Missing .esm's while following modding guide

[HadToRegister]

Well, then the reason your Merged Patch is empty, is because you're using so few mods, there's nothing to merge.

A merged patch is most useful with a large load order, so apparently with the small amount of mods you have, Xedit isn't finding anything that needs merging.

Your merged patch is 1K, my fallout New Vegas install has 120 mods, and the Merged patch is 605K

 

So, when you try and run the game, NMM or the game complains that it can't find Skyrim.esm?

[HadToRegister]

Dual Post

[anghellic1666]

I only had so few because if you look at his guide, the beginning is installing programs, cleaning game files, installing first few mods, merging and patching, texture mods, etc. in that order. Once i got through the sorting and patching I ran the game to test it as instructed, and I loaded into the alternate start dungeon just fine. Then the texture mods is where it messed up. I installed textures and sorted and patched then tried loading that save in the dungeon and it says this save depends on files that are no longer present: skyrim, update, dawnguard, hearthfires, dragonborn, appachii hair.esm's are all missing.

[anghellic1666]

Were you able to look at the screenshots? Did you see anything I did wrong?

[audiodef]

An off-the-wall thought: would you happen to have a second computer lying around on which you've never had SSE installed? A second computer that has never been touched by Skyrim would tell me whether something is bjorked on your existing computer or whether you're consistently (and inadvertently) doing something that's causing this issue. The second computer would not need to be fancy. You can actually run SSE on an integrated graphics chip if you turn the graphics quality down to low. (I've done this just for giggles.)

Edited October 8, 2018 by audiodef

[anghellic1666]

lol No I don't have a second computer, just the one. Are you talking about old registry files after uninstalling SSE?

[audiodef]

I have nothing specific in mind, to be honest. I have never seen this happen before. There's no way installing textures can cause the base game files to disappear, so this is a real puzzler. I've never heard of registry files being able to cause this issue.

 

Maybe I'll look into HadToRegister's suggestion of using Wrye as the primary tool, since he makes good points about load order locking.

Edited October 8, 2018 by audiodef

[anghellic1666]

Alright I'll keep trying. As I said I wasn't able to get into the game yesterday but when I deleted my merge patch today I created a new one and selected clean masters then rebuilt my bash patch and when I started a new game it worked, I was in the Alternate start dungeon. I now know NOT to clean masters when I make a new merge patch, but for now it works. Thank you both I'll let you know how it goes.

[audiodef]

Yeah, I saw your post earlier in this thread. While you're not supposed to do that, the bottom line is to get it working. I'm curious how doing a clean masters is going to affect your load order as it grows, so please let me know how it goes.

[anghellic1666]

@HadToRegister on page 2 of this forum topic you stated that I should expand the merge patch and make sure to delete Leveled Items list (Leveled Item, Leveled npc, etc.) but in Audiodef's guide he says to delete leveled items, but do not touch leveled npc or anything else. Should Leveled npc stay or go?