Missing DLL Error message STILL HERE since the 3.22 patch released!

I did write to support and they told me they can't help so I am forced to keep doing posts.

The stupid DLL message keeps appearing twice sometime soon after booting up the game. It used to be always at least during the first loading screen but now it is random in the first 5 min during playtime. It already caused me to die twice in the past weeks because it goes in the foreground while you are in a map and you miss inputs.

This is the error message that has been a pain since the release of 3.22:


Also loading times are still bad on random occasions, but I guess that is a separate issue. Never before was there such a teribble performance patch.

Win 7, 8 or older?

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3406446/filter-account-type/staff

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Henry_GGG wrote:

We have determined that we cannot fix this error on our end, as we cannot supply that .dll file via the client.


You'll need to update your Windows install or find a way to acquire that .dll file.

Okay thanks, have not seen that reply.. What a pain non the less..

No plans to update Win7 yet, since I have not figured out which Linux distribution works best for gaming.

There are some brute-force methods but I don't have a Win7 copy at the moment to check that it's safe.
I would suggest upgrading to Win10 but PoE works like **** even here so.
GGG is currently recruiting. Maybe they'll find someone competent :]

This should be part of the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable. You can just download and install it from the official Microsoft website.

At least in the newer versions of Windows, the DLL would then normally land in C:\Windows\System32\downlevel

Theoretically, it should be enough to then place it in the same folder as the PoE executable, since typically, programs will look for DLLs in their own directory first. This would also not interfere with whatever you have stored in PATH.

That said, I don't know how the DLL itself is actually implemented, so it might be that it itself depends on other DLLs you might be missing or it might not be compatible with Windows 7. But it could be worth a try. Worst case, it will just show a different error.

I don't suppose there are any Microsoft developers who worked on the Visual C++ Redistributable here... Anyone with more information? :-D

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They're part of architectural changes to Windows to support multiple devices and system architectures. They shouldn't be used or linked to directly and should not themselves be distributed.

It's harder than just installing some VC++ redistributable.

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might not be compatible with Windows 7

Artificial software aging in example.

Okay I was really annoyed with this for a bit and took a short break, so will try to fix it now, since it seems GGG is refusing to clean up the mess they created.


I did try downloading the missing file from https://www.dll-files.com/api-ms-win-core-libraryloader-l1-2-0.dll.html and it basicallly changed the error to a missing entry point of kernel32.CreateFile2. Which is mentioned in another bug report GGG should already have:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3411240

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GregoryAdams wrote:

This should be part of the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable. You can just download and install it from the official Microsoft website.

Do you know which package or version it is by chance? I might try to find and install/extract it.

yeah, download dll not from microsoft.com really a solution....

Did your antivirus beeped?

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Akimiya wrote:

Okay I was really annoyed with this for a bit and took a short break, so will try to fix it now, since it seems GGG is refusing to clean up the mess they created.


I did try downloading the missing file from https://www.dll-files.com/api-ms-win-core-libraryloader-l1-2-0.dll.html and it basicallly changed the error to a missing entry point of kernel32.CreateFile2. Which is mentioned in another bug report GGG should already have:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3411240

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GregoryAdams wrote:

This should be part of the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable. You can just download and install it from the official Microsoft website.

Do you know which package or version it is by chance? I might try to find and install/extract it.

Good question, my guess would be 2015 or 2017, but I don't know for sure.
CreateFile2 is a DirectX thing, though (I think).
That said, something has changed, so we're apparently pulling on the right wires here.

I might have a solution, as for now the error did not appear again:

While checking the new error it seemed as if the called function is for 32bit so I instead downloaded the Architecture: 32 DLL from https://www.dll-files.com/api-ms-win-core-libraryloader-l1-2-0.dll.html
Then placing it into the main PoE folder (as I don't trust the site enough to have it systemwide) both errors seem to be gone for now.


PS: I did test and install all C++ packages up to 2022 version and came to the conclusion that they don't incluide the file in the first place. I'd love a concrete statement of this but my guess is that they are part of the core OS packages (just as DX) and might be not part of a downloadable package.

If anybody knows where the original DLL comes from originally I'd appreciate it!