"entry point sqlite3_prepare_V2 could not be located" Error

[csterg]

This error has been reported a few times lately and it happens when you try to start theWord.
The following dialog appears:

Untitled.png (14.27 KiB) Viewed 3925 times

If you get this error, then your computer is already infected with a Trojan (something like a virus). The best solution is to get a good anti-malware software and clean-up your system.
It has been identified that the software called 'IncrediBar' (which is a custom IE/Firefox/Chrome toolbar that is usually installed with some other freeware/shareware without your permission), and specifically a process called 'IB Update Service' causes the problem.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
1. The best solution is to try to uninstall the IncrediBar software (if this is the one causing the problem), or try running some anti-malware software to find out if there is some other software causing the problem
2. The second best solution is to try to 'cover-up' the problem and make theWord start working again on your infected system!!! If you are reading this, you should feel blessed that you are running theWord because you just found out that your system has a Trojan and someone else has access to your private data (sorry for the bad news). In fact, a future update of theWord will make sure that theWord will work in such infected systems (although the current situation reveals a much worst and serious system infection). There are 2 solutions:
a. Right-click on theWord icon and select 'Run as administrator'. This is really a BAD solution, since it may cause further problems in the future, but for now, it will work
b. A second solution is to replace the file called sqlite3.dll that is in the folder where theWord is installed (same folder as the theword.exe) with a newer version of this file (a newer version will be posted later in this thread).

Read below for technical details
For those curious about this situation, here is what happens (on my machine, win7):
The IB Updater service that causes the problem running is: c:\windows\system32\dmwu.exe
This process actually uses another version of sqltie3.dll that is stored in c:\windows\SysWOW64\jmdp\sqlite3.dll (the actual folders may differ on other systems).
Now, what happens is that this process hijacks any program that starts: but the problem here is that theWord uses it's own older version of sqlite3.dll and windows cannot load twice the same .dll in the same process space. So, when theWord starts, this program hijacks the process, but the sqlite3.dll that is loaded is the older version (the one shipped with theWord) that does not contains the sqlite3_prepare_v2 function that the trojan program expects, and so this error appears... actually this error is an error of the trojan application that cannot work with the sqlite3.dll that ships with theWord (which it hijacks).

Costas

[csterg]

A simple solution that will work, if you don't want to change anything else on your PC:
go to the official sqlite3 site, click on the Download link on the top, then scroll down to the Precompiled Binaries for Windows and download the sqlite-dll-win32-x86-xxxxxxx.zip file from there.

The latest version (as of this writing) is this: http://www.sqlite.org/2013/sqlite-dll-w ... 071700.zip, but this link may not work in the future.

Just get this zip file and decompress from within the sqlite3.dll file and extract and overwrite this with the one that resides in the same folder as the theword.exe file,

Costas

[vivekan]

Thanks Costas.

I also had the IB Updater. As you suggested, I uninstalled the IB Updater, downloaded new version of sqlite3.dll from the link and replaced it in thword directory. It worked !!.

Once again thank you for the professional help. God bless you.
Vivekan

[everfree]

Thank you Costas. The link you posted, http://www.sqlite.org/2013/sqlite-dll-w ... 071700.zip, worked on my Win7 machine.