in reply to Dynaloader not loading LibXML

I've installed it using the Strawberry cpan client, it installs fine ...

Do you mean that all of the tests passed ? (Surely not.)
One would expect that all tests would have failed with the exact same error as you've reported, and that you would have had to use force to effect the installation of XML::LibXML.
Otherwise you've invented some (hitherto unknown) way of breaking a perl installation.

I take it that the error can be produced by running simply:
perl -MXML::LibXML -e 1
Cheers,
Rob

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Re^2: Dynaloader not loading LibXML
by domglennon (Novice) on Apr 26, 2016 at 11:49 UTC
    OK, here's an odd thing: it does run from the C drive, but I get the error message when I try to run it from a network drive. Same for any scripts using LibXML. Any ideas why this should be?
      it does run from the C drive, but I get the error message when I try to run it from a network drive

      I've no experience with running from a network drive - which is probably the reason that I've never seen that "specified path is invalid .." error message before.
      Could it be that 'C:/Strawberry/perl/vendor/lib/auto/XML/LibXML/LibXML.xs.dll' is an invalid path specification (as the error message states) when running from a network drive ?
      Hopefully someone with better knowledge of running from a network drive can provide something a bit more definite.

      (An incorrect UPDATE removed.)

      One other (probably unrelated) thing to note is that your error message relates to the XML::LibXML that's installed in perl/vendor/lib.
      That's the XML::LibXML that shipped with Strawberry Perl - it's not the XML::LibXML that you installed. (The one you installed should be in perl/site/lib.)
      Normally, perl/site/lib comes before perl/vendor/lib in @INC, which means that in a normal situation the XML::LibXML in perl/site/lib is the one that would get loaded.
      But your perl5lib changed the @INC order, putting perl/vendor/lib ahead of perl/site/lib and thus ensuring that the XML::LibXML in perl/vendor/lib is the one that gets loaded.

      Cheers,
      Rob

        I can dir the folder in question from a network drive and see the contents, so I don't think that's the problem. I've also run Perl from this network before, this is just a new computer I'm running from.

        Thanks for the info re perl5lib, but I only added that in an attempty to fix this problem, so I don't think it's the root.