Why is this happening? Help!

[Thgil444]

So I recently got back into playing skyrim (LE) and for the past 2 weeks I've been building a heavily modded game and as I've been installing the mods I've been patiently testing the game along the way too making sure its running fine and there aren't any CTDs. Everything was going great and the last thing I wanted to do was just add some follower mods and merge them before I could start my playthrough. Then out of nowhere to my massive frustration the mods suddenly weren't loading properly in the game. When I load into the save, the game was just a buggy mess I couldn't describe.

 

After a while I narrowed down the problem to what I think is NMM. So apparently at 603 mods active, the game works fine but the moment there are 604 or anymore mods active, the mods won't load in the game. I know the mods don't load cuz I get the the 'save doesn't contain contents' msg when I load the save but when I go back down to 603 installed mods, I don't get that msg and the save works fine. Why is this happening though? Does NMM have some 603 mod limit? Is this maybe a SKSE problem? I didn't really find anything when I searched online that could help me. I'm a very casual modder and I've been using NMM for the longest time because of its simple UI. I know MO is way better and I wanted to switch to MO at one point but I just never felt the need to go through the hassle since NMM has always worked fine for me. Have I paid the price for not doing so now though? Do I really have to uninstall all those mods I installed over 2 weeks and reinstall them again on MO? I really want to avoid that but I'll have no choice if that's my only option left. But is this even a NMM issue? Would be very grateful if someone could guide and help me. Thx!

 

Edit: Attached load order

LO.txt

[Dorabella]

In my experience, it seems to me that the maximum of the mods supported by the game (not the mod manager), is 255 and no more than 600 (those in excess that are not loaded, they seem useful only to cause problems).

An alternative, however applicable without removing anything is, to disable relatively minor plugins (ES: weapons, armors) . 

[donttouchmethere]

NMM just installs the mods. I had setups with more than 600 mods and I use NMM too.

 

There might be a lot of other issues too that can effect such a big LO:

> failed merges

> conflicts

> crash fixes v12 not used

> LO

> the type of mods you add

> patches

> FNIS limit

> 254 plugin limit

> ...

 

From what you write you are just focusing on NMM being the culprit.

With the given information no one can say anything about what is really happening.

[donttouchmethere]

13 minutes ago, Thgil444 said:

Everything was going great and the last thing I wanted to do was just add some follower mods and merge them before I could start my playthrough.

That seems to be a good start to check for issues.

If you create such a big LO and merges it is better to check the mods you add first if they even work as intended or you are in a world of pain to find out what the issues are in a 600+ mods setup ?

[Heroine HoneyCrotch]

Your having problems with a new game?

 

Were the followers already in save game prior to merge?

 

 

[Just Don't]

I remember reading about this dude who made hundreds of merges and custom patching, while using NMM as you. He reached a point where there were so many esp files that NMM refused to work anymore (enabled and disabled seems to count if you have them in the Data folder).

 

If you're putting the effort to make such a heavily modded game, you could use one of the more modern mod managers, Vortex or MO2 are the most solid candidates. Just saying.

[Thgil444]

29 minutes ago, Lestat1627 said:

In my experience, it seems to me that the maximum of the mods supported by the game (not the mod manager), is 255 and no more than 600 (those in excess that are not loaded, they seem useful only to cause problems).

An alternative, however applicable without removing anything is, to disable relatively minor plugins (ES: weapons, armors) . 

600 is really the limit then? 

27 minutes ago, donttouchmethere said:

NMM just installs the mods. I had setups with more than 600 mods and I use NMM too.

 

There might be a lot of other issues too that can effect such a big LO:

> failed merges

> conflicts

> crash fixes v12 not used

> LO

> the type of mods you add

> patches

> FNIS limit

> 254 plugin limit

> ...

 

From what you write you are just focusing on NMM being the culprit.

With the given information no one can say anything about what is really happening.

I've done 9 merges with the merge plugins standalone so that I wouldn't go over the 254 plugin limit. I did test all the merges though when I did them last week. Didn't have any problems. Evidence seems to point at NMM so far though.

 

23 minutes ago, donttouchmethere said:

That seems to be a good start to check for issues.

If you create such a big LO and merges it is better to check the mods you add first if they even work as intended or you are in a world of pain to find out what the issues are in a 600+ mods setup ?

Yeah I know merging mods is a pain. Trust me I've been through that before ?That's why this time I've been extra careful. I have 2 merges for armor mods, 1 for player homes, 1 for npc overhauls and few more misc ones. I tested them all though and there wasn't any issue I came across. I thought I was past the difficult part before this issue popped up ?

 @Heroine of the Night Not a new game exactly. It's an old save without mods. Nope, these were all new followers. The issue is that beyond 603 mods installed, the mods just don't load. The game works perfectly fine once I go down to 603 mods. I thought it was maybe a mod causing a problem but I tested other mods but its the same result. It just doesn't seem to want to handle mods beyond 603 ?     

@dontknowdontcaredontask Yep, sounds like exactly what I'm experiencing. So many esp files that NMM just stops working. And yep, it doesn't matter if the esp is disabled. It still won't load the mods unless I uninstall the 604th mod and go back down to 603. I just wish I knew about this before I started installing the mods. I would've just used MO from the start ?

[Dorabella]

Just now, Thgil444 said:

Trust me

If you have put so many, surely you know what you are doing. The advice to disable one plugin at a time remains valid (perhaps starting from the last installed mod). Who knows, maybe you find that the cause comes just what you have disabled and could help you solve the problem

[Just Don't]

14 minutes ago, Thgil444 said:

@dontknowdontcaredontask Yep, that what it feels like. So many esp files that NMM just stops working. I wish I knew about this then I would've just used MO from the start ?

Isn't there an easy way to remove/hide just the esp of the mods you've merged already? (without messing with NMM so it refuses to work because reasons) That way you could try if that's the reason and act accordingly. But yeah, switching to a different mod manager stands as my recommendation.

[Thgil444]

31 minutes ago, Lestat1627 said:

If you have put so many, surely you know what you are doing. The advice to disable one plugin at a time remains valid (perhaps starting from the last installed mod). Who knows, maybe you find that the cause comes just what you have disabled and could help you solve the problem

Yeah I've tried modding skyrim before and sometimes I got too hasty, particularly when it came to merging and it just messed up the game. This time I was extra careful, patient, organized and I got the merges to work properly. I was hoping to solve the issue by doing exactly that by disabling plugins but it didn't work. The thing is I installed the game in parts like player homes first, armors second, quests 3rd etc. The problem only started when I was on the final step of adding followers. I installed a few followers before this issue popped up so I thought maybe it was a follower mod I installed. I backtracked and uninstalled them but they work fine as long as I'm below 603 mods so I'm sure it's not a plugin problem sadly. I'd take that over what I'm facing right now which is a waste of 2 weeks and having to reinstall everything on MO now ?

 

@dontknowdontcaredontask I have the esps of the merged mods disabled but the mods themselves are still installed so NMM still counts them as 'active mods' towards the 603 limit. Unfortunately I think NMM has a problem with the number of mods installed rather than the number of esps or active plugins. I have 222 active plugins atm. Yeah it looks I'm being left with no option here but to shift over to MO and reinstall everything ?

[Seijin8]

20 minutes ago, Thgil444 said:

Yeah it looks I'm being left with no option here but to shift over to MO and reinstall everything 

While this is not to be taken as general advice, in your case, you should just be able to install MO and have it run everything as-is.  Export a copy of which mods are active and make sure MO references it the same way, and you should be good to go.

 

In the long run, reinstalling fresh with MO would be the better bet, but for just getting up and running now, it should work.

[Thgil444]

1 minute ago, Seijin8 said:

While this is not to be taken as general advice, in your case, you should just be able to install MO and have it run everything as-is.  Export a copy of which mods are active and make sure MO references it the same way, and you should be good to go.

 

In the long run, reinstalling fresh with MO would be the better bet, but for just getting up and running now, it should work.

Can I? Thank god because this would save me a lot of time. I'll look up some tutorials on MO and then get started.

[Seijin8]

11 minutes ago, Thgil444 said:

Can I? Thank god because this would save me a lot of time. I'll look up some tutorials on MO and then get started.

Yes.  You won't get most of MO's functionality this way, but it will at least run once it is set up.

[Grey Cloud]

1 hour ago, Thgil444 said:

600 is really the limit then? 

No that his just his opinion.

[Grey Cloud]

1 hour ago, dontknowdontcaredontask said:

Isn't there an easy way to remove/hide just the esp of the mods you've merged already? (without messing with NMM so it refuses to work because reason

Yep, just remove them from the data folder.

[Grey Cloud]

This might be another one of those cases where the million records or FormIDs, or whatever it is, limit is reached rather than a hard and fast mod limit. There was a guy a few months back who had it due to a stupidly large number of mods.

 

Of course there is always the tried and true solution of self-restraint.

[Thgil444]

Ok so....I'm pretty sure I found the problem. I know I blamed NMM as the culprit but it just didn't sit right with me that NMM was the cause of the mods not loading properly. Turns out it really wasn't. I went into Appdata>Local>Skyrim>loadorder and noticed that the game loads all of the plugins, even those which are disabled. I didn't know this and there were 508 plugins in the loadorder. Did some searching and came across a post which said that the skyrim engine reads every file in the data folder whether the mod is active or not and if there are too many it just fails. The number is somewhere between 400 and 500.

 

I tested this by removing an esp of a mod I had merged from the data folder and installed another mod to pass the 603 active mod 'limit' and...the game worked. All the mods loaded correctly. Tested it more a couple of times and no problems. So....yeah, in short I had so many plugins that the game engine was like nope, that's it I can't handle any more esps than that ?? Now I can simply remove the disabled plugins I had left over from the merges I did from the data folder and reduce the limit so I can carry on where I left off so all ends well...for now at least. 

 

Some helpful tips to anyone who might encounter this same issue and comes across this thread, keep in mind that skyrim can't load more than exactly 508 plugins so exercise self-restraint when you see all those shiny mods ? Thanks to everyone who replied and helped. If I face any more issues I'll come back here for sure.

[Just Don't]

1 hour ago, Thgil444 said:

Did some searching and came across a post which said that the skyrim engine reads every file in the data folder whether the mod is active or not and if there are too many it just fails.

Yeah, that's why I recommended you ditching NMM or (manually) removing the disabled esp files out of your Data folder. Modern mod managers don't have this issue. You can hide/disable plugins in MO and these won't be in the default folder structure of the game, I think the same applies to Vortex. So this wouldn't be an issue if you, for whatever reason, want to leave hundreds of disabled esp lying on your mod folders.

[Grey Cloud]

7 hours ago, Thgil444 said:

508 plugins

Interesting number = 2 x 254

 

6 hours ago, dontknowdontcaredontask said:

I think the same applies to Vortex

Vortex uses a virtual directory and your Data folder. ? I've been using it for about 3 months and I'm less than impressed. Thinking hard about going back to NMM.

 

6 hours ago, dontknowdontcaredontask said:

want to leave hundreds of disabled esp lying on your mod folders.

Exactly. Common sense - if it's not being used it doesn't need to be there.

[Tlam99]

there is a reason to leave the deactivated esp(mods by a merge), in

I prefer MO2, because it can handle Wryre bash, xedit and zmerge.

So it's quite easy to update a mod.

 

install the update, place it above the older mod and deactivate older version (left window MO2)

edit merge in zmerge, create new merge.

run wryre bash and after that, xedit.

recommended is a save clean after that to get rid of old scripts.

finished, update installed.

[woodsman30]

A heavy load order can take weeks to build there is more than just testing there is playing the game often for hours at a time.  This is to build up a log to see if there is bloat, script errors ect.. The best advice I give is decide what type of play style you want and build to it. Just throwing mods in a game is a bad idea just because you can does not mean you should ... enter your issues. No amount of help can be offered if you mod irresponsibly ....mod smart and play the game. 

1 hour ago, Grey Cloud said:

I'm less than impressed. Thinking hard about going back to NMM.

I would never go back to NMM or MO once I really understood how Vortex worked and what it can do. I have many profiles with completely different mods for each and save games for each and have run into zero issues.. but that is just me.

[Grey Cloud]

25 minutes ago, T-lam said:

there is a reason to leave the deactivated esp(mods by a merge), in

I prefer MO2, because it can handle Wryre bash, xedit and zmerge.

So it's quite easy to update a mod.

If you have done the merge correctly then you don't need the original esps in there.

It is not only MO2 that can 'handle' WB et al so that statement is pointless.

 

20 minutes ago, woodsman30 said:

I have many profiles

I never use profiles so that doesn't enter into it with me. What I'm talking about are things like Vortex not activating an esp after installing a mod or mods. e.g. install one mod and the esp is activated. Run LOOT and Vortex deactivates the esp. Install 10 mods and all 10 are activated. Run LOOT and 9 are activated but the last to be installed is deactivated. Then there is the constant deploying.

Moving esps up and down your load order , e.g. for testing is a nightmare. You can't just drag the esp up and down like you can with NMM. This is why I use LOOT rather than Vortex's autosort function.

[Tlam99]

26 minutes ago, Grey Cloud said:

If you have done the merge correctly then you don't need the original esps in there.

It is not only MO2 that can 'handle' WB et al so that statement is pointless.

 

 

thats right that you don't need them, but if you leave them in, it makes the life easy to follow up updates.

And I said I PREFER, it's my statement and expirience.

Possibly I might help others ?

So your statement is pointless

[Grey Cloud]

1 hour ago, T-lam said:

it makes the life easy to follow up updates.

How so?

The OP is using NMM and the subject is leaving esps in the Data folder. MO doesn't do this so your comments are pointless.

 

1 hour ago, T-lam said:

And I said I PREFER, it's my statement and expirience.

No. You said

2 hours ago, T-lam said:

I prefer MO2, because it can handle Wryre bash, xedit and zmerge.

The operative word there is 'because'. The statement suggests that other mod managers cannot handle WB et al.

[Tlam99]

7 minutes ago, Grey Cloud said:

How so?

The OP is using NMM and the subject is leaving esps in the Data folder. MO doesn't do this so your comments are pointless.

 

No. You said

The operative word there is 'because'. The statement suggests that other mod managers cannot handle WB et al.

I prefer MO, because for MY expirience it handles Wrye bash, Xedit and Zedit very well.

OK for you ?

I leave deactivated mods in, because it makes it quite easy for ME to track updates.

OK for you ?

All this relates to MY expirience in modding. Others might handle it in a different way.

Just to point out, this is one of many ways in modding, I just want to give MY expirience to others for help.

I can only talk about MY expirience, others might not do so

@Tao Te Ching : Is it possible, that you cannot accept others expirience and opinion ?

It is a question, not a statement