Need Help Loading My Geck Mod

[henryestanley14]

Alright, so I foolishly tried my hand at adding ENB's and other game enhancing mods which require installation outside of a mod manager. (please don't come at me talking about how simple it is, my computer is pretty trash as is, i'm lucky if I can run a few mods at all) And essentially gave up after realizing that my system probably was just better off without it. I must've fuxed with something in the data/mods folder though, because my game updated itself and uninstalled everything I had. I was worried about my save data and mods, but luckily the saves were kept and i could re-load all my mods, all but one. And that mod was an overhaul of the lucky 38 penthouse I made for my home, meaning it has all my valuable items from the entire campaign in a few chests that are now gone. No matter what I seem to do, I can't get the mod to appear for activation in the "data files" section of the New Vegas Launcher. Help!! I've placed it, removed it, copied it, and done everything I can think of. It's in the data folder, but my game just isn't registering it for some reason. :sad: [edit, the mods that were saved were through nexus, so i just uninstalled and reloaded them through the mod manager]

Edited April 3, 2019 by henryestanley14

[dubiousintent]

A mod file has to have an extension of ".ESM", ".ESP", or ".BSA" (which must begin with a filename matching an ESM/ESP file) to be recognized by the game. Any other extension will be ignored. If your file has one of those extensions and is placed in the game "Data" folder but is still not being recognized, most likely it has some "non-printing" or "different codepage" character(s) in the filename or extension which are not displayed but prevent the file from being loaded. Try simply "renaming" it using a filename and extension consisting only the basic ASCII text character set (no "unicode" or "non-English" characters) as a test.

 

* Did you install Steam to it's default location? If so, please see the wiki "Installing Games on Windows Vista+" article for why the original default Steam behavior of installing games to the "C:\Program Files" or "C:\Program Files(x86)" folder tree was bad (they learned better, and don't do that any more); and why "disabling UAC and running as Administrator" is NOT sufficient, with instructions how to move it. This is the single most important thing you can do to fix and protect yourself against problems in the future. As much of a PITA as that is, it's never going to be any easier than now. System updates often cause issues with games installed to these folder trees. Please see the 'Restoring to "Vanilla"' section of the wiki "FNV General Mod Use Advice" article as well.

-Dubious-

[henryestanley14]

A mod file has to have an extension of ".ESM", ".ESP", or ".BSA" (which must begin with a filename matching an ESM/ESP file) to be recognized by the game. Any other extension will be ignored. If your file has one of those extensions and is placed in the game "Data" folder but is still not being recognized, most likely it has some "non-printing" or "different codepage" character(s) in the filename or extension which are not displayed but prevent the file from being loaded. Try simply "renaming" it using a filename and extension consisting only the basic ASCII text character set (no "unicode" or "non-English" characters) as a test.

 

* Did you install Steam to it's default location? If so, please see the wiki "Installing Games on Windows Vista+" article for why the original default Steam behavior of installing games to the "C:\Program Files" or "C:\Program Files(x86)" folder tree was bad (they learned better, and don't do that any more); and why "disabling UAC and running as Administrator" is NOT sufficient, with instructions how to move it. This is the single most important thing you can do to fix and protect yourself against problems in the future. As much of a PITA as that is, it's never going to be any easier than now. System updates often cause issues with games installed to these folder trees. Please see the 'Restoring to "Vanilla"' section of the wiki "FNV General Mod Use Advice" article as well.

 

-Dubious-

I just tried renaming the file, I also earlier tried to just add a stool to a random cell of camp forlorn hope to test loading a newly created mod, but it still didn't appear in the data files at the launcher. Is this a problem with my geck? It is saved as a .esp file

[dubiousintent]

You mentioned a "mod manager", but didn't specify which one. Different managers handle the "Data" folder differently, so that is important information. The "FalloutNVLauncher" only recognizes files present in the "Data" folder. So, if it isn't seeing your mod flle, then either 1) the filename is not valid, or 2) the file is not present in "Data". You said it was in "Data", but (depending upon the manager) it might not be "physically" present when not using that manager, and thus not seen by "Launcher".

 

You didn't answer the question: Where do you have the game installed? As explained in the "Installing Games" article, files in the "system protected" folder that get "modified" are not saved to the original location but are treated as "shadow files". Older games like FNV don't know how to deal with that situation.

 

Where do you have the GECK installed? It should be in the game "root" folder (where the "FalloutNV.EXE" file is located.) Again, if that is a "system protected" folder, then the same "shadow file" problem occurs.

 

-Dubious-

[henryestanley14]

You mentioned a "mod manager", but didn't specify which one. Different managers handle the "Data" folder differently, so that is important information. The "FalloutNVLauncher" only recognizes files present in the "Data" folder. So, if it isn't seeing your mod flle, then either 1) the filename is not valid, or 2) the file is not present in "Data". You said it was in "Data", but (depending upon the manager) it might not be "physically" present when not using that manager, and thus not seen by "Launcher".

 

You didn't answer the question: Where do you have the game installed? As explained in the "Installing Games" article, files in the "system protected" folder that get "modified" are not saved to the original location but are treated as "shadow files". Older games like FNV don't know how to deal with that situation.

 

Where do you have the GECK installed? It should be in the game "root" folder (where the "FalloutNV.EXE" file is located.) Again, if that is a "system protected" folder, then the same "shadow file" problem occurs.

 

-Dubious-

 

(sorry for the incompetency, i am not at all used to dealing with these kinds of issues)

 

my geck is installed in the root folder, and my game is installed to wherever it installs by default. i have loaded and played with this mod before in the exact same location, i figured that i must have deleted something by accident when removing the enb files which cause my game to update and disable all my mods. nexus mod manager is what i used for most mods, and those work fine after just re-enabling them in the manager. the problem is with the one mod i have from the geck, which is directly in the data folder (where it defaulted to after saving in geck). here is a screenshot of the file inside my new vegas data folder file:///C:/Users/henry/Pictures/Screenshots/Screenshot%20(5).png

Edited April 4, 2019 by henryestanley14

[dubiousintent]

As you installed to the "default" Steam location, your game is in the system protected folder ("C:\Program Files" or "C:\Program Files(x86)" and "\Steam\steamapps\common\Fallout New Vegas"). It doesn't matter if everything worked fine previously. It doesn't now. Microsoft is pushing out patches every month, and when it does it resets "protections" against malware on such folders in addition to patching how the OS works and can screw over your game installed there at any time without warning. Go back to my first response to your post and following the instructions in the "Installing Games" article. Yes, I know it's a PITA, but how is that different than the current situation?

 

Your screenshot link is not a URL the forum can accept. See "How to markup images (etc) in forum posts and comments" article for how to use "Image tags".

 

However, I believe you when you say the file is in the Data folder, so the screenshot is not really needed at this time. I suggest you move your plugin to a "install" folder like any other NMM mod and let NMM handle it just as it does the others. You can even package it up into 7Z file if you want, once you are done editing it in GECK.

 

-Dubious-