Game loads a completely different set of ESPs

[WarRatsG]

Hi. This is a problem that has cropped up twice now, the first time I made a fresh installation of Skyrim and this fixed the problem, but now reinstalling has not worked. I've tried many things to fix it myself but now I'm stumped. I'd love if someone else had a fix.

 

So here's what is going on - I go on to Wrye Bash, activate the same set of esps that I always use and have never had any problems with. I then boot up the game, and the only plugins active are Skyrim.esm and Update.esm, along with SkyUI.esp. The first time this happened, it would also load up an esp for dual-wield blocking, although I don't remember the exact name.

 

The first time it happened, it was after a year away from Skyrim. Clean installation fixed the issue. This time, I booted up the game and it kept minimising itself, as if another window was opening up. This doesn't normally happen, but if Skyrim minimises for me I have to close it because it will not re-open properly. Now it was happening every 5 minutes, so I restarted the computer (including a windows update, which feels a little suspicious) and when I tried to load my game it mentions "missing content" as though esps were missing, then CTD'd during the loading. Additionally, my settings like difficulty and controller had reset to default.

 

I made a new save with the same configuration, and looking at the save in Wrye Bash showed only the 3 plugins. The CTD makes sense, since the save was on Solstheim and now the Dragonborn DLC wasn't loading. I tried loading the plugins in Wrye Bash, NMM, and the Skyrim Launcher itself - all three recognised the ESPs I wanted to load, and all three allowed activation, but on loading the game only the three mentioned would load.

 

Now here is where it gets really weird. I deactivated all esps that I could, leaving ONLY skyrim.esm and update.esm. I tried loading the game then, and it STILL loaded SkyUI (and the dual-wield mod when I had it), even though it was now deactivated. Removing the esp from the folder prevented it from loading up in the game.

 

So, clearly the game is able to load esps because it is loading up skyui and dual-wield blocking whether they are activated or not, and it is definitely loading from the correct directory because removing those esps prevents them from being loaded. The other esps are recognised by the launchers, and can be activated by the launchers, but do not appear in the game such that wrye bash does not detect them in the save file.

 

The fact this immediately followed a windows update is a little telling, and the fact that the configuration settings all reset themselves is slightly worrying. I had changed a few config settings while testing, such as the controller to easily get around the menus, but after reinstalling this time they did not change back to default.

 

I've tried changing Read-Only attributes, I've tried Run as Administrator, I've reinstalled, and at this point I no longer have any idea what to do. I've got a fair bit of experience using mods for Skyrim and I used to make mods for Oblivion, so I've some notion of how they work.

 

If anyone has a solution, I'd be very grateful