(v1.5.1) Mod Organizer 2 & Other tools - From zero to "Hey Sexlab is working!"

[Just Don't]

4 hours ago, BaB1S said:

Yes that was the old school method i was reffering too... So after a clean reinstall a lot of fury and cursing i found my problem... As always it was user created (Insert idiot me there)... Since it's not my first modding of skyrim as mentioned there were some leftovers i had to switch paths to... Long story short even though i did choose the correct path for the skse.exe i didn't choose the correct path for it to start...It was left in the previous path the game was years ago...Choosing the correct path fixed everything...Everything runs smooth now with all mods on your guide up to the testing step loaded... Again thank you for this great guide and i'm sorry for the hassle!! Hopefully this will help someone else at some point!

Holy. I never thought about old installs. It certainly explains why MO was giving warnings about incompatible mods when the right versions were installed. I'm glad you could catch it in your reinstall and fixed it.

[BaB1S]

1 hour ago, dontknowdontcaredontask said:

Holy. I never thought about old installs. It certainly explains why MO was giving warnings about incompatible mods when the right versions were installed. I'm glad you could catch it in your reinstall and fixed it.

What made me catch it and that's just for reference for other people is that even with just skse as a "mod" loaded when i launched through MO the game would launch but i wasn't able to actually start a game i would get stuck at the menu music when i hit new game ((Not crashing)). But when i launched through skse.exe directly the game would start and i waited long enough to get the "ESC" working so i could see in the pause menu if skse had loaded and it had...

[Nazakoo]

Ok so i got to step 10

when i ran the game though SKSE it made a overwrite file and in the top left corner i got the error of 

"

There are currently files in your Overwrite directory. These files are typically newly created files, usually generated by an external mod tool (i.e. Wrye Bash, xEdit, FNIS, ...). Creation Club ESL files will also end up here when downloaded. Any files in Overwrite will take top priority when loading your mod files and will always overwrite any other mod in your profile.

It is recommended that you review the files in Overwrite and move any relevant files to a new or existing mod. You can do this by double-clicking the Overwrite mod and dragging files from the Overwrite window to a mod entry in the main mod list. It is also possible to move all current Overwrite files to a new mod by right-clicking on the Overwrite mod.

Not all files in Overwrite need to be removed, but there are several reasons to do so. Some generated files will be directly related to the active mods in your profile and will be incompatible with different mod setups. Since Overwrite is always active, this could cause conflicts between profiles. Additionally, moving relevant game files into a normal mod will give you greater control over those files. Some files can live safely in Overwrite, such as basic logs and cache files. It is up to you to understand how best to manage these files.

If you do not wish to see this warning and understand how to handle your Overwrite directory, you can open the Mod Organizer settings and disable this warning under the "Diagnose Basic" plugin configuration."

 

and the error of 

 

 

"You have one or more script extender plugins which failed to load!

 

If you want this notification to go away, here are some steps you can take:

• Look for updates to the mod or the specific plugin included in the mod.

• Disable the mod containing the plugin.

• Hide or delete the plugin from the mod.

 

To refresh the script extender logs, you will need to run the game and/or editor again!

 

The failed plugins are:

• Couldn't load SchlongsOfSkyrim.dll (SOS). A DLL is invalid (code 193)."

 

I was getting pretty much everything i did stuffed in "Overwrite" at the bottom. Everything included BodySlider, SSEEdit auto, SKSE, and so on. one thing that is also off from what i saw you do is my BodySlide output has a red boxed with a black X in it. 

 

[Just Don't]

18 minutes ago, Nazakoo said:

<snip>

I already answered this. It's in page 9, reply here.

[Nazakoo]

Sorry did not see that you responded, didn't mean to spam you.

1. Understood

2. This error is preventing me from starting the game. I went and removed SOS, and reinstalled it just to be sure it was the right SOS that i installed. Didn't work. Tried running the game twice after reading that in rare cases it will say error when no error existed, and it still wouldn't launch.
3. The only thing that goes into "BS output" is a file that says "Meta" nothing else exists in the file

[HS698]

Y'ello everyone!

 

First, thanks for this guide it's awesome

But, I have a major problem of course, being the usual noob, and can't seem to find anyone else having the same problem to find the solution.

 

After going through these steps in the guide, I start a new game. The Race Menu shows up, but the screen showing the character is just blank. All blue screen. I can change the gender and then for some settings the hands are there but never anything else.

If I go through and accept, to start the game, the only thing that shows is the direction bar at the top of the screen. Everything is blue color....

 

Would anyone at all have a notion of what the heck is going on to cause this? I've been troubleshooting for several days to no avail,

[Just Don't]

14 hours ago, Nazakoo said:

2. This error is preventing me from starting the game. I went and removed SOS, and reinstalled it just to be sure it was the right SOS that i installed. Didn't work. Tried running the game twice after reading that in rare cases it will say error when no error existed, and it still wouldn't launch.

Check that no other version of SOS is installed in MO or directly in your game folder. I can't reproduce the issue with SOS for SE 1.1.4. So it might be that you have a different install somewhere that is incompatible. Apart from that, you should also check the SKSE install (you could start the game without SOS and see if the Sexlab installs goes well, it should detect your SKSE install properly if it was done right).

14 hours ago, Nazakoo said:

3. The only thing that goes into "BS output" is a file that says "Meta" nothing else exists in the file

As I said, the BS output will be empty until you build something that is not already present in the mod files. For the mods covered in this guide, the only files that would end in the output are the .tri files when you build the CBBE body/outfits with body morphs enabled. If you haven't used BS already, it will remain empty. If you didn't build your stuff with body morphs, it will be empty too. And in the rare case you installed pre-built .tri files (it's an optional setting in the CBBE SE installer), these files will be in the MO2\mods\CBBE SE... folder and won't appear in the Overwrite nor in the BS output (because these files already exists). But if you say there were BS files in Overwrite, it seems like you did something wrong during step 8.3. Which steps did you do? did you just created the BS Output and configured it in the executable window? or did you also went into BS setting to change the "Output path"? 

[Just Don't]

1 hour ago, HS698 said:

After going through these steps in the guide, I start a new game. The Race Menu shows up, but the screen showing the character is just blank. All blue screen. I can change the gender and then for some settings the hands are there but never anything else.

If I go through and accept, to start the game, the only thing that shows is the direction bar at the top of the screen. Everything is blue color....

For the blue screen during character creation menu, I've only read about such issue and the recommendation is to disable V-sync. To do this, you can run BethINI again and make sure it's disabled in the "Basic" tab before pressing "Save & Exit". You can also go to MO2\profiles\Default and edit the skyrimprefs.ini file directly, adding the following line

Quote

[Display]

...

iVSyncPresentInterval=0

...

Although I can't reproduce this changing said setting (probably because I'm already using ENB + custom settings in my nVidia Profile for SE which override the vanilla settings).

 

And the settings in the menu are also gone? this I can't reproduce at all. Seeing a picture could help to pinpoint the issue. Also, does it happen with Alternate Start? did you try in vanilla or with other mods to skip the tutorial? 

[HS698]

27 minutes ago, dontknowdontcaredontask said:

For the blue screen during character creation menu, I've only read about such issue and the recommendation is to disable V-sync. To do this, you can run BethINI again and make sure it's disabled in the "Basic" tab before pressing "Save & Exit". You can also go to MO2\profiles\Default and edit the skyrimprefs.ini file directly, adding the following line

Although I can't reproduce this changing said setting (probably because I'm already using ENB + custom settings in my nVidia Profile for SE which override the vanilla settings).

 

And the settings in the menu are also gone? this I can't reproduce at all. Seeing a picture could help to pinpoint the issue. Also, does it happen with Alternate Start? did you try in vanilla or with other mods to skip the tutorial? 

Thanks!

 

I went through and turned off V-sync.... unfortunately it didn't fix the problem for me on my side.

Here's a pic:

 

Initially the hands are also invisible until I change the sex, then they appear. I've tried tweaking all the settings to see if that would bring them up but the hands are the most I can get to show. If I select R to complete this, it'll finish and start the game but with the same blue screen except the Direction bar at the top

 

I have the Alternate Start enabled and use that, yes. I haven't tried without that enabled though...

[Just Don't]

35 minutes ago, HS698 said:

Initially the hands are also invisible until I change the sex, then they appear. I've tried tweaking all the settings to see if that would bring them up but the hands are the most I can get to show. If I select R to complete this, it'll finish and start the game but with the same blue screen except the Direction bar at the top

Ah I see, at least the menu works as intended. It must be one of the skyrimprefs settings (I tested the v-sync one and iMultisample, couldn't reproduce this bug...).

 

Try with 

Quote

[Display]

...

iMultiSample=0

Remember to modify it directly in the skyrimprefs.ini inside MO2\profiles\Default (with MO closed). Or using the INI Editor in MO (with MO open, the INI Editor is under the jigsaw puzzle button). Make sure it's set to 0, and if that line is not present, add it under [Display] with "=0".

 

Also, are you using ENB?

[HS698]

3 hours ago, dontknowdontcaredontask said:

Ah I see, at least the menu works as intended. It must be one of the skyrimprefs settings (I tested the v-sync one and iMultisample, couldn't reproduce this bug...).

 

Try with 

Remember to modify it directly in the skyrimprefs.ini inside MO2\profiles\Default (with MO closed). Or using the INI Editor in MO (with MO open, the INI Editor is under the jigsaw puzzle button). Make sure it's set to 0, and if that line is not present, add it under [Display] with "=0".

 

Also, are you using ENB?

Yeesh, added that line to the skyrimprefs and still no bueno, giving the same strange bug.

 

No, I don't have ENB installed at all, I skipped out on that one

[Just Don't]

21 hours ago, HS698 said:

Yeesh, added that line to the skyrimprefs and still no bueno, giving the same strange bug.

 

No, I don't have ENB installed at all, I skipped out on that one

You're running the game in window mode instead of full screen?

Did you tested starting the game without Alternate Start? you can be a hero and try vanilla until you reach the character creation menu or use another mod like Skyrim Unbound (if you go for Skyrim Unbound, you'll need to start a new game, wait for 10-20 secs viewing the destroyed Helgen, then go into the System menu, Mod configuration and select the Skyrim Unbound MCM, in the first page there is a setting to start your adventure, which takes you to the character creation menu). Skyrim Unbound is the alternate start I use, but for testing this I'll remove my ENB and test different starting methods to see if I can replicate the issue.

 

Edit: did some testing, I can't replicate this at all. What's weird about this issue is it usually happens when people mix vanilla ini settings with ENB, I've never read about it happening without ENB. Are you totally sure you don't have files from a previous install in some place that could interfere with the install you did following this guide? Also, something I forgot to recommend you at first: disable every mod in the left panel (except for the SKSE scripts and the SKSE ini) and try to start a new game until you reach the character creation menu. See how it behaves, if the issue appears there too, etc.

[HS698]

On 7/28/2020 at 6:24 PM, dontknowdontcaredontask said:

You're running the game in window mode instead of full screen?

Did you tested starting the game without Alternate Start? you can be a hero and try vanilla until you reach the character creation menu or use another mod like Skyrim Unbound (if you go for Skyrim Unbound, you'll need to start a new game, wait for 10-20 secs viewing the destroyed Helgen, then go into the System menu, Mod configuration and select the Skyrim Unbound MCM, in the first page there is a setting to start your adventure, which takes you to the character creation menu). Skyrim Unbound is the alternate start I use, but for testing this I'll remove my ENB and test different starting methods to see if I can replicate the issue.

 

Edit: did some testing, I can't replicate this at all. What's weird about this issue is it usually happens when people mix vanilla ini settings with ENB, I've never read about it happening without ENB. Are you totally sure you don't have files from a previous install in some place that could interfere with the install you did following this guide? Also, something I forgot to recommend you at first: disable every mod in the left panel (except for the SKSE scripts and the SKSE ini) and try to start a new game until you reach the character creation menu. See how it behaves, if the issue appears there too, etc.

Hm,

 

Well, deactivated all of the mods except the SKSE Scripts and SKSE64 ini pre-download for lazy users. However, the game crashes now when trying to start it.

 

I'm thinking perhaps I should try to wipe everything and try going through this again?

[YojimboRatchet]

20 minutes ago, HS698 said:

I'm thinking perhaps I should try to wipe everything and try going through this again?

honestly. i ended up doing this exactly from scratch after 2 weeks of the first time i did all of this. i learned quite a bit at that time compared to the first time, and i will say this as well, pay very close attention to the files you download, versioning is very important as is the port (SE vs LE). and make sure to read the mod instructions on each page before you download them.

 

and if you have steam cloud turned on, as well as windows One Drive app, make sure all the saves are deleted before you redownload everything. it's a pain to do, and time consuming, but well worth that effort.

 

i'm getting ready to do a 3rd full wipe/restart myself lol. and of course, i am following this guide once more. it's totally solid and well done. and if you end up having any issues, just ask here

 

good luck !

[Just Don't]

1 hour ago, HS698 said:

Well, deactivated all of the mods except the SKSE Scripts and SKSE64 ini pre-download for lazy users. However, the game crashes now when trying to start it.

Then something is wrong in your game install (or you installed wrong the SKSE files). Can you even start the game without MO, just using the default launcher/executable?

 

Most likely your game install isn't clean or something else went bad at that point.

 

1 hour ago, YojimboRatchet said:

i'm getting ready to do a 3rd full wipe/restart myself lol. and of course, i am following this guide once more. it's totally solid and well done. and if you end up having any issues, just ask here

3 wipes? Why? your game shouldn't need to be reinstalled, and most things can be removed, changed or re-installed with just a couple of clicks in MO.

[YojimboRatchet]

27 minutes ago, dontknowdontcaredontask said:

3 wipes? Why? your game shouldn't need to be reinstalled, and most things can be removed, changed or re-installed with just a couple of clicks in MO.

yeah, this time time i'm setting it all up from scratch on a partition instead of my main drive, and also setting it up for MO profiles, like i mentioned before lol. wiping it ensures it's totally clean for an ocd guy like me ?

 

[Just Don't]

On 7/30/2020 at 12:44 PM, YojimboRatchet said:

like i mentioned before lol. wiping it ensures it's totally clean for an ocd guy like me ?

 

Well, I've been there myself.

 

---------------------------------

Added step 4.4 which 

1. checks if the game can even reach the main menu (really)
2. checks if the user installed SKSE properly
3. optionally, there are instructions to do a quick in game test to confirm things are looking good in the Vanilla realm (expect vanilla ugliness but at least a working game with no obvious issues)

I never do such thing, but hey, everyone can make a mistake in the way. And if adding a simple step before installing +20 mods and using the other tools can help to spot the issue, count me in.

[YojimboRatchet]

2 hours ago, dontknowdontcaredontask said:

Well, I've been there myself.

 

---------------------------------

Added step 4.4 which 

1. checks if the game can even reach the main menu (really)
2. checks if the user installed SKSE properly
3. optionally, there are instructions to do a quick in game test to confirm things are looking good in the Vanilla realm (expect vanilla ugliness but at least a working game with no obvious issues)

I never do such thing, but hey, everyone can make a mistake in the way. And if adding a simple step before installing +20 mods and using the other tools can help to spot the issue, count me in.

awesome, and yeah, you never know, i have seen personally a lot of weird things and read about others having weird things, so playing it safe is always a good thing lol

[PixelPolarity]

Okay, so, I'm new to this whole, modding scene and this guide has been nothing but helpful to me. However, there's just a couple things that are very much worrying me.

These alarming symbols next to RaceMenu and TemperedSkinForMales have been there since I installed them. What do they mean? Did I make a mistake somewhere? How do I fix this?

I'm still at step 5 and am close to finishing it however I'd love find out what's causing this to happen. I got a warning when I finished installing them- something about multiple esp or es-something-or-other files that might conflict with each other.

If any of ya'll could help me out, I'd most appreciate it!

Also, sorry for the cruddy image. My computer is new and it's lacking screenshot software, apparently.

[Just Don't]

26 minutes ago, PixelPolarity said:

These alarming symbols next to RaceMenu and TemperedSkinForMales have been there since I installed them. What do they mean? Did I make a mistake somewhere? How do I fix this?

That triangle ! flag appears when there is a mismatch between the installed version and the latest version according to the mod Nexus page (which is information set by the mod author). For example the latest Racemenu file says version: 0.4.12, but the latest version according to its Nexus page is 0.4.11. (same goes for the Tempered skins, which has a version 2.01 file but Nexus considers 2.0 to be the latest version). So you did nothing wrong here. To remove that flag in MO, find Racemenu or any other mod with that flag in your left panel, right click on it and select "Ignore update". The flag will disappear and also the version number will be in green like most of the other mods instead of red.

 

26 minutes ago, PixelPolarity said:

I got a warning when I finished installing them- something about multiple esp or es-something-or-other files that might conflict with each other.

That warning happens when you enable a mod with multiple plugin files (esp/esm/esl) that appear now in your loadorder. This warning is useful if the user installed a mod which comes with several plugins for different options but it's mean to only enable one (for example a mod that changes the timescale setting and comes with several esp files named TS_modx10.esp, TS_modx15.esp, TS_modx5.esp, etc. all these plugins are only changing one single setting so the user should've installed only one of them). In the case of the mods covered in this guide, that warning isn't useful, there are no conflicting or repeated plugins within the installed mods so you should be fine ignoring that message.

[PixelPolarity]

2 minutes ago, dontknowdontcaredontask said:

That triangle ! flag appears when there is a mismatch between the installed version and the latest version according to the mod Nexus page (which is information set by the mod author). For example the latest Racemenu file says version: 0.4.12, but the latest version according to its Nexus page is 0.4.11. (same goes for the Tempered skins, which has a version 2.01 file but Nexus considers 2.0 to be the latest version). So you did nothing wrong here. To remove that flag in MO, find Racemenu or any other mod with that flag in your left panel, right click on it and select "Ignore update". The flag will disappear and also the version number will be in green like most of the other mods instead of red.

 

That warning happens when you enable a mod with multiple plugin files (esp/esm/esl) that appear now in your loadorder. This warning is useful if the user installed a mod which comes with several plugins for different options but it's mean to only enable one (for example a mod that changes the timescale setting and comes with several esp files named TS_modx10.esp, TS_modx15.esp, TS_modx5.esp, etc. all these plugins are only changing one single setting so the user should've installed only one of them). In the case of the mods covered in this guide, that warning isn't useful, there are no conflicting or repeated plugins within the installed mods so you should be fine ignoring that message.

Thank you so much for the help! Thank for the extra info as well. I predict I'll be coming here very often for help. I hope I'm not too much of a bother!

[PixelPolarity]

It seems I was right in assuming that I would be here sooner than later.
Looks like I may have made a mistake back in Step 2 with BethINI where I somehow deleted or misplaced the Skyrim.ini file when I was meant to keep it as well as make a back up of it.

Would it be possible to reinstall BethINI and recreate these files or would this just create a lot more problems for me? I'm mostly worried that I'll have to restart this entire process of downloading all these mods and such.

What do ya'll make of it?

Edit: Could Skyrim_Default.ini be what I'm looking for?

[Just Don't]

13 minutes ago, PixelPolarity said:

Looks like I may have made a mistake back in Step 2 with BethINI where I somehow deleted or misplaced the Skyrim.ini file when I was meant to keep it as well as make a back up of it.

You shouldn't need to redownload or reinstall anything just for this. Use the vanilla launcher again to generate the default ini files. Then use BethINI again and move the ini files from your Documents to MO2\profiles\Default. Don't touch the inis in the game folder.

[PixelPolarity]

28 minutes ago, dontknowdontcaredontask said:

You shouldn't need to redownload or reinstall anything just for this. Use the vanilla launcher again to generate the default ini files. Then use BethINI again and move the ini files from your Documents to MO2\profiles\Default. Don't touch the inis in the game folder.

Okay, I've made an error. I jumped the gun and did exactly what you said NOT to do and touched the inis in the game folder. I copied and pasted the skyrim.ini and skyrimprefs.ini from the Default folder into the game folder that held the original skyrimprefs.ini file, replacing the original with the new one in a fool's attempt to skip some kind of step. Has this utterly ruined the process for me or is there an easy fix? I apologize for my brain-dead actions.

[Just Don't]

9 minutes ago, PixelPolarity said:

Has this utterly ruined the process for me or is there an easy fix? I apologize for my brain-dead actions.

Not really, the only thing you should do is make sure in the end you use the files generated by BethINI and move them to the MO2 folder.