What does it mean when CreateNamedPipe returns of 0xFFFFFFFF perror() says "NO ERROR'? - named-pipes

Question

I am using CreateNamedPipe. It returns 0XFFFFFFFF but when I call GetLastError and perror I get "NO ERROR".
I have checked https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/ipc/multithreaded-pipe-server and I heve coded very similar.
I coded this using an example provided here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/47731784/c-createnamedpipe-error-path-not-found-3#= and he says it means ERROR_PATH_NOT_FOUND (3). But my address is "\\.\pipe\pipe_com1. Note that StackOverflow seems to remove the extra slashes but you will see them in the paste of my code.
I followed the example here: Create Named Pipe C++ Windows but I still get the error. Here is my code:
// Create a named pipe
// It is used to test TcpToNamedPipe to be sore it it is addressing the named pipe
#include <windows.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <process.h>
char ch;
int main(int nargs, char** argv)
{
if (nargs != 2)
{
printf("Usage pipe name is first arg\n");
printf("press any key to exit ");
scanf("%c", &ch);
return -1;
}
char buffer[1024];
HANDLE hPipe;
DWORD dwRead;
sprintf(buffer, "\\\\.\\pipe\\%s", argv[1]);
hPipe = CreateNamedPipe((LPCWSTR)buffer,
PIPE_ACCESS_DUPLEX,
PIPE_TYPE_BYTE | PIPE_READMODE_BYTE | PIPE_WAIT, // FILE_FLAG_FIRST_PIPE_INSTANCE is not needed but forces CreateNamedPipe(..) to fail if the pipe already exists...
1,
1024*16,
1024*16,
NMPWAIT_USE_DEFAULT_WAIT,
NULL);
if (hPipe == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE)
{
//int errorno = GetLastError();
//printf("error creating pipe %d\n", errorno);
perror("");
printf("press any key to exit ");
scanf("%c", &ch);
return -1;
}
while (hPipe != INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE)
{
if (ConnectNamedPipe(hPipe, NULL) != FALSE) // wait for someone to connect to the pipe
{
while (ReadFile(hPipe, buffer, sizeof(buffer) - 1, &dwRead, NULL) != FALSE)
{
/* add terminating zero */
buffer[dwRead] = '\0';
/* do something with data in buffer */
printf("%s", buffer);
}
}
DisconnectNamedPipe(hPipe);
}
return 0;
}
I'm guessing that the pointer to the address may be wrong and CreateNamedPipe is not seeing the name of the pipe properly. So I used disassembly and notice that the address is in fact a far pointer. Here is that disassembly:
00CA1A45 mov esi,esp
00CA1A47 push 0
00CA1A49 push 0
00CA1A4B push 4000h
00CA1A50 push 4000h
00CA1A55 push 1
00CA1A57 push 0
00CA1A59 push 3
00CA1A5B lea eax,[buffer]
00CA1A61 push eax
00CA1A62 call dword ptr [__imp__CreateNamedPipeW#32 (0CAB00Ch)]
Can someone spot my problem?