Problems with SFML loadFromFile command - c++

Question

I am trying to get a graphical representation of a chess-board with SFML 2.0. The problem is that I simply cannot load a texture, the command loadFromFile does not work and I don't know why. I already searched the web, also here in Stack Overflow but I did not find a solution.
What I did right now:
Setting all the dependencies for includes and libraries, .dll's and .libs
Changing text format from unicode to multibyte.
Copying the .dll's into the working folder (there was an error that visual studio couldnt find the dlls even though I linked them in the project)
Using the whole path for the image file
using the LoadFile-command with 2 arguments (even though the second one is optional I guess)
Changing runtime library from MDd to MD (trying to get it work in release mode)
Not linking all libraries, but only the ones with a ....-d.lib ending (as supposed in another Stack Overflow thread)
I use Windows 7, Visual Studio Version 15.3.3
This is my code:
#include <SFML/Graphics.hpp>
#include <time.h>
#include <iostream>
int main() {
sf::RenderWindow window(sf::VideoMode(437, 437), "MattseChess!");
sf::Texture t1;
if (!t1.loadFromFile("C:/Users/Mattse/source/repos/Chess/Chess/images/figures.png")) {
std::cout << "Error loading texture" << std::endl;
}
return 0;
}
What shall I try out next?

Answer 1

You should always open files with a relative path ("images/figures.png"). It's relative from the executable.
And check with an other PNG images to see if it does not come from the image that SFML cannot load for any reasons (and try gimp to reexport it with different options like interlacing for example)

Answer 2

I'm guessing (from the C:\Users\ part) you are on a Windows system.
While Windows should support slashes as path separator, the official path separator in Windows is a backslash. It needs to be escaped in C++, so your full path would be:
"C:\\Users\\Mattse\\source\\repos\\Chess\\Chess\\images\\figures.png"

Answer 3

Problem fixed, it was in fact the case that I forgot to delete one library in the linker->input settings. I only have the ones with a -d ending now, even the ones which have NO -d equivalent got deleted.
List of linked libraries:
sfml-audio-d.lib
sfml-graphics-d.lib
sfml-main-d.lib
sfml-network-d.lib
sfml-network-s-d.lib
sfml-system-d.lib
sfml-system-s-d.lib
sfml-window-d.lib
sfml-window-s-d.lib