Cannot launch SSE with mods active

[Kathalie]

2 days ago I was having problems with some mods, after disabling the offending mods the game would go CTD at the vendor inside the Warmaiden smith at Whiterun every time I chose the dialogue option to open the buy/sell window.

After spending 2 days doing a clean install and all my mods, I'm still unable to launch the game with mods active.

So I decided to do a clean install of Skyrim and my mods, since then I have been consistently unable to launch the game unless I delete the file "plugins.txt located in the C:\users\[username]appdata\local\Skyrim Special Edition.

This happens both with and without mods installed.

The problem is that by deleting that file I also disable all the mods I have installed.

I can activate them ingame of course, but its a far too tedious job as I can only activate a single mod at a time, bfore I have to go back to the main menu and apply the change.

If I activate more than 1 mod and go back to the main menu, the game will crash.

I tried every troubleshooting solution I can find, but still cant get it to work.

I had no problems prior to reinstalling Skyrim, and I have done this before without encountering any problems.

I get no error of any kind, the game just will not launch, I can get the launcher, but when I click play, I get a loading/working indicator next to my mouse pointer for a few seconds, then nothing.

These are the things I have tried/checked and found to not work, so please do not suggest I try them:

• Restart steam, and restart computer.
• Uninstall and reinstall Visual C++ 2015 redistrubutable(restarted computer after uninstalling and after each install of x64 and x86 respectively).
• Completely removed skyrim, all mods and even NMM(including save files and registry entires), and then reinstalled it all(skyrim I reinstalled twice).
• Tried looking at system restore, but it seems to only go back to when I first uninstalled Visual C++ yesterday, no earlier restore point is available.
• Drivers are up to date.
• Checked that antivirus and anti malware software is not blocking the skyrim.exe(it it was I would not be able to run the game at all anyway).

I never encountered a game to not work after reinstalling it before, so now find myself at a complete loss as to what to do, and completely clueless as to what happened to cause this from a mere reinstallation of the game.

 

So I'm hoping there are someone here that can help me solve this.

[Kathalie]

I was finally able to track down the problem.

 

The way I found it was that I deleted the plugins.txt file(C:\users\[username]\Appdata\Local\Skyrim Special edition).

Then I launched the game, and selected the Addon option in the main menu ingame.

Finally I activated the mods one at a time, exiting to the main menu for each one.

When activating one of the mods the game would crash when trying to go back to the main menu.

After that the game would launch without any problems, with all mods active.

In this case it turns out I had installed a mod from old Skyrim that was not compatible with SE.

After removing that mod I was able to run the game with no problems.

Edited May 17, 2017 by Kathalie

[LillyMorgana]

THANK YOU SO MUCH! Yes, all caps - i'm yelling with joy. I had done what I thought was a clean install, and then crash. crash, crash. no matter what I tried. But your fix did it. Thanks again!