Skyrim won't boot up through SKSE64

[HeWasAnScrott]

So, a bit of a strange issue here. I was going to hop back into Skyrim again after a long time of not playing it, you know how it goes, and updated the game through steam, and updated my SKSE as well. I did download a couple of mods to try out for my nEw sKyRiM pLaY sEsSiOn. You also know how that goes.

 

However, after installing the mods (True Faces, RaceMenu update, Realistic armor mod, and Archery Gameplay Overhaul update) the game would immediately crash to desktop. Now, I know, initially I thought "Perhaps a mod conflict", so I tested booting the game back up again without them, and still, CTD on startup.

 

Here is where things get a lil juicy. I browsed through Loot, I noticed there were no warnings or errors in my load order. As a secondary failsafe, I decided to run SSEEdit to be safe, and found that it loaded everything without any hiccups. Which was odd. So I went to boot up SKSE again, and boom. CTD. Now, I did notice it is a different kind of CTD.

 

Typically with a conflicting load order crash, the startup will get to the Bethesda Gear logo and then crash just before the main menu, however this time around, it doesn't make it to that logo. It shows a black screen for roughly 5 seconds, and then immediately shuts down without any logos or signs of much loading. Which led me to believe it is crashing much much higher in the load order. Perhaps even before reaching the load order. And considering SSEEdit was able to load everything just fine, I attempted another test.

 

I launched Skyrim through steam by itself without SKSE. And much to my surprise, it loaded up perfectly fine. Bethesda logo, to main menu, and it even let me start up a new game. And to double check, I opened the console and typed "getskseversion" and verified that SKSE was not being ran.

 

I redownloaded SKSE64, removed the old files from the directory this time around just to be safe, and installed SKSE64 again, booted up the SKSEloader, and crash.

 

Unsure of what the issue could be, I tried googling the issue, only to not find much results. Typically its people asking about crashes after the Bethesda logo, or issues with SKSE and Non-SKSE Skyrim crashing, but nothing with the game crashing before the logos only when booting through SKSE. Which is a very strange circumstance that I haven't seen in my days of destroying Skyrim with an unholy amount of mods. And I've been doing so for a while, and haven't had any issues in the past.

 

I've since gone through and updated any potential SKSE dependent mods that I'm aware of, and am still having this issue. Anyone have any idea of what the culprit/solution to something like this might be? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[johnanderton2002]

Okay so this may be absolutely no help what so ever but I had the same issue and it turned out it was because I was installing mods for Skyrim instead of the Skyrim Special Edition. For example a mod I use was "Alterative start - live another life" and it was crashing my game literally the exact same way you explained and after looking around it's because i'd downloaded the mod of the Skyrim Nexus instead of the SSE Nexus. Again this may not be the fix as I'm a complete noob and just got back in to the game after not playing for years.

[johnanderton2002]

If this is the fix ^^ it could be racemenu causing the crash as it's a mod i use and I was also installing the one for normal skyrim instead of the SSE edition.

[anjenthedog]

Is Steam running? Even if you play offline, Steam has to be running for the game to boot. (I made that mistake many times early on)

 

Are you booting the game using the SKSE64loader? (if you have any SKSE dependent mods, you'll need to)

 

Have you tried uninstalling the new mods you installed?

 

Are you over the limit on plugins? you can only have 254 "active" plugins.