Failed to load DLL (errorcode -998) game won't start

[Renn]

Hi! I've already made a support request, but figured I'd also make a topic here in case anyone else has run into the same issue. Since this morning I haven't been able to play TLD. I haven't played in a couple days so the issue could've started after the last patch on july 5, but I'm not sure. I can start the game, but when I try to click past the disclaimer screen, I get a message reading "Failed to load DLL (errorcode -998) game won't start". I've already tried verifying the game files and reinstalling the game on either hard drive, but neither fixed the issue.

 

 

Edited July 7 by Renn

[ThePancakeLady]

I am just curious, looking back over reports of this on Steam, I see other games with the "Failed to Load DLL" but it gives Error -126 instead of -998. The games that I am seeing that on are all games that are often heavily modded, either through Steam Workshop mods or third party mods. MelonLoader is a .dll - so I am wondering if people getting this error are running mods, or had run mods before and still have MelonLoader (possibly an older version?) installed on their machine, or one of the mods associated with the game installed (even if not enabled), and that's causing Steam to have trouble launching the game because it sees the MelonLoader .dll associated with he game, but can't load it.

[Renn]

While I used to use some mods, I removed mods, melonloader and everything related to it before the DLC came out. I did a search just in case, but there's nothing from MelonLoader left on my pc.

The game did launch, it just didn't get past the disclaimer screen. Steam didn't seem to have any issues on it's side. 

It's also been fixed since I restarted my pc 🤷‍♀️