# HDF5 is broken on Windows?

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/hdf5-is-broken-on-windows/125988>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Tags:** hdf5, netcdf\
**Created:** [February 17, 2025, 11:50am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/hdf5-is-broken-on-windows/125988 "2025-02-17T11:50:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![joa-quim](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/joa-quim/32/227_2.png) [@joa-quim](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/joa-quim)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2025, 11:50am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/hdf5-is-broken-on-windows/125988/1 "2025-02-17T11:50:56Z")

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Since yesterday I started to see failures in building GMT in CI (and locally) due to

```julia
ERROR: LoadError: InitError: could not load library "C:\Users\j\.julia\artifacts\a0f65aec92810567654b7ca3b29b0786088806a6\bin\libnetcdf-19.dll"

```

libnetcdf did not cahnge recently but HDF5 did change yesterday  
[HDF5\_jll build 1.14.5+0 · JuliaBinaryWrappers/HDF5\_jll.jl@3f7b3cd · GitHub](https://github.com/JuliaBinaryWrappers/HDF5_jll.jl/commit/3f7b3cd85e9bd796307d709961bcf2c8b626dde1)

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**Author:** ![eldee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b5a626/32.png) [@eldee](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/eldee)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2025, 6:07pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/hdf5-is-broken-on-windows/125988/2 "2025-02-17T18:07:31Z")

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I can confirm that

- `add`ing NetCDF on Linux (Ubuntu 22.04, Julia 1.10.5) works without any issue (despite it using HDF5\_jll 1.14.5)
- this does not work on Windows (10, Julia 1.11.2) with the same error you encountered
- forcing to use HDF5\_jll 1.14.3 (`add HDF5_jll@1.14.3 NetCDF`) does work
- using HDF5 with HDF5\_jll 1.14.5 in isolation also works.

It then seems to be rather an issue with NetCDF.jl than with HDF5.jl (even though it is indeed likely caused by an update to HDF5\_jll).

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![joa-quim](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/joa-quim/32/227_2.png) [@joa-quim](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/joa-quim)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2025, 6:57pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/hdf5-is-broken-on-windows/125988/3 "2025-02-17T18:57:50Z")

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netCDF and HDF5 are very connected. Issue acknowledged at [HDF5: Build via cmake by eschnett · Pull Request #10347 · JuliaPackaging/Yggdrasil · GitHub](https://github.com/JuliaPackaging/Yggdrasil/pull/10347#issuecomment-2662923973)