Why are my mods grayed out?

[br0kes0ul]

Some of my Mods are grayed out with the error 'No Valid Game Data', this is really annoying because Im not sure what to do, there are no other forums that i can find giving me a solution to fix this. 

[ttts1]

Where are they greyed out?  In your mod manager? Or in game in the MCM screens? 

 

Are you getting the "no Valid Game Data" message in a mod manager or in game? 

 

First thought would be file paths, maybe there are set incorrectly in your mod manager and when you launch the game Skyrim or the mod manager can't find the mods.  I'm not sure, but that's the first idea that comes to my mind. 

 

If you are using a mod manager, which one are you using?

[br0kes0ul]

I am using Mod Manger 2, and I would download a file, extract it, and set it in the mods folder, and it would be grayed out with the "No Valid Game Data"

I am not familiar with modding. And i cant find any good forums that explain this. 

[ttts1]

So are you manually installing the mods?  Or are you allowing MO2 to install the mods?

 

If you are unzipping/extracting the files yourself and moving it into the folders, then you are manually installing the mods and may accidentally create pathing issues where MO2 can't "find" the mod as the file address may be slightly different that what it expects.

 

If you are only moving the file into MO2's folders and allowing MO2 to handle installation, then that could also be a file path issue.  In MO2 you can check the path that MO2 uses for it's "Download" folder and "Mod" folder among other things.  You'll want to check that the path being used by MO2 is actually where the files are sitting. 

 

I see these are your first posts at LL, so you may be like I was and not know there are some really good guides on how to install everything correctly.   Here's one I used for using MO2: 

 

[ttts1]

I forgot to add:  In MO2 you can click on "Settings" under the "Tools" menu, or the "Configure Settings and workarounds" icon, and select the "Paths" tab.  That will show you where MO2 is looking for various types of files.

 

Make sure that the location you are putting your Skyrim mods that you download into that "Downloads" folder and the installed mods should be in that "Mods" folder. 

 

In the mods and plugin menu list of your mods you can also right click to bring up a menu and select "Open in Explorer" to open those folders as well.  That's frequently what I do with my new downloads.  Open the MO2 downloads folder that way and then drop in the new downloads from my main downloads folder. 

 

I apologize if you already know all this, but mentioning it in case that helps fix the problem. 

[br0kes0ul]

I am downloading them manually, as i am unaware that loverslab can allow mo2 to install them automatically, like Nexus. I will take a look at the guide, but is there a specific area i should look at to help fix my problem? 

[ttts1]

Sorry for not being clear but LL mods don't direct download like Nexus mods in MO2. 

 

What I meant was that you download them and then put them into MO2's "Download" folder.  From there, use MO2 to install the mods.  Just right click the downloaded mod in the "Downloads" tab and install. 

 

You want to use the mod manager, in this case MO2, to handle the installation.  There are some rare exceptions to this that require a manual installation, and the mod download page will tell if so.  But generally you will download the mod, move it to the mod manager folder, and have the manager handle installation. 

 

My concern was if you are doing the actual installation of the mod, extracting the file compressed/zipped file that you download, yourself instead of the mod manager.  Because if so, you may be labeling the folders slightly differently, or copy/pasting into a folder in a way that is slightly different than how file paths are expected to be.  For example:  mod/fun/1 instead of mod/fun/master/1.  

 

I apologize if you know this already but not sure what level of experience you are with this.