When translating error messages I get back a pointer to a string (pMsgBuf) that looks like this

pMsgBuf = "The stra...."

The message is there but separated by nulls. Its got to be a parameter that I am passing to Format Message, but have no idea how to fix it.

{
char* pMsgBuf;
// windows will allocate memory for err string and make our pointer point to it

const DWORD nMsgLen = FormatMessage(
    FORMAT_MESSAGE_ALLOCATE_BUFFER |
    FORMAT_MESSAGE_FROM_SYSTEM | FORMAT_MESSAGE_IGNORE_INSERTS,
    nullptr, hr, MAKELANGID(LANG_NEUTRAL, SUBLANG_DEFAULT),
    reinterpret_cast<LPWSTR>(&pMsgBuf), 0, nullptr
);
// 0 string length returned indicates a failure
if (nMsgLen == 0)
{
    return "Unidentified error code";
}
char joe[100]{};
for (int i = 0, y = 0; i < nMsgLen *2; i++)
{
if (pMsgBuf[i] != '')
    joe[y++] = pMsgBuf[i];
    
}
// copy error string from windows-allocated buffer to std::string
std::string errorString = pMsgBuf;
// free windows buffer
size_t size = sizeof(pMsgBuf);
LocalFree(pMsgBuf);
return errorString;

}

Test code with watch active

Should have gotten back my string pointer back with trailing not each character with a null.

Created a test block to confirm that was what I was getting back from format message.

 char joe[100]{};
    for (int i = 0, y = 0; i < nMsgLen *2; i++)
    {
if (pMsgBuf[i] != '')
    joe[y++] = pMsgBuf[i];

     }    

sure enough Joe the string comes out correctly.