Mods not working. Complete newb problem.

[Asterra]

Decided to give Skyrim a break and take advantage of a Steam bargain. I already gather that DAO has basically two mod implementation methods that need to be utilized in turn: Using DAO Mod Manager to "install" dazip and override files, and dumping individual files into the override directory which one must create in packages\core.

 

Well, I have problems right out of the gate.

 

Problem #1: DAO Mod Manager (DAMM, I presume?) freaked out when I attempted to install More Hairstyles. How, you ask? It caused all of the elements under "Installed Dazips" (including said text) to become invisible. I can still click them but the entire window is white. Restarting the app, changing tabs, deleting the .ini.. nothing fixes it.

 

Problem #2: Some mods manually dumped into the "override" directory seem to work. Many do not. "White teeth", for example, manifestly does nothing. This may come down to the simple fact of my not quite grasping how this directory works, or how to detect and/or fix conflicts if any exist. I am perhaps spoiled by the intuitive ease of the Mod Manager app for Skyrim, which tells you right in front of your face if one mod is overwriting another, and lets you sort their load order. For DAO, I am at a complete loss, and seem to be faced with the prospect of not knowing whether or not my various installed mods (including a ton of bug patches) are even going to do anything at all.

 

Guess I'll let this stew and hope for some help. Thanks for reading.

 

[Thandal]

Well, you're right. Using mods for the DA-series is NOT like using mods for Skyrim! :laugh:

 

The DA-series has many, many different types of mods, and there are at least four different "managers" of mods for the DA-series, NONE of which can handle all of those types.

 

First, read this article: Using Dragon Age Mods for Dummies.

 

Second, unless a mod is packaged as a ".dazip" file, DAMM requires the player to extract the actual mod files from the archive before they can be recognized and used.

 

Third, "More Hairstyles", (and thousands of others) is an example of a "Character Creator" (CC) mod. (See the bottom of the post for more on CC mods.) Besides the fact that DAMM was never designed for those, (It handles ".dazip" and ".override" files only) any mod that includes a chargenmorphcfg.xml file requires a two-step process to get working correctly.

 

Fourth, there's no such thing as "load order" with the Eclipse game engine used for DAO/DA2. Not in the sense that BethSoft games mean. Two (or more) mods may well contain the exact same file, but each one changed it from the vanilla version in different ways. Most of the time this doesn't create a conflict. Only one of those files will be "active", but the rest of the mod who's file isn't being used will still work fine. You may not even notice.

 

When determining which files to use the game has a strict "alphanumeric by filename, by folder, then by sub-folder" search process. It starts by looking in the game's install folder (under "\Program Files", or wherever you installed it) and runs through a number of folders there, then looks under your "\[user's documents]\Bioware\Dragon Age" folders. Which mod's contents will actually appear in your game depends on how you named the files and folders when you extracted them. For example I place all the mods that go in my "\override" folder in their own sub-folders so that later I can easily remove any particular mod if I want. This also allows me to completely control the naming.

 

But when conflicts between parts of one mod that expects, say, that mod's ".gda" file but your game is using another mod's because both made changes to that same ".gda" and the other mod's was the "last one found", can and do still occur. Plus, some conflicts occur only when the contents of an ".erf" (encapsulated resource file) are extracted on-the-fly during the game. So no manager can tell you of all the potential conflicts.

 

 

Now, some basics about the managers:

 

DAO-ModManager (DAMM) handles ".dazip" files and is the only one that can handle ".override" mods. (Not "files that go in your '\override' folder". These ".override" files are specially packaged mods, often with player-configurable options.)

 

DAManager (DAM) handles ".dazip" and ".zip" files, but can't handle ".override".

 

Nexus Mod Manager (NMM) handles ".dazip", and most ".zip", ".rar", and ".7z" files properly, but again can't handle ".override" mods. It assists in managing CC mods, but doesn't handle the integration with the chargenmorphcfg.xml file (see below.) It also has problems when a mod author packages multiple options within a single archive and instructs the player to extract just the preferred one.

 

DAUpdater is the built-in manager provided with the game itself. It can only handle ".dazip" files.

 

 

For CC mods, the file "chargenmorphcfg.xml" is the mapping of the mod's resources (textures, meshes, colours, etc.) to the CC sliders that the player uses to apply them. The game only uses a single cgmc.xml. So if you just extract such a mod to your "\override" folder, you'll wipe-out your previous one with the new one. You have to edit your existing cfgc.xml file to integrate the contents of a mod's. You can do this manually, or you can use Terra_Ex's excellent utility "CharGenMorph Compiler".

 

 

Hope this helps! :thumbsup:

[Asterra]

Thank you for taking the time to explain everything. I feel more like I'm on better footing now.

 

I guess I have one question remaining:

 

What on earth happened to my DAMM? When I attempted to install More Hairstyles with it, it freaked out, as I described before. I have since done all I could think of to revert the app to its freshly installed state, including deleting everything and removing its ini file from the DAO settings and then reinstalling it in a competely separate location, but it still refuses to show anything under the Dazip window. (It is probably worth mentioning, however, that no matter what I delete, a fresh install of DAMM still somehow knows where to find my DAO install, even though I had to tell it the first time, so it is reasonable to conclude that there is some ini file hiding somewhere.. probably where it shouldn't. This speculation is validated by the fact that the app thinks things are still installed when I went through the trouble of uninstalling them.) As I said, the items are there and can be clicked on (including, it would seem, a bunch that DAO already had), but they are invisible.

 

The White Teeth issue (and presumably most of the other nonfunctioning mods) probably can be attributed to its being an .erf file and therefore an uncommonly bothersome case.

 

Edit: I decided to try my luck with DAModder. DAM found the installed mods which DAMM refused to list (even though DAMM would also insist they were already installed). Removing More Hairstyles caused DAMM's Dazip window to stop being invisible. So presumably the problem was that whatever (obviously permanent) bug caused DAMM to not like More Hairstyles resulted in a partial installation of the mod, which DAMM was not equipped to handle.

Edited June 22, 2014 by Asterra

[Thandal]

"More Hairstyles" is packaged as a ".zip" file. It contains the resources and the ".xml" for use in the CC. DAMM does not know how to deal with those. It only knows about ".dazip" and ".override" files. So I am not surprised that things went sideways if you tried to use DAMM to do anything at all with that mod. :laugh:

 

And even reading and following the author's installation instructions for "More Hairstyles" would lead to problems if you also use other CC mods. The only sure ways I know to get multiple CC mods working cleanly together is to use the CharGenMorph Compiler, or to edit the cgmc.xml file by hand. Since the latter method is littered with chances for errors, I always choose the former! :thumbsup:

[txchimama]

I have a question about mods not working correctly. I had a problem earlier with a follower becoming invisible-no longer a problem-and uninstalled some of my mods to find out which one was causing the problem.Once I found the solution for my invisible problem I re installed & activated the mods that I had uninstalled. When I next started my game I re checked all the boxes that had been re activated,but when I tried to load a save I got the message that I needed to reload the mods in order to load the save. The only option was to force load-which I did. I have noticed that those mods are not working in game.

What should I do to get them working again? That won't cause anything else to go wrong.

[Thandal]

@txchimama; First of all, start your own topic instead of hijacking this one. Second, you'll have to identify ALL the mods you're using, (and which ones aren't working) before anyone could begin to assist you. :armscrossed:

[Killswitch13]

I realize this is an old thread, but there has been no solution offered for the invisible mod list problem in DAMM. If anyone else is experiencing this issue, you just need to edit the file that the manager uses to keep information on installed mods. The proceeding example assumes DAMM's default AddIns Folder location, using More Hairstyles as the offending mod.

 

Navigate to \%userprofile%\Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age\Settings , open the AddIns.xml file with Notepad, and remove the following lines that appear at the bottom of the document:

  <AddInItem UID="More_Hairstyles" Name="More Hairstyles">
    <Title DefaultText="More Hairstyles" />
    <Description DefaultText="Adds new hairstyles available at character creation. Included are some of Ren's and idkrrr's hairstyles, as well as the Lady of the Forest hair. One hairstyle was created by Anto, and another by NewSea, both from the Sims community." />
    <URL DefaultText="http://www.dragonagenexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=392" />
    <Version>0.51</Version>
    <Publisher DefaultText="Kzelsama" />
  </AddInItem>

Note that there's a single line under that block of text that should remain. After the edit, the last 3 lines should read:

    </FileList>
  </AddInItem>
</AddInsList>

Edited May 22, 2019 by Killswitch13