[solved] I'm sick and tired of this game not working, nothing is working, everything is breaking and I can't fix it

[Beleg Maethor]

Typically, I play Skyrim for like a week or two, get bored, then come back some time later. I have come back, and as per usual, NOTHING IS WORKING.

 

Every single time I try to read all the instructions and find all the help I can get only for the game and or mods to just break.

 

This is the first time that Skyrim, the game itself, has stopped working. Typically, it's just the adult mods that are broken and don't work, but this time I can't even get into the game to see if they work, which they probably don't.

 

It all started with me trying to get Nexus Mod Manager to download and install the latest version of SD+ enhanced, which never happened. NMM decided that it was going to stop letting me add mods to the game, so when I went to go add the SD+ resources file, it just never downloaded it. It would sit in the download queue with "moving" in the status but never actually going anywhere. I tried to find a solution online but nothing worked. I then decided that I should get rid of NMM and replace it with Vortex, a newer and better version from my understanding. So, without uninstalling or disabling any of the mods, I uninstalled NMM and moved everything over to Vortex. When I enabled all the mods on Vortex, the game didn't launch. It would just say "Running" for a couple seconds then turn off. When I disabled all the mods I was shocked to see that all of the mods that NMM leftover were enabled and working properly. Surely enough, all the mod files were still there in the game files.

 

To fix this, I completely deleted Skyrim from my computer and reinstalled from scratch. With a brand new installation, I went back into Vortex and reinstalled all of the mods successfully. The only catch with Vortex was how it made me manually solve file conflicts. I had no idea what I was doing, so I pressed whatever it told me to press and then proceeded to imagine that this would have no impact on my game. I ran FNIS, everything was good, then I ran SKSE and sure enough the game didn't launch. . . what a surprise. I looked up the issue, saw that people suggested to start SKSE through the shortcut and not Vortex, an idea which I thought was going to work but didn't, in fact, it yielded the same exact result. 

 

Fed up with Vortex, I decided to look into Mod Organizer. I went on Nexus, downloaded the installer and sure as shit I couldn't even install the fucking thing because it had an error for writing files.

 

Before you ask, every single mod I had on Nexus installed and enabled is on Vortex. The correct mods are there with their correct dependencies and so on. I'd have to wager that the load order and or file conflicts are causing this problem, but I really have no idea. Nothing is working for me, and every time I try to find a solution, it never works, making me feel like I am discovering bugs that no one knew ever existed. Like I said, I have never experienced these issues before, typically it's the mods that break, never the game itself. 

 

EDIT: It was an outdated or corrupted version of Alternate Start that was messing everything up in Vortex, not the way I handled the load orders. In my files there were two different versions of Alternate Start and I ended up moving the one that didn't work to Vortex. You could imagine my surprise when the game launched with every mod enabled except for Alternate Start, which was the mod I had enabled when I originally doing the "enable one mod at a time" strategy. 

[Andy14]

 

[gregathit]

Best practice is to install a couple of mods (unless they are real small things like a few armors/weapons) and then fire up the game.  Create a test save right after Helgen (or if you are using alternate start you can just create a new game).  If everything works, install a few more and repeat. If it is a really big overhaul mod, do a separate test for just it.  Yes, it is work, but it is far better than installing 50 to 100 mods and then having no idea why your game doesn't work.

[Szlordrin]

 Check game integrity, may have lost some files during a defrag, or removal of mods, etc... 

[Clockwinding]

4 hours ago, Beleg Maethor said:

The only catch with Vortex was how it made me manually solve file conflicts. I had no idea what I was doing, so I pressed whatever it told me to press and then proceeded to imagine that this would have no impact on my game.

That's a no-no. Most of the time you can choose what to keep without much consequence, when it's textures especially. When it comes to scripts and meshes however, you'd better be damn sure of which one to override, and that's only possible by extensively reading the mods' instructions pages.

 

It's not something you can rush or do fast, as was said above. A full re-install should be done slowly, category by category, to check that everything's working as it should. I'm doing just that by transitionning from LE to SE, i'm four days in, and i still have stuff to reinstall because i check and go for bite-sized adjustments through SSEdit and check in-game every few plugins. It's tedious but all i've put in is working.

[Grey Cloud]

Choose a mod manager a stick with it. Learn how to use it. For the record, mod managers cannot download files from LL.

 

As the others have said, starting from scratch, checking your file integrity, making sure your base game is good and then adding mods a bunch at a time is the way to go.

 

Have a go with this

https://www.loverslab.com/blogs/entry/7521-conglomerate-01-basic-setup-for-modifing-skyrim-le-well-my-skyrim-got-messy-now-i-have-to-clean-it-up-so-i-thought-to-myself-why-not-start-a-blog-about-that/

 

[travelmedic]

besides some of the good resource material available right here on LL, also search for the STEP Wiki offsite and have a look at that.  The tools work, but you have to know how to use them properly.

[Whizkid]

google is your friend and u need to really invest time and effort to understand how stuff works, if not u are just hitting your head against a brick wall..., from your rant i could tell modding is not for you, just leave modding and play vanilla skyrim, it helps with mental stress...

[Beleg Maethor]

10 hours ago, gregathit said:

Best practice is to install a couple of mods (unless they are real small things like a few armors/weapons) and then fire up the game.  Create a test save right after Helgen (or if you are using alternate start you can just create a new game).  If everything works, install a few more and repeat. If it is a really big overhaul mod, do a separate test for just it.  Yes, it is work, but it is far better than installing 50 to 100 mods and then having no idea why your game doesn't work.

It was an outdated or corrupted version of Alternate Start that was messing everything up in Vortex, not the way I handled the load orders. In my files there were two different versions of Alternate Start and I ended up moving the one that didn't work to Vortex. You could imagine my surprise when the game launched with every mod enabled except for Alternate Start, which was the mod I had enabled when I originally doing the "enable one mod at a time" strategy. 

[Beleg Maethor]

5 hours ago, Grey Cloud said:

Choose a mod manager a stick with it. Learn how to use it. For the record, mod managers cannot download files from LL.

 

As the others have said, starting from scratch, checking your file integrity, making sure your base game is good and then adding mods a bunch at a time is the way to go.

 

Have a go with this

https://www.loverslab.com/blogs/entry/7521-conglomerate-01-basic-setup-for-modifing-skyrim-le-well-my-skyrim-got-messy-now-i-have-to-clean-it-up-so-i-thought-to-myself-why-not-start-a-blog-about-that/

 

No I downloaded the mod from LL, then I added it to NMM through my downloads folder. I already downloaded it, NMM just calls adding files to it "downloading". That's why it was so odd because 1. I never had that happen before and 2. All it had to do was add a file that was already on the computer. Either way NMM was old and decrepit from what I've read so it was better that I moved on to Vortex.

[gregathit]

That is good news.  Glad you are working.

 

Cheers.

[Beleg Maethor]

52 minutes ago, Whizkid said:

google is your friend and u need to really invest time and effort to understand how stuff works, if not u are just hitting your head against a brick wall..., from your rant i could tell modding is not for you, just leave modding and play vanilla skyrim, it helps with mental stress...

Well it ended up being a problem with the version of Alternate Start I had enabled. I'm still pissed that MO couldn't install for whatever reason that was, but the game runs. Honestly, modding is way too troublesome for this game and I don't know why I keep getting into it when I just get frustrated, but it's something for me to do.

[Whizkid]

1 hour ago, Beleg Maethor said:

Well it ended up being a problem with the version of Alternate Start I had enabled. I'm still pissed that MO couldn't install for whatever reason that was, but the game runs. Honestly, modding is way too troublesome for this game and I don't know why I keep getting into it when I just get frustrated, but it's something for me to do.

yep it is a hassle mainly because each of us uses different mods to suit our taste and needs, therefore stuff will always be broken, thats where we need to try and understand or figure out where the problem lies, using mod organizer 2 is a good start, mainly it really helps to isolate the problem, from my past experiences go slow and install mods when u feel its stable and working as intended.

 

To figure out where the problem lies with mod organizer it's really easy just keep disabling mods till the problem goes away, just remember basic rules i.e. if animations are disabled always re-run fnis, last but not least u need to do alot of google search to figure out your problem, google helps because someone might had a similar problem and posted a fix or help identify where to start looking.

 

if all else fails just post here giving details like load order and etc..

 

imo, modding skyrim is a huge learning curve, because the skyrim engine or the game itself has alot of bugs which has not been fixed or could not be fixed properly.

[Grey Cloud]

1 hour ago, Beleg Maethor said:

No I downloaded the mod from LL, then I added it to NMM through my downloads folder. I already downloaded it, NMM just calls adding files to it "downloading".

My point was that with mods on the Nexus you can install them directly from there but with the mods on LL you cannot.

 

Load orders seldom cause CTDs. They can cause various problems in-game such as things not working as intended. LOOT generally does a good job at sorting things correctly. If it doesn't one can use its metadata rules to set things the way you want them.

 

Glad you are up and running.

[Shubal]

When you reinstalled the game did you start it the first time through Steam and not SKSE? You need to do that as it adds files you need to play. Then it should start through SKSE without issues.