How to fix third party dll include not being staged correctly by Unreal Build Tool? - dll

Question

I am using a pre-built C++ library in my Unreal project using a dynamic library file (let's say it's called MyPluginLib.dll). The library is contained in a plugin, let’s call it MyPlugin.
Building, packaging, playing in editor works fine. However, a packaged build doesn’t start, giving the following error: Code execution cannot proceed, MyPluginLib.dll was not found.
The packaging process places MyPluginLib.dll file in MyGame\Plugins\MyPlugin\Binaries. However, the execution process is seemingly looking for it in MyGame\Binaries – moving the library there manually solves this issue.
Why is the OS unable to find the dll in the first folder? Is there something wrong in the build.cs, or my folder structure?
The folder structure of the plugin folder is as follows:
Includes in Plugins\MyPlugin\Source\ThirdParty\MyPluginLib\
Binaries in Plugins\MyPlugin\Binaries\(PLATFORM)\
The plugin’s Build.cs looks like this:
public class MyPlugin : ModuleRules
{
public MyPlugin(ReadOnlyTargetRules Target) : base(Target)
{
PCHUsage = ModuleRules.PCHUsageMode.UseExplicitOrSharedPCHs;
string PluginRoot = Path.GetFullPath(Path.Combine(ModuleDirectory, "..", ".."));
string PlatformString = Target.Platform.ToString();
string LibraryDirectory = Path.Combine(PluginRoot, "Binaries", PlatformString);
PublicIncludePaths.Add(Path.Combine(PluginRoot, "Source", "ThirdParty", "MyPluginLib"));
if ((Target.Platform == UnrealTargetPlatform.Win64))
{
PublicAdditionalLibraries.Add(Path.Combine(LibraryDirectory, "MyPluginLib.lib"));
RuntimeDependencies.Add(Path.Combine(LibraryDirectory, "MyPluginLib.dll"), StagedFileType.NonUFS);
}
else if (Target.Platform == UnrealTargetPlatform.Linux)
{
// linux binaries...
}
}
Would appreciate any help.

Answer 1

Check your packaged games files, unreal loves to not include certain thing in packaged builds regarding plugins.