Cannot get mods to Work

[Shigydiggy]

Alright, here's the basics: I installed the GoG version of SSE to have a nice blank slate to work with. I proceeded to download and install the basics: SKSE, Alternate Start Mod, Unofficial Patch, Cosmetic enhancements, mostly things like that.

 

I go to boot up the game, on the Cart for some reason despite having an Alternate Start Mod. Wait out the cutscene, get to character creation and realize non of the cosmetic stuff was working either. As far as I can tell, my Skrim install refuses to run anything but pure Vanilla. No matter what mod (or version thereof) I've tried loads into the game, just the Helgen cart ride to baseline Skyrim.

 

Just to get the basics out of the way, I've already uninstalled/reinstalled everything including the base game and the Vortex mod manager, I've made sure that everything's been properly enabled and disabled in various configs under the plugins just to make sure there wasn't some conflict that loot wasn't reposting. I've alternatively cleaned and then reinstalled the original 'dirty' files in case xEdit was somehow breaking things. Purged and Redeployed, etc. So far, nothing has worked.

 

Since the game is working, albeit in a thoroughly unaltered state, I can't even generate an error log telling me where the chain is breaking because as far as Skyrim and it's associated plugins are concerned all is as it should be.

 

The closest thing I've found to a clue is that I have an alternate main menu mod installed, and when I boot up the game the wallpaper for that shows up with the loading wheel in the lower right corner, but then gets immediately replaced by the regular Main Menu when it finishes loading. Which suggests that the mods are trying to load, but as a 'standard' part of the boot process Skyrim itself is vetoing them, and I have no idea how that might be happening.

 

So This post is basically me throwing a Hail Mary to see if anyone here can think of something I haven't tried. I've been fighting this Dragon for hours, and I need to either go take a nap or throw myself off a bridge. When I get back I'll go over any suggestions you guys have and let you know if I managed to fix it.

[7531Leonidas]

First, are you starting the game from the SKSE loader? If you are, then you can check the SKSE logs in your ...\Documents\My Games\Skyrim Special Edition\SKSE folder. You will have to look through them one at a time, though.

 

Check to make sure all of your mods are Enabled - go to the mods tab, check the 'Status' column.

 

Also check in the 'Plugins' tab, that all of the plugins are enabled under that tab's 'Status' column.

 

Just for chuckles and grins, you can also hit the 'Deploy Mods' button on the bar across the top of the 'Mods' tab to make sure. It will simply re-deploy everything you have installed.

[Shigydiggy]

I had a whole post thanking Leonidas above me, saying checking the SKSE logs was a decent idea that unfortunately didn't help, and that I already tried his other suggestions numerous times.

 

In the midst of trying to further describe my problem, I noticed something a little off about a file name when my dog made me accidentally Alt+Tab into a file manager window I had in the background.

 

I think I fixed it, and I'm gonna explain the fix here because it's the stupidest error I've ever seen, and I found it on accident. Skyrim, The GoG version I'm using, for some reason created two files in the My Documents/My Games Folder on my computer, one named 'Skyrim SE', and the other one labeled 'Skyrim SE - GoG'.

 

Now here's a fun bit of trivia: SKSE takes the settings info you use for your Mod Organizer/Manager of choice and stores your settings and load orders as a .txt file in C:\Users\(Insert Username Here)\AppData\Local in a Folder named Skyrim or Skyrim Special Edition, depending.

On a blind hunch, I checked AppData\Local because of the weird 'My Games' folder Skyrim Split, and Lo and Behold: One folder named 'Skyrim Special Edition', and one named 'Skyrim Special Edition GoG'. One of them had all of the data properly sorted into .ini and .txt files, and the other was empty. I copied the files that were there into the empty folder, and everything started working immediately.

 

As far as I can tell, when whatever caused the split to happen made it so that one folder was Read Only and the other was Write Only, so when I updated settings normally, Vortex would file away all of the information correctly in Slot A, but when booting the game would only think to look in Slot B for instructions resulting in Vortex/SKSE not seeing any modlist to work from and booting into a Vanilla Skyrim.

 

I have no idea what caused this bug to happen, but now that I've identified it I'm gonna try and reverse engineer the process and report back here if I've found anything useful.