Game broke and I feel like I'm missing something.

[TunnelRhino]

I started modding Skyrim for the first time in 2022. An auto update rolled out and broke everything that year but I felt like playing again. So I tried my best to wipe my PC clean of all Skyrim files then spent about 3 or 4 hours yesterday troubleshooting after a reinstall. Enabling and disabling mods one by one, updating them, tediously checking for all the prerequisite mods and plugins, and shifting around load orders that kind of made sense to my limited understanding. No matter what I did, when I boot Skyrim through SKSE, I get the title screen, hit new game, I briefly see a purple and untextured Alduin on the loading screen, crash. This is my consistent result. What could that typically mean? I'm not at all fluent in mods and I staved it off for years because I didn't feel like dealing with exactly s#*! like this. But I feel like I'm missing something obvious. 

I only had about 20 mods and the majority were prerequisites. I tried using a crash logger I saw recommended on Reddit but it didn't seem to do anything.

[7531Leonidas]

XoPachi, have you verified your game files in Steam, or where ever you got your game from?

[TunnelRhino]

9 minutes ago, 7531Leonidas said:

XoPachi, have you verified your game files in Steam, or where ever you got your game from?

I did, yes. That was my first thing because something was telling me a dll file was missing. I don't remember which mod it was but I didn't see the prompt show up again.

[7531Leonidas]

Find the ...Documents\My Games\Skyrim Special Edition\SKSE folder, and look for the skse64.log.  Proceed down the wall of text, looking for plugins that did not load correctly.

Alternately, simply arrange the contents of the folder in descending 'Date Modified' order, and look for a log that did NOT update upon your game launch.

Another idea - do you have any start screen/UI mods loading?  Your problem may be in there.

[TunnelRhino]

1 hour ago, 7531Leonidas said:

Find the ...Documents\My Games\Skyrim Special Edition\SKSE folder, and look for the skse64.log.  Proceed down the wall of text, looking for plugins that did not load correctly.

Alternately, simply arrange the contents of the folder in descending 'Date Modified' order, and look for a log that did NOT update upon your game launch.

Another idea - do you have any start screen/UI mods loading?  Your problem may be in there.

I have SkyUI and I guess RaceMenu counts? Nothing for the start screen though.

[scorrp10]

If you only had like 20 mods, it really should not be an issue.    I will assume that you get the game via Steam.   In general, when the game gets updated via Steam, this is what you do:

Go into your game's folder (most commonly,  C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition) and delete any files starting with 'skse'.     Go into Data folder and delete everything in there, except for  .bsa files starting with 'Skyrim'

You right click the game in Steam library, click Properties - Installed Files - Verify integrity of game files.    Also, while there, in Updates section,  set Automatic Updates to "Only update this game when I launch it"

Once that is done, you launch the game via Steam, which takes you through Settings popup.    See if you can get the game to start and actually play.       

Next, you go to https://skse.silverlock.org/,  and download the build 2.2.6  (one for version 1.6.1170), unpack it, and copy its contents into your game's folder.

Next, you should be launching the game through your mod manager - which should be starting it using SKSE.     

 

[TunnelRhino]

7 hours ago, scorrp10 said:

If you only had like 20 mods, it really should not be an issue.    I will assume that you get the game via Steam.   In general, when the game gets updated via Steam, this is what you do:

Go into your game's folder (most commonly,  C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition) and delete any files starting with 'skse'.     Go into Data folder and delete everything in there, except for  .bsa files starting with 'Skyrim'

You right click the game in Steam library, click Properties - Installed Files - Verify integrity of game files.    Also, while there, in Updates section,  set Automatic Updates to "Only update this game when I launch it"

Once that is done, you launch the game via Steam, which takes you through Settings popup.    See if you can get the game to start and actually play.       

Next, you go to https://skse.silverlock.org/,  and download the build 2.2.6  (one for version 1.6.1170), unpack it, and copy its contents into your game's folder.

Next, you should be launching the game through your mod manager - which should be starting it using SKSE.     

 

Buddy, you are a saint and I appreciate you tremendously. You got everything working perfectly and didn't bullshit. Thank you SO much, King.

[7531Leonidas]

@XoPachi At the top of the Skyrim SE forum, there is a pinned post on how to keep Skyrim SE from updating, if you accidentally launch it through Steam, like I did this evening trying out a different Vortex profile.  You have to set a couple of (appmanifest?) files to read-only.  You may have to scan through the full thread to find the latest info.

[TunnelRhino]

10 hours ago, 7531Leonidas said:

@XoPachi At the top of the Skyrim SE forum, there is a pinned post on how to keep Skyrim SE from updating, if you accidentally launch it through Steam, like I did this evening trying out a different Vortex profile.  You have to set a couple of (appmanifest?) files to read-only.  You may have to scan through the full thread to find the latest info.

I might have to look into that because Steam's DRM forces Skyrim to launch Steam anyway even if I launch the game through SKSE while Steam is shut down.

[7531Leonidas]

To keep the auto-update from happening, start Steam by itself, THEN launch the SKSE loader however you wish.  I accidentally did what you did just last night, while trying to run a new barebones profile for bug squashing.  The read-only trick kept the update from being applied.