SSE Creation Kit pretends to save my plugin with no errors, but my .esp file is gone

[Sirgallyhave]

I’m assuming others must have encountered this, as I don’t think I’m doing anything too out of the ordinary. I use Mod Organizer 2 (MO2) v2.4.4 with Skyrim Anniversary Edition v1.6.640.0 from Steam, Creation Kit v1.6.438.0 also from Steam, SSE Creation Kit Fixes Update v3.5 from here https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/71371, and the Unofficial Creation Kit Patch v6.3 from here https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/41195.

LOOT v0.21.0 (build 7de2f87c) says my Skyrim Anniversary Edition and SKSE are up-to-date and the only problems it reports with my load order is that I haven’t cleaned the Skyrim masters and some other plugins because I run into a major problem when I do.

I have xEdit v4.0.4 set up as an executable in MO2 by running SSEEditQuickAutoClean.exe as per the instructions. It’s simple and works fine with no errors when cleaning Skyrim.esm and various others.

The game plays fine with the cleaned plugins but when I load the CK through MO2, change some stuff, then go to save my changes, the CK tells me it saved successfully but doesn’t. Whether I use Ctrl+S or the Save Plugin icon on the toolbar, everything looks fine as though it’s saved but when I go to exit the CK I’m prompted to save my changes. I can save as many times as I like, and everything looks normal but nothing gets saved.

Sometimes the file <my-plugin-name>.tes is saved in the MO2 overwrite folder and sometimes it’s even saved fully and all I have to do is rename it to *.esp and I have my plugin with the changes saved. But most of the time, if a *.tes file is saved at all, it’s much larger than it should be, and if I rename it to *.esp it won’t load in the CK or the game… and my original .esp is gone.

I’ve lost a lot of work from this and all I ever have to do to be rid of the problem is uncheck the cleaned masters in the left pane of my MO2 mod “priority” list. When I clean Skyrim.esm and other plugins with xEdit, I create a folder in my MO2/mods directory and put the cleaned *.esm or *.esp in there as a separate “mod”. I restore the original (from xEdit’s backup folder) master files back to my usual Skyrim Special Edition directory in Steam/…/common.

I do that so Steam doesn’t update SSE. If I leave the cleaned masters in the Skyrim Special Edition folder, Steam will notice that I don’t have the “correct” versions of the masters and update my SSE installation. So, I create “mods” of the cleaned masters and restore the originals to the SSE Steam folder so Steam is happy and this is how the STEP Guide tells everyone to do it, so it’s nothing I made up myself or am doing alone.

I get the same thing if I start the CK and then run Sublime Text (no problem with Notepad++) to edit my scripts. I’ve also run into the same problem (saving in the CK but it doesn’t save) if I run xEdit just to look at something while the CK is open. I exit xEdit having changed nothing, and then I can’t save my mod in the CK and all the work I’ve done is lost. I've even had it happen just running LOOT with the CK open. It’s very frustrating. [Edit: I was mistaken. It didn't happen with LOOT, but with Nemesis that replaces FNIS for animations.]

I have to start Sublime Text before the CK and then my plugin saves fine. If I want to use xEdit, even just to take a peek at something without making any changes, I have to exit the CK, start SSEEdit.exe, do whatever, exit that, then restart the CK, which is a major pain.

Does anyone know how this can be fixed? I can’t even think of what might be causing it.

[IsharaMeradin]

Have you tried to see if the problem persists when those CK fixes / patches are not installed? It is a long shot, but it is worth testing.

[Sirgallyhave]

Thanks for the suggestion, IsharaMeradin. It’s a good idea though it took me a while because I haven’t run the CK in I don’t know how long without the fixes/patches in place.

 

For anyone who reads this in the future, the files I deleted manually in the Steam Skyrim Special Edition folder to “uninstall” the fixes/patches were: tbb.dll, tbbmalloc.dll, winhttp.dll … and I wonder about d3dx9_42.dll. I don’t think that comes with Skyrim. D3dx9_42.dll, tbb.dll, tbbmalloc.dll come with Part 2 of SSE Engine Fixes but tbb.dll and tbbmalloc.dll also come with SSE Creation Kit Fixes Update recommended by the Unofficial Creation Kit Patch.

 

I deleted d3dx9_42.dll as well, but that’s part of SSE Engine Fixes, so Part 1 of that must also be disabled in MO2 and that should put the CK back in its stock state, though you might want to move your creationkit*.ini files to a backup folder as well, reinstall the CK from Steam and let it create new ini’s to ensure everything is in the vanilla state. [“You” meaning anyone who stumbles across this post in the future, not IsharaMeradin.]

 

With that done, I followed the instructions in the STEP Guide (click on Skyrim Special Edition on the right side) to clean my masters and put them in an MO2 “mod”. I then used Steam’s “Verify integrity of game files” to get the original masters back in my Skyrim game folder.

 

This should have everything in the state I described it in the first post but without the CK fixes/patches in place.

 

With the Skyrim masters cleaned and enabled in MO2, I’m not running into any problems saving my mod, though it does take a ridiculous amount of time without the CK fix/patch.

 

Let me try loading Sublime Text, which usually caused the save problem unless I started it before the CK. I have the CK open (in MO2 with the cleaned masters “mod” enabled), I started Sublime and no problem saving my plugin on that test either.

 

I’ll throw the kitchen sink at it running Nemesis with the CK open… and aha. I hit Ctrl+S after running Nemesis with the CK open and the CK says my plugin was saved properly but the esp file is nowhere to be found.

 

This is what I’ve been running into. The save problem isn’t guaranteed to occur every time I try to save. It sneaks up on me and I don’t know what’s causing it, so I don’t even know what to test. But it’s not the CK fixes/patches causing the problem.

 

It was a good try though. I reran the tests and was able to reproduce the save problem just with the “Cleaned Vanilla Masters” mod enabled, or just by loading Sublime Text after the CK instead of before or running Nemesis with the CK open.

 

Any of those three things have caused the problem for me in the past and I can always fix it by disabling the “Cleaned Vanilla Masters” mod in MO2, and by starting Sublime Text before the CK, and always exiting the CK before running xEdit or Nemesis.

 

Even without the “Cleaned Vanilla Masters” mod enabled in MO2, I still run into the save problem with the CK if I start Sublime Text after starting the CK, or run xEdit or Nemesis with the CK open (only sometimes with all of it).

 

As in the initial tests above, I was able to save my plugin fine once with the cleaned masters enabled but I’ve always lost a fair bit of work because the problem sneaks up only happening after I don’t know what because it only happens sometimes. Something is definitely causing it, but I don’t know what because it seems random even though nothing is ever random around computers.

 

Oddly, once that problem occurs and I can’t save my plugin, the CK also won’t close. The Render, Object and Cell view windows close but the main CK window hangs and that never happened with the fixes/patches installed. It’s been sitting there with “(Not Responding)” in the CK caption for about five minutes and just looks locked up.

 

[IsharaMeradin]

I recall that the LE version of the CK did have a memory leak. It wouldn't properly release data after internal windows were closed (i.e., objects, quests, etc...) and eventually it would lock up or crash. I wonder if there is something similar going on with the SE version. The patches / fixes might mitigate it to an extent but probably not completely.

 

I would recommend saving often and not keep the CK open. I know it is time consuming to load it back up, but it would be faster than recovering from a lockup, crash or failed save. Probably a good idea to just avoid running those other programs at the same time.

[Sirgallyhave]

I recall that the LE version of the CK did have a memory leak. It wouldn't properly release data after internal windows were closed (i.e., objects, quests, etc...) and eventually it would lock up or crash. I wonder if there is something similar going on with the SE version. The patches / fixes might mitigate it to an extent but probably not completely.

 

I would recommend saving often and not keep the CK open. I know it is time consuming to load it back up, but it would be faster than recovering from a lockup, crash or failed save. Probably a good idea to just avoid running those other programs at the same time.

 

Yes, this is what I've been doing. I was hoping maybe someone else had run into it, but it was a good idea to test removing the fix/patch. At least that's eliminated.

 

Something else seems to lock the folder my plugin is in, or maybe the esp file itself. It'd explain why the CK can't save it even though it thinks it's saving fine. I'd say it was maybe MO2 but too many people run the CK via MO2 and have cleaned their Skyrim masters (especially using the STEP Guide) for it to be that simple.

[IsharaMeradin]

If you have the CK open with a plugin loaded AND you then load the plugin in xEdit, either one might prevent the other from saving the file. Probably something similar to wanting to remove a flash drive only to find out it cannot shut down because a file is still in use.

 

Not sure why Sublime Text would be causing an issue unless you're actively editing a script that has already been loaded into the CK. That won't work out too well. The CK won't recognize the change. Shoot the CK won't even recognize a brand new script created via any third party program until the CK has been restarted.

 

I couldn't tell you about Nemesis, never used it. Though I thought that was just for doing something with the animations prior to playing the game and not for running the Creation Kit.

[Sirgallyhave]

If you have the CK open with a plugin loaded AND you then load the plugin in xEdit, either one might prevent the other from saving the file. Probably something similar to wanting to remove a flash drive only to find out it cannot shut down because a file is still in use.

Yes, true, but that’s not what I reported. It should be fine to have the CK open, then open xEdit, just look at something without changing/saving the plugin, and exiting xEdit. I used to be able to do that, I think before the Skyrim Anniversary Update, with no problems but now I run into the problem I described where I can’t save my plugin even after xEdit is closed, having changed nothing.

 

That shouldn’t happen. Of course Windows has to lock my plugin esp file if I’m editing it in two applications at the same time. But once I close xEdit, and only the CK has the file open, it should be no problem to save it. But it’s staying locked even though nothing else is accessing the plugin file, or at least that’s what appears to be happening.

 

Not sure why Sublime Text would be causing an issue unless you're actively editing a script that has already been loaded into the CK. That won't work out too well.

Another clue is that is doesn’t happen with Notepad++. I can use Notepad++ in the exact same way that I use Sublime with the same Papyrus source files open in multiple tabs, changing and compiling scripts and I never run into any problems.

 

The CK does recognize changes in scripts. For example, if I add a property to a script in Sublime (or Notepad++) and recompile it with the CK open, I can then edit the object the script is attached to, and the new property will be available for editing. It’s true if properties are deleted as well, though hopefully the modder will remember to clear the property in the CK before deleting (or renaming) it in the script.

 

I couldn't tell you about Nemesis, never used it. Though I thought that was just for doing something with the animations prior to playing the game and not for running the Creation Kit.

Yes, Nemesis is the replacement for FNIS for custom animations. As with Sublime, I have no idea why there’d be a problem saving an esp file after running Nemesis because it doesn’t change esp files, but *.hvk animation files.

 

It’s a mystery but there should be enough clues with what I’ve provided for someone who understands Windows on a systems level to know what’s going on, so maybe the mystery will be solved one day.

 

I was a software developer for over 30 years but only at the application level, not the systems level. I’ve created my own script language and “compiler” (tokenizer/interpreter) for my application, but I’d hardly call that systems programming. I used C and C++ much as we use Papyrus, without much of a clue what’s going on inside the “black boxes” of the system functions we call.

[IsharaMeradin]

I've never edited a script in Notepad++ or Sublime Text while the CK was open. Primarily due to the fact that in most cases, I would need to first create the script. The CK never once recognized a new script created by a third-party tool when it was open. Thus I just got into the habit of doing my script work prior to using the CK to link it all together. If I use the built-in editor, the CK will recognize the changes (in some cases the object record window needs to be closed and re-opened).

 

I do not know. Hopefully someone else has experienced what you have and knows the reason why and if there is a way to fix it rather than avoiding it.

[Sirgallyhave]

I've never edited a script in Notepad++ or Sublime Text while the CK was open. Primarily due to the fact that in most cases, I would need to first create the script. The CK never once recognized a new script created by a third-party tool when it was open. Thus I just got into the habit of doing my script work prior to using the CK to link it all together. If I use the built-in editor, the CK will recognize the changes (in some cases the object record window needs to be closed and re-opened).

For sure, and it's a pain having to close and re-open my plugin whenever I create a new script. There's no such problem If it's done via the internal interface, as you say.

 

I do not know. Hopefully someone else has experienced what you have and knows the reason why and if there is a way to fix it rather than avoiding it.

I also posted in case others run into the same thing and don't know how to avoid it. It took me a while to figure out what to do to prevent the problem from happening, even though it's a kludge and not a fix.