How to fix an UnsatisfiedLinkError (Can't find dependent libraries) in a JNI project

I'm pretty sure the classpath and the shared library search path have little to do with each other. According to The JNI Book (which admittedly is old), on Windows if you do not use the java.library.path system property, the DLL needs to be in the current working directory or in a directory listed in the Windows PATH environment variable.

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Update:

Looks like Oracle has removed the PDF from its website. I've updated the link above to point to an instance of the PDF living at University of Texas - Arlington.

Also, you can also read Oracle's HTML version of the JNI Specification. That lives in the Java 8 section of the Java website and so hopefully will be around for a while.

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Update 2:

At least in Java 8 (I haven't checked earlier versions) you can do:

java -XshowSettings:properties -version

to find the shared library search path. Look for the value of the java.library.path property in that output.

I want to inform this interesting case, after tried all the above method, the error is still there. The weird thing is it works on a Windows 7 computer, but on Windows XP it is not. Then I use dependency walker and found on the Windows XP there is no VC++ Runtime as my dll requirement. After installing VC++ Runtime package here it works like a charm. The thing that disturbed me is it keeps telling Can't find dependent libraries, while intuitively the JNI dependent dll is there, however it finally turns out the JNI dependent dll requires another dependent dl. I hope this helps.

You need to load your JNI library.

System.loadLibrary loads the DLL from the JVM path (JDK bin path).

If you want to load an explicit file with a path, use System.load()

See also: Difference between System.load() and System.loadLibrary in Java