game1\Content\bin\DesktopGL" /intermediateDir:"c:\users\blackhole\documents\visual studio 2017\Projects\Game1\Game1\Content\obj\DesktopGL" /quiet" exited with code -532462766. Game1

I don't doubt that this is probably caused by something fairly simple that I have overlooked, but as I'm unfamiliar with creating software using MonoGame I'm unsure as to exactly what it might be!

I'd appreciate it if anybody could help me resolve this issue.

Thanks!

[MrValentine]

Take a look at this post:

Useful MonoGame Related Links U-MG-RL

Found this today... looks to be an in-progress work, small posts but covers the essentials, somewhat... Beginning MonoGame http://www.geekswithblogs.net/cwilliams/archive/2017/02/06/232974.aspx GETTING THE STUFF -Why MonoGame? http://www.geekswithblogs.net/cwilliams/archive/2017/02/06/232975.aspx -What do I need, and where do I get it? http://www.geekswithblogs.net/cwilliams/archive/2017/02/06/232976.aspx MONOGAME BASICS -MonoGame project types explained. http://www.geekswithblogs…

You will find:

-Putting text onscreen NEW
http://www.geekswithblogs.net/cwilliams/archive/2017/02/22/243041.aspx

Give it a go, it is very recently posted...

Hope it helps...

[BlackholeMG]

Additional info: Attempting to build the SpriteFont directly within the Monogame content pipeline application gives a different and more specific error message:

System.DllNotFoundException: Unable to load DLL 'freetype6.dll': The specified module could not be found. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8007007E)

Thank you for the link, MrValentine, but it didn't contain much that I wasn't already aware of!

[Jjagg]

Possibly related to this issue: https://github.com/MonoGame/MonoGame/issues/4485

[BlackholeMG]

Pursuing this line of inquiry and relevant threads lead to me opening freetype6.dll with Dependency Walker, which is a method through which another user was able to get to the bottom of the above problem that you reference.

Sure enough, Dependency Walker appears to be flagging up some sort of issue with freetype6.dll

Error: At least one required implicit or forwarded dependency was not found.
Error: At least one module has an unresolved import due to a missing export function in an implicitly dependent module.
Error: Modules with different CPU types were found.
Warning: At least one delay-load dependency module was not found.

Above this is a long list of files that could apparently not be found on the system. All of these files' names start with either the string "API-MS-WIN" or "EXT-MS-WIN".

I will admit that I'm a little out of my depth here. Could anybody hazard a fix? Could the fact that I'm running 64 bit Windows be relevant (it seemed to be a factor in one of the threads I was reading).

[BlackholeMG]

Okay, so I gather I probably have to install some sort of distributable, but I'm not sure which one, as multiple versions are being thrown around. Again, please advise! I would be grateful.

[MrValentine]

Are you using Downloaded, NuGet or Dev Branch MonoGame?

3.5.1 or 3.6.0?

[BlackholeMG]

3.6, I believe. (Edit: I initially thought I was using 3.5.1, but it appears that I had two versions of the installer downloaded, and one was 3.6 and the other is 3.5.1. I am... hoping I installed the 3.6 one. Let me just check that actually).

Edit 2: Yes, it's definitely 3.6.

I downloaded the installer via the website download links, so I guess downloaded.

[MrValentine]

Hopefully someone can help further, night

[BlackholeMG]

Bumping this. Anyone know anything more?

[Communism]

I found installing the 2012 c++ redist for Visual Studio fixed this issue.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-NZ/download/details.aspx?id=30679

At first I was running 3.6, and after installing 3.7 (dev branch) it still didn't work, at which point I installed the above redist.

[BlackholeMG]

Worked like a charm. Thank you kindly!

[Neptune]

Worked perfectly!

I just wanted to add that you will only need to download 1 of the 3 files listed in that link, vcredist_x64.exe, since that is for 64-bit systems. vcredist_x86.exe is for 32-bit systems (which can't be used for Monogame development) and vcredist_IA64.exe is for Itanium systems which are Server Systems.