SFML image not opening

Question

I am trying to load the textures in this code:

std::cout << "Current working directory: " << std::filesystem::current_path() << std::endl;


if (!texture.loadFromFile("C:/Users/User/Desktop/Project2/Project2/resources/spaceship.png"))
{
    std::cout << "ERROR: Failed to load spaceship texture!" << std::endl;
}

here is the whole code if it helps:

    #include "Spaceship.h"
    #include <cmath>
    #include <iostream> 
    #include <filesystem> 

    #ifndef M_PI
    #define M_PI 3.14159265358979323846
    #endif

Spaceship::Spaceship(float x, float y, sf::RenderWindow& window, std::vector<Projectile>& projectiles) : window(window), projectiles(projectiles)
{
    position.x = x;
    position.y = y;
    radius = 20.0f;
    shape.setPointCount(3);
    shape.setPoint(0, sf::Vector2f(0, -radius * 1.5f));
    shape.setPoint(1, sf::Vector2f(-radius * 0.5f, radius));
    shape.setPoint(2, sf::Vector2f(radius * 0.5f, radius));
    shape.setOrigin(0, -radius * 0.5f);
    shape.setPosition(position);
    shape.setFillColor(sf::Color::Green);

    
    std::cout << "Current working directory: " << std::filesystem::current_path() << std::endl;

    
    if (!texture.loadFromFile("C:/Users/User/Desktop/Project2/Project2/resources/spaceship.png"))
    {
        std::cout << "ERROR: Failed to load spaceship texture!" << std::endl;
    }
}

    void Spaceship::update()
    {
        // Handle keyboard input to set the velocity for movement
        velocity.x = 0.0f;
        velocity.y = 0.0f;

        if (sf::Keyboard::isKeyPressed(sf::Keyboard::W))
        {
            velocity.y = -speed;
        }
        if (sf::Keyboard::isKeyPressed(sf::Keyboard::S))
        {
            velocity.y = speed;
        }
        if (sf::Keyboard::isKeyPressed(sf::Keyboard::A))
        {
            velocity.x = -speed;
        }
        if (sf::Keyboard::isKeyPressed(sf::Keyboard::D))
        {
            velocity.x = speed;
        }

        position += velocity;

        // Keep the spaceship inside the window
        if (position.x < radius)
            position.x = radius;
        if (position.y < radius)
            position.y = radius;
        if (position.x > window.getSize().x - radius)
            position.x = window.getSize().x - radius;
        if (position.y > window.getSize().y - radius)
            position.y = window.getSize().y - radius;

        shape.setPosition(position);

        sf::Vector2f mousePosition = sf::Vector2f(sf::Mouse::getPosition(window));
        sf::Vector2f direction = mousePosition - position;
        float angle = std::atan2(direction.y, direction.x) * 180.0f / static_cast<float>(M_PI);

        shape.setRotation(angle);

        // Handle firing projectiles with left mouse button
        if (sf::Mouse::isButtonPressed(sf::Mouse::Left) && fireCooldown <= 0.0f)
        {
            sf::Vector2f direction = mousePosition - position;
            float angle = std::atan2(direction.y, direction.x) * 180.0f / static_cast<float>(M_PI);

            projectiles.emplace_back(position.x, position.y, angle);
            fireCooldown = 1.0f; // Set the cooldown to 1 second
        }

        // Update existing projectiles
        for (auto& projectile : projectiles)
        {
            projectile.update();
        }

        // Remove out-of-bounds projectiles
        projectiles.erase(std::remove_if(projectiles.begin(), projectiles.end(),
            [this](const Projectile& projectile) { return projectile.isOutOfBounds(window); }), projectiles.end());

        // Update the fire cooldown timer
        if (fireCooldown > 0.0f)
        {
            fireCooldown -= 1.0f / 60.0f; // Decrease the cooldown by the time passed since the last frame (assuming 60 FPS)
        }
    }

    void Spaceship::draw(sf::RenderTarget& target, sf::RenderStates states) const
    {
        target.draw(shape, states);

        // Draw projectiles
        for (const auto& projectile : projectiles)
        {
            target.draw(projectile, states);
        }
    }

    bool Spaceship::isColliding(const Asteroid& asteroid) const
    {
        float dx = position.x - asteroid.getPosition().x;
        float dy = position.y - asteroid.getPosition().y;
        float distance = std::sqrt(dx * dx + dy * dy);

        return distance < (radius + asteroid.getRadius());
    }

    void Spaceship::setPosition(float x, float y)
    {
        position.x = x;
        position.y = y;
        shape.setPosition(position);
    }

It shows this error when i try to run it even though the spaceship.png file is almost all the folders so i think that path is not the problem? i tried using absolute path and relative path, changing the working directory, and using different images but it still doesn't work

Current working directory: "C:\\Users\\User\\Desktop\\Project2\\Project2"
Failed to load image "". Reason: Unable to open file

Answer 1

Failed to load image "". Reason: Unable to open file

To me the "" indicates that there is likely some type of undefined behavior happening. That is assuming that the library is does not have a serious bug in the code that prints the error where somehow it lost the actual file name. For a widely used opensource library like SFML I would expect that this code is well tested and working so that the UB must be somewhere else.

From the comments and past experience one such cause of UB can be ABI incompatibility caused by using the wrong binaries. In this case for msvc dlls it's unsafe to mix debug and release dlls. The reason is in debug mode the compiler has additional fields in some structures to aide in debugging and determining of run time corruption.

Related question: Why can't we mix Debug and Release Builds with MSVC?