Skyrim Update.esm Missing
Shawna Erholm
Finally got a working mod build after several days of downloading, cleaning files, deleting conflicting mods... I'd been doing test starts with the build after every 5-10 mods to make sure nothing was causing a CTD on start-up (had that problem early on and was a pain trying to figure out which mod was causing it). Anyway, I had started the game probably 30 times via mod organizer using SKSE.
This morning, without making any changes, noticed that launching with SKSE started the game and got all animations, but the scene wasn't going anywhere. First assumption was Steam had updated, so I closed out mod organizer and launched from Steam. Game worked fine, albeit without any of the mods. Went back to mod organizer, clicked on SKSE, and got the same glitch as before. First assumption was SKSE was messing up, so went to the SKSE launcher in the game folder, and launched from there. Game started as expected with no glitch. This made me think the path for SKSE may have gotten changed, so I checked that. It looked good, but still launched a glitched game through mod organizer. Since I'm not completely immune to mistakes, I went ahead and manually browsed to the location to reinstall the path through mod organizer. Still no good. Glitched game, so I tried starting by continuing from the last save via mod organizer. No issue since that was just after character creation. Still no mods coming up.
Long story short, I noticed that A LOT of my mods had disappeared from the left hand pane. That's not a massive issue since I can just re-install them from the downloads pane. FOMODS are going to be time consuming, but it's better than starting from scratch.
Here is the big issue. skyrim.esm is one of the missing files in the window. I checked the game data folder, and the file is there, so I'm not sure what is going on. For some reason, mod organizer isn't seeing it. I'm stumped.
I know that Mod Organizer stores multiple copies of files for different purposes, but have no idea how to fix this. My best current guess is that one of the files has became corrupted, but have no ideas past that.
Apparently, the creature pack was interfering with SKSE in weird ways. Initially, I still got the "SKSE has quit working" error, but everything was behaving normally. I re-installed SKSE after this, overwriting all the files, and didn't get the error anymore. I can only assume there is a log somewhere in SKSE that was holding a record of the files.
Completely off topic, but I have quite a few armor mods and followers I'm planning on adding later, and would probably push me past the limit. I'm hoping to merge these into a single pack with merge plugins via MO2. I've never used anything like this in the past, so hoping someone can refer me to a detailed reference of how the process works. In the mean time, I'm just happy to be able to play again, and hoping the same issue doesn't happen again.
Mod Organizer should use the masters (Skyrim.esm, Update.esm, Dawnguard.esm, Hearthfire.esm and Dragonborn.esm) in the Skyrim Special Edition\Data folder by default and these should appear at the top of the right pane (not in the left pane). The one exception is that if you've cleaned the masters and installed the cleaned masters as mods, you should see these mods in the left pane but I digress...
The first thing I'd check is to run Mod Organizer. Select the Plugins tab in the right pane so you're seeing all the masters and plugins. Look at the bottom of the right pane and you should see a textbox. If there's any text in that textbox, delete it to remove the filter. I think the right pane has a red border if the filter is active with the newer versions of Mod Organizer to make it stand out like a sore thumb. You may also see a brush or flashlight icon to the far right of the textbox that you can click to clear the filter.
If you are using Mod Organizer in portable mode, verify you have selected the correct profile. If you are using Mod Organizer in instance mod, click the red circle with an arrow to a card icon at the top left (the first icon in the toolbar) to ensure you using the correct instance.
That still leaves me with an SKSE which won't run when started from MO2. It will start the game if activated from the game folder, but won't run from MO2. It will start the game, but is gives several error messages during the Alduin load screen that mods depending on it (SKUI...) won't run because it has stopped. Then I get the glitch where animations and characters move, but the cart is stationary.
None of this happens when entering the game from the SKSE loader from the game folder. However, when loading from the game folder, there are no mod dependencies to trigger the error message either. Even disabling all the mods doesn't help. Out of curiosity, I just unchecked all my mods from the load, and tried launching SKSE on the off chance that one of the mods was causing this. Still glitched. I then (without adding the mods) tried launching from the "Skyrim Special Edition" link in the "Run" dropdown menu in MO2. It got the same glitch with no mods, and not starting the game from SKSE.
Now I have to wonder what is different when launching from mod organizer compared to launching from the links in the game file. As it is, anything I launch from MO2 has the glitch which prevents being able to start a new game while there are no problems when launched from the game folder links.
Since I'm this far, and know that all of mod organizer is effected (launching from either of the links gives the same result) I have to ask if there's a way to get mod organizer to re-build the files from the game folder?
Something has to be different which causes the horses to sit stationary when starting from MO2. Again, this was a sudden change after having no issues launching from MO2 for the three days I'd been building the mods into the game.
Also do not discount the possibility of your anti-virus program has removed key files MO needs to operate, usually usvfs_proxy_x86.exe. The way MO operated is by hooking any executable run through it and most, if not all anti-virus programs will treat that as a virus and quarantine the file. If that is the case that you will have to tell the AV to exclude that file.
As a last resort, also noticed that there's an uninstall exe in that folder. I'd rather hang onto the mods I spent so much time downloading, and get the current build running, but I'm not really "tech savy" enough to know where else to look.
Knowing that the mods disappeared from the mod folder, are there any files other than downloaded mods supposed to be there? I don't see anything else in the folder, but don't know if there's potentially something that should be there either. PC settings are set to show hidden files/folders, so everything should be visible.
Other than the mods you have installed, there should not be any other files in the mods folder. There should be the folders of the mods themselves. MO2 presents the mods folder to the game as the Data folder through its VFS system.
After I install MO, the first thing I do is to setup different locations for the mods, Profiles and Downloads folders, preferably on another drive, and point MO to those. This is an insurance policy in case I have to for some reason nuke the MO2 folder. You can reinstall MO and point it to those locations again.
I have a portable SSD drive designated for nothing but my games. Both steam and MO2 are installed on the drive. For example, E:\Steam or E:\Mod Organizer Likewise, I have a folder there in the base directory for armors and weapons I've manually downloaded to play with in bodyslide or creation kit. Being on the same drive is as close as they get aside from any changes which MO2 would have made in order to be able to verify/run game installs. Version is 2.2.2.1 As for the profile, downloads, etc, I simply installed them to the same base directory path as directed by the software during set-up.
Glad you got it sorted out. You can run the Merge plugins standalone or zEdit executables from MO to merge plugins. I would recommend learning how to use zEdit and its other Application Modes. Well worth the time spent on it.
Im trying to download NMM and it i was able to download it yesterday then i couldnt download certain mods and then i deleted all nexus files and re downloaded. But now i cant start it it just comes up that im missing skyrim.esm tec and i need to ensure that my game is present. I am playing special edition btw Please Help!!
do try to refrain from removing game files , for your own sake . sure steam will download them again for you , if you make it , but if you don't realize you do this , it could create hell in your game without your knowledge
Where do you have NMM installed? Where do you have Steam installed? You can look for Skyrim.esm forever under D:/Skyrim but I do not believe that You can install Steam and Skyrim in different folders, although maybe I am wrong.
Your Skyrim.esm should be under: whatever drive you have Steam installed on/Steam/steamapps/common/Skyrim Special Edition/Data. What you could do after you reinstall the game is right click on it, go to "properties" then "local files". then "browse local files" at the top of that window it will show the path to where Skyrim Special Edition is installed on your computer.
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