Changes to INI files making my game CTD?

[Omny]

So a couple days ago, I noticed a couple of my mods weren't working (mainly CBBE and a couple custom texture mods. Probably a couple others too but I didn't test them). I tried fiddling around with various settings, and then found out that for some reason the changes you had to make to the INI files weren't there anymore, the ones that look like this:

 

[ Display]
iLocation X=0
iLocation Y=0

[Archive]
bInvalidateOlderFiles=1
sResourceDataDirsFinal=

 

 

So I put them back in the Fallout4Custom.INI and the Fallout4.INI, making sure they were read-only afterwards. But once I did, my game would immediately CTD just seconds after launching. I tried multiple things: changing only one INI file or the other, turning mods on and off, outright uninstalling mods... nothing worked; as soon as I turned the game on, I'd get a black screen with a little hourglass mouse icon for about five seconds and then bang, nothing.

 

So I did a complete clean-up: I uninstalled ALL of my mods and then uninstalled/reinstalled my Fallout 4 game. But even then, the game crashes in seconds if I have these INI edits in place. Without them, my mods won't work, but with them I can't play at all! What gives? Did the latest Fallout 4 update screw me over? Is there a workaround I'm not aware of? Please help!

Edited February 21, 2016 by Omny

[wax2k]

Crashing before or at the main menu mostly means wrong load order / missing master files. In case you use NMM, check for plugins shown in orange / red in the plugins tab. They will show their master files on the right side when being selected. The master files have to be above them in load order. If you don't manage to fix it, post your full load order here in spoiler tags, so we might take a guess.

 

Edit: on a closer look: you got a leading space in [ Display]. It should be [Display]. Dunno if that really leads to crashes, but fixing it can't hurt either way :wink:

Edited February 21, 2016 by wax2k

[Omny]

Crashing before or at the main menu mostly means wrong load order / missing master files. In case you use NMM, check for plugins shown in orange / red in the plugins tab. They will show their master files on the right side when being selected. The master files have to be above them in load order. If you don't manage to fix it, post your full load order here in spoiler tags, so we might take a guess.

 

I didn't have any of those problems before; all my mods were in the correct order. And it still crashes even though I've uninstalled all of my mods. At the moment I only have the base game; no mods to speak of. If I put in the edits, the game crashes.

 

Edit: on a closer look: you got a leading space in [ Display]. It should be [Display]. Dunno if that really leads to crashes, but fixing it can't hurt either way :wink:

 

I tried fixing that, but it didn't change anything, it still crashes.

[wax2k]

Ok, in that case you'll have to go the hard way.

 

- Please check your \Fallout 4\data folder for any custom leftovers. It has to look like this:

\Strings
\Video
Fallout4 - Animations.ba2
Fallout4 - Geometry.csg
Fallout4 - Interface.ba2
Fallout4 - Materials.ba2
Fallout4 - Meshes.ba2
Fallout4 - MeshesExtra.ba2
Fallout4 - Misc.ba2
Fallout4 - Nvflex.ba2
Fallout4 - Shaders.ba2
Fallout4 - Sounds.ba2
Fallout4 - Startup.ba2
Fallout4 - Textures1.ba2
Fallout4 - Textures2.ba2
Fallout4 - Textures3.ba2
Fallout4 - Textures4.ba2
Fallout4 - Textures5.ba2
Fallout4 - Textures6.ba2
Fallout4 - Textures7.ba2
Fallout4 - Textures8.ba2
Fallout4 - Textures9.ba2
Fallout4 - Voices.ba2
Fallout4.cdx
Fallout4.esm

Everything else is not vanilla and should be removed. I would even delete the files in \Fallout 4\data\strings since these might be modded as well.

 

- Then delete the 3 ini files in \%userdata%\Documents\My Games\Fallout4 as well as the plugins.txt in \%userdata%\AppData\Local\Fallout4

 

- Verify game cache in Steam

 

- Then launch the game once until you see the main menu and quit again. The Fallout4Custom.ini should now exist again. Edit it (and only this one) to again look like this:

[Display]
iLocation X=0
iLocation Y=0
 
[Archive]
bInvalidateOlderFiles=1
sResourceDataDirsFinal=

then save it and and launch the game. If that again doesn't work, you have some issue outside of the game. Could be driver or hardware issues.

Edited February 21, 2016 by wax2k

[Omny]

I just tried all of that; didn't work. Although when I launched the game once and quit, there wasn't a Fallout4Custom.ini file; I had to make one myself. Would that change anything?

[wax2k]

Not if you did it right. It's just a plain text file. So as I stated:

If that again doesn't work, you have some issue outside of the game. Could be driver or hardware issues.

[Omny]

I'll try it again; maybe I missed a step or something.

 

I don't understand what the issue would be with my driver or hardware; I haven't made any updates or changes to anything. If it doesn't work, where would you suggest I begin looking?

[Omny]

Hey, that worked! I must have missed something the first time.

 

 

Thanks a bunch, Wax2k!

[mjrpayne]

Wax2k, I'm having the same issue with not having the fallout4custom.ini file. I've followed the steps you listed above and am unable to recreate it. any further advice?

[wax2k]

Where did you look for it?