Issues persisting even after clean install

[C1ncinnatus]

Okay, so I have had a couple mods that caused some really annoying issues and I can't fix them even with full reinstalls with new games.

 

The first is something that I've seen complained about in a lot of past threads and different websites that all die out with no solution, which is the neck seam remaining even on vanilla clean installs. I installed CBBE with face pack. I came across "Pretty Face" mod which said it was compatible with CBBE. So I installed with NMM and it asked me to overwrite things already changed with CBBE face pack, and I hit yes. It was okay, but there were large color differences between body and faces.

 

So I uninstalled Pretty Faces and tried reinstalling CBBE. All the NPC faces were vanilla, but even worse. Weird blocky mouth movements with black textures and clipping. I tried doing some clean save procedures and reinstalling CBBE again and even trying a manual install with it. Even on a fully new game, the face pack only worked on about half of the female faces and there were neck seams on most of them, the rest of the faces were vanilla, but still with neck seems.

 

So I tried an entirely new game, no mods at all, deleting skyrim folder, deleting saves and ini files, uninstalling all mods and uninstalling NMM. Total new game all vanilla and still there STILL was a neck seam, lighter head than body. Installed NMM again and CBBE w/ face pack again and the same thing as before, it fixed about half of the female NPCs, the other half were vanilla, all with neck seams.

 

But, it at least improved a lot of the faces and my character, so i decided to just put up with it as frustrated as I was that I coudln't fully fix it and still had to restart game over after getting to lvl 23.

 

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Then in last few days, everything else was going fine until I downloaded these mods: Disable cinematic kills, combat evolved, deadly creatures, army reforms tougher guards and soldiers, and daedric dawnbreaker. I had this mod before, deadric difficulty, but I did change its load order wrt combat evolved at the same time as installing these.

 

After installing these I started getting an extremely annoying bug. I get these floating black boxes when I hit anything (walls, NPCs, etc) with spells that then eventually vanish. For anyone who has played CS, the bug is pretty much exactly like cl_showimpacts 1. I'm not sure, but it seems to only happen with expert level destruction. Haven't tested it with master spells, but lower level destruction spells don't seem to cause it. Doesn't seem to happen with arrows or weapons. But expert destruction are the main spells that I use.

 

This is what it looks like: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1209466608

 

My guess is it's the combat evolved mod that caused it. That and cinematic kills are the only universal mods, the latter just changing a 1 to a 0. It doesn't just happen on guards or creatures, it happens on everyone, and I don't see how a sword buff could cause a bug that doesn't even happen with melee weapons.

 

So I tried to disable it. No fix. Tried to uninstall it. No fix. Tried to uninstall all the mods, including deadric difficulty. Nothing. Tried clean save utility and manual procedure. Tried make skyrim vanilla utility and tried manual procedure. Nothing fixed it. I deleted the ini files under my documents. I attempted to try different graphics settings. Nothing fixed it, however lower presets reduced how long they lasted and how many of the boxes there were. God rays seems to specifically affect how long it took for them to vanish. I tried new mods like deadly impacts and other spell mods hoping to overwrite w.e was causing the issue. No help.

 

Nothing fixed it and it was driving me crazy so I ended up doing a full uninstall of skyrim uninstalling NMM and all the mods within and deleting and uninstalling all the skyrim folders on my computer including backup folders and any program like LOOT, disabling automatic skyrim updates and cloud has always been disabled. I tried clean install of gpu drivers. Tried all of these things multiple times in different orders. I tried to see if installing on a different drive would work too, didn't help. And, of course, after all this, not only was the black boxes persisting, still had the neck seams.

 

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I'm beginning to lose my mind. I don't understand how any of this is possible. I've seen a lot of threads with the first issue and no solutions found - the neck seam/color mismatch remaining even with clean installs. The second bug is so odd and I can't find any posts about something similar anywhere. None of the mods seem like obvious culprits, the most likely being combat evolved but even that I don't really get it, it's supposedly a pretty light mod that claims to leave nothing in saved games. But those stupid boxes are annoying me way more than the neck seam.

 

But the second bug is really the same issue as the first: my main issue is that I can't revert Skyrim to vanilla no matter what I do.

 

Of course, I would love any theories on how I'm magically creating magic semi-transparent floating boxes. If I could fix that I would just get my old backup save and continue my game, which is what I want, I was level 40 don't want to start the whole game over again especially after having to do that after getting to 20, even if I have to continue tolerating the neck seams.

But, in case other mods cause a bug a simple disable doesn't work in the future, I would like to know how to fully make skyrim 100% clean. That's the biggest mystery to me.

 

I just don't get how on earth uninstalling and deleting everything and starting a new game is not fixing these issues. It doesn't seem possible to me. Is there something I'm not understanding here? Is there some folder or file I'm missing? Is steam keeping stuff in the cloud even with cloud disabled? Is NMM storing things in some mysterious place? Is there somehow something in the registry that I don't understand? Any help or suggestions greatly appreciated, I'm going nuts here.

 

TL;DR I have persistent neck seams and black floating boxes from where spells impact with things - full reinstalls somehow not fixing.

Edited November 25, 2017 by C1ncinnatus

[thumbincubation]

It's been a while since I've messed with NMM, but when you deleted your game files, saves, and ini files, is there also a nexus mod manager file somewhere in documents, separate from "my games"? If I recall correctly, the last time I did a full reinstall, I loaded up only to find I still had mods, with nothing but a vanilla data folder. In chasing it, I found that my nmm folder still held copies.

[yian]

Never install a whole bunch of mods at once. Always test one mod at a time.

[C1ncinnatus]

It's been a while since I've messed with NMM, but when you deleted your game files, saves, and ini files, is there also a nexus mod manager file somewhere in documents, separate from "my games"? If I recall correctly, the last time I did a full reinstall, I loaded up only to find I still had mods, with nothing but a vanilla data folder. In chasing it, I found that my nmm folder still held copies.

Yeah, I think found that and deleted it, still didn't help

 

Never install a whole bunch of mods at once. Always test one mod at a time.

I know it was stupid but I figured I could just uninstall if I had a bug.

 

Anyway, I did a full uninstall of skyrim again with revo uninstaller, to make sure everything in app data and registry were deleted. Then did same thing for all of steam. Somehow still have both issues. Would make me think the black boxes are just a vanilla bug, but the neck seam isn't so wtf.

 

The only thing I can think of is that steam is storing some things in cloud even with it disabled. Doesn't really make sense that these mods altered some file that not only does uninstalling the mod not fix, but that completely reinstalling steam and skyrim doesn't fix.

 

For the neck seam, I don't know if this makes sense but i'm thinking the resolution of the face textures was changed by Pretty Faces, which is why faces look different even on vanilla faces and even when installing CBBE face pack over it.

 

Is there any way a resolution change on face textures could survive a clean reinstall? What file(s) would be edited to change the resolution? Pretty face lists all the files it changes, but I don't even have those files after a clean install.

[Deleted3897072User]

I suppose you have tried rebooting Windows a few times ?

 

Windows helpfully caches your game and, when you think you have installed new copies of files, it secretly uses the cached ones instead. This can cause a great deal of frustration until you realise it's happening.

[yian]

 

Never install a whole bunch of mods at once. Always test one mod at a time.

 

I know it was stupid but I figured I could just uninstall if I had a bug.

 

If you install 50 mods at once, and then there is a problem in game, how do you know which mod is causing it? You will have to uninstall 50 mods just to be safe, especially if you cannot determine the culprit through console point-and-click. This is why it is never a bad idea to install a mod, then test it and make sure everything works the way it should, before you go install another.

 

Just to be sure, when you say you deleted the Skyrim folder, which Skyrim folder did you delete?

 

One more thing - always read the comment section before you use a mod (something you likely have skipped since you were busy installing many mods at once.) From what I read, Pretty Face mod has ruined quite a few people's game.

Edited November 27, 2017 by yian