Thanks so much for your reply! I've tried a few different things since I posted this. It actually doesn't seem to throw the error (or maybe it never gets there) on the part that loads the wav file, it throws the error when trying to initialize SDL. It looks like the last thing I tried was this: if( SDL_Init( SDL_INIT_AUDIO ) < 0 ) { printf( "SDL could not initialize! SDL Error: %s\n", SDL_GetError() ); } It doesn't print anything, but it still generates the error message. I don't even have the line in the code to play the wav file. I'm going to take a look at the links you provided and see if they give me any clue. Thank you!