StormHUN

So, after all my issue was simply that Fallout 4 was using the wrong folder for the files. Instead of Users/USERNAME/AppData/Local/Fallout4/ the folder is Users/USERNAME/Local Settings/Application Data/Fallout4/ That's it. Once I created plugins.txt in that location, copy-pasted mod names from DLClist.txt into them and added asterisks in front to enable mods, all works perfectly fine.

UPDATE: First of all I have to point out that placing a TXT file in a folder it shouldn't be can cause absolutely zero problems. The game is not going to do anything with a file it is not looking for so copying those files to a few places to see if it happens is not causing any damage. I since have reinstalled but not because of this, but because I tried to use a config tool that broke my installation. Reinstalling didn't fix anything though. HOWEVER, I have finally found the correct load order file. It exists, but in the wrong place. For whatever reason it is found here: Users/USERNAME/Local Settings/Application Data/Fallout4/DLCList.txt instead of Users/USERNAME/AppData/Local/Fallout4/ and it's called DLCList.txt instead of plugins.txt. And now if I add a new mod manually, the game will even add that mod to DLCList.txt. So this part seems to work just fine. But mods are still not taking effect. The vanilla game has always worked, only modding didn't. That is, until the customization tool I tried broke it and forced me to reinstall it. Did that the first time too, now did it again and still no luck. I have then also added bEnableFileSelection=1 as most guides suggest, but that didn't cut it either.

Guys, could you please not hijack my thread for your arguments? :/ I'm just trying to figure out why my manually installed mods don't work while they work for other people. If anyone have advice about that I would greatly appreciate, but if you just want to argue about the various mod managers, or the difference between independent mods and Bethesda mods, please do it in your own thread becau7se these are irrelevant to my problem. Though it gave me an idea. Right now the Mods menu item is grayed out in my game, and so is Creation Club. So I wonder if I could get those menus to work (which is a separate issue) maybe that would make the manual mods work too? My theory is simply that maybe because these menus are grayed out the game may have a global "mods are off" switch?

Looks like I need to clarify a few things: In the past I've successfully modded Oblivion, Skyrim and Fallout 3 several times, and always manually, without any issue whatsoever. I never used Mod Manager or any other tool. But for F4, I got the game just a few days ago, and I'm trying to mod it for the first time. However Fallout 4 seems to work differently than the previous titles, and following the manual method simply does nothing. So as a last resort I tried Vortex for the first time ever, but to put simply Vortex does not work on my system, and won't work any time soon due to technical limitations. The game itself works for the most parts, but the mods/plugins simply seem to be not loaded by the game at all - supported by the fact that the game does not generate a plugins.txt or anything similar, and inside the game the Plugins menu only lists the official Steam DLCs. Vortex has nothing to do with this. It was just something I tried as a last resort when all the manual modding attempts failed.

Erm... I think you either misread or you replied to the wrong thread. I don't have any crashes, my problem is that mods are simply not taking effect.

SOLUTION: https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/7227221-i-just-cant-get-mods-to-load-no-matter-what/page-3&do=findComment&comment=66048831 I've read dozens of articles, forum threads and tutorials (including: http://wiki.tesnexus.com/index.php/Fallout_4_Mod_Installation ) but no matter what I just can't get mods to load. I'm trying to do it manually because Vortex just keeps crashing. I have added the Archive section to my Fallout4Custom.ini: [Archive] bInvalidateOlderFiles=1 sResourceDataDirsFinal=Some sources said to instead of empty, set the data dirs value to: sResourceDataDirsFinal=STRINGS\, TEXTURES\, MUSIC\, SOUND\, INTERFACE\, MESHES\, PROGRAMS\, MATERIALS\, LODSETTINGS\, VIS\, MISC\, SCRIPTS\, SHADERSFX\I tried both. I tried to add the Launcher line to either Fallout4Prefs.ini, Fallout4Custom.ini or both: bEnableFileSelection=1 When I tried Vortex it generated loadorder.txt and plugins.txt in USER/Local/Fallout4 and populated them - according to several sources plugins.txt should actually be instead in USER/AppData/Local/Fallout4 so copied them there. I also copied them directly to the Fallout 4 install folder in steamapps. No luck. I added and removed asterisks in front of the mods in both files and each locations, no luck. When I renamed loadorder.txt and plugins.txt in both USER/Local/Fallout4 and USER/AppData/Local/Fallout4 and launched the game, loaded a save, then quit to desktop, no new plugins.txt was generated in either locations. I have really tried absolutely everything, and by all means they should be working, so I really don't know what else to do. :sad: I'm frustrated and sad.