Need help with disabling mods

[Veslar]

Hey, folks! Basically, I have a persistent bug with a vanilla quest, which as far as I have read on various Internet topics is caused by some mods ( different for different people ). I am very very far into the game, my acc is around lvl. 72 and I have do desire to begin again. So, I guess my question is how to safely disable the mods without braking the game and/or quests? Of course, I have various hard saves from the beginning of the game up to this moment and I guess I can disable the mods, load an early save and use trial and error there. Would that have any effect on my most recent save? So, what should I do?

 

I do apologize, if my questions sound noobish, but I have experience with mods only from the perspective of a standard user, who have no idea about any indebt info about modding.

 

Thanks in advance!

[WastelandAssassin]

if you are going to being again , you'll need to start a new character

removing mods from an active save file is never a safe thing to do . small mods may be removable without any issues . larger mods could be removed without issues , if you follow the uninstallation instructions they provide

but in many cases removing mods isn't safe , and could very well break your save file , and since you are asking this , that means you probably don't have the know how required to minimize the issues (to be honest , I don't think I have that know how , and I consider myself as a pretty experienced user)

 

if you still think it would be a good idea to remove the mods from your game and try to continue with that character , I would recommend going to the mod's pages , looking at the uninstallation instructions , and following them to the best of your ability

[Veslar]

if you are going to being again , you'll need to start a new character

removing mods from an active save file is never a safe thing to do . small mods may be removable without any issues . larger mods could be removed without issues , if you follow the uninstallation instructions they provide

but in many cases removing mods isn't safe , and could very well break your save file , and since you are asking this , that means you probably don't have the know how required to minimize the issues (to be honest , I don't think I have that know how , and I consider myself as a pretty experienced user)

 

if you still think it would be a good idea to remove the mods from your game and try to continue with that character , I would recommend going to the mod's pages , looking at the uninstallation instructions , and following them to the best of your ability

Thanks for the info. But I do not intend to remove the mods altogether, since I am pretty satisfied with how the game is modded. The things is the bugged quest - TG 02 ( Loud and Clear ), which is unable to start, due to reasons beyond me. Brynjolf simply refuses to introduce me to Mercer, which bug the whole quest chain. I attempted to start TG 03 ( which starts, but prevent me from doing the side jobs for Delvin and Vex and makes Tonilla irresponsive ). As far as I have understood from many various Internet sources, the thing responsible for the bug is a mod ( which is always different, as it seems, since I don't have neither of the mods, causing the problem, save for Undeath ) So I guess I only want do disable my mods temporarily, determine which one is responsible and turn them back on. Is it possible this operation to be carried out safely?

[WastelandAssassin]

that isn't something I would advise , and this isn't likely to really be a safe thing to do

of course , it really depends on which mods you are using , as the effects of such actions could greatly differ between different mods

 

my best suggestion in such a case is to start a new game , put yourself in Riften as soon as you can and just rush the quests to try and figure out which mod is causing the issue

 

you could try to remove mods and test your current save , but I don't think anyone can guarantee it will actually work (in fact , it could do even more damage)

[Algabar]

 

So I guess I only want do disable my mods temporarily, determine which one is responsible and turn them back on. Is it possible this operation to be carried out safely?

 

 

You can do that for testing purposes, but don't play on with a save game after that point. If you disable a mod, everything it added to the game will be lost once you saved your game without that mod. This may also break quests from mods, reset companions and leave leftover scripts in your savegame, that can cause further issues.

 

If something doesn't work the way it should in a modded game, you should always try to find the cause of that issue.

How to go about this:

Do what WastelandAssassin suggested: Start with a new character, get to Riften and the TG quests as soon as posiible.

Now systematically disable mods (10 at a time or so), until you're able to start "loud and clear". Now re-enable the mods you disabled last again one by one, until the problem occurs again. This way you can find the "culprit".

 

You can then try to make a "clean save" without that one single mod. Google how to make a "clean save" if you need to - there are a lot of tutorials / guides on this.

[Veslar]

 

 

So I guess I only want do disable my mods temporarily, determine which one is responsible and turn them back on. Is it possible this operation to be carried out safely?

 

 

You can do that for testing purposes, but don't play on with a save game after that point. If you disable a mod, everything it added to the game will be lost once you saved your game without that mod. This may also break quests from mods, reset companions and leave leftover scripts in your savegame, that can cause further issues.

 

If something doesn't work the way it should in a modded game, you should always try to find the cause of that issue.

How to go about this:

Do what WastelandAssassin suggested: Start with a new character, get to Riften and the TG quests as soon as posiible.

Now systematically disable mods (10 at a time or so), until you're able to start "loud and clear". Now re-enable the mods you disabled last again one by one, until the problem occurs again. This way you can find the "culprit".

 

You can then try to make a "clean save" without that one single mod. Google how to make a "clean save" if you need to - there are a lot of tutorials / guides on this.

 

Sounds as a reasonable suggestion. So, I start a new game with all mods activated and and after I got to Riften, attempt to complete the quest, disabling the most possible mods, until I get a result, is that correct? After I find the culprit, disable if it is a simple mod and do a clean save. Disabling the mods in a new game won't have any undesirable effects on my main character saved games, right?

[WastelandAssassin]

disabling any mod on a new save won't affect your existing saves , as long as you make sure to reactivate these mods again before loading any of your existing saves

just be sure to simply deactivate the plugins instead of uninstalling the mods (this won't matter if you use MO2 , not sure about NMM or Vortex , but it's best not to uninstall any mods until you are sure you found the culprit) , and it's best to do them in batches of 5-10 , depending on how many possible culprits you have

[tomomi1922]

I just want to chime in and say that it is smart to disable certain mods in attempt to find problems. But you also have to understand the game relies on these mods to get you where you are right now in your progression. Violently take the mods out may cause you more troubles.

Mods are not always about quantity, but quality. I can safely disable about 20 of my item mods (that only add items in game) and quite confidently say I will be all right (still not 100% guarantee). I can go disable the Unofficial Patch ... I am looking at 90% chance of CTD (just imagine how many mods depend on that mod). So imo, it is a much smarter way to learn more about the mods you want to install and what they do (and how they do it). Then you have a good idea of how they would behave in game, and notice the first thing that would go wrong. You hire a plumber to fix your sink, yet you find him snooping around your baby's crib, it would raise a huge red flag right? If you don't know what a plumber does, you may presume "cool, he is feeding my baby, I think I hired him for that!"

Edited June 26, 2018 by tomomi1922