silverdrift_

I was able to follow the guide because it says DLC: Dawnguard DLC: HearthFires DLC: Dragonborn ...Creation Club Mods... So I cleaned the (4) CC plugins that I had, which SSE 1.5.97 did not, and the guide does not quantify how many there are. So I saw 4 plugins with cc prefix and I assumed that was it. I am new to AE, and have been modding SSE 1.5.97 for a while now. I can't connect to Creation Club anymore and never had that content in my game. Did I waste my money on the DLC? I thought that the paid DLC provided anything not part of the "free" upgrade that everyone got. Any help appreciated. I just hope I didn't just waste 3 days putting this together for nothing.

Thanks- I replied just now with added info. the Step Lighting and weather patch seems to be causing the issue (directly or indirectly) When disabled, game launches. ALL plugins and ALL mods were activated in left and right panels, except the map mod which instruction said to turn off. Active plugins list was included in my OP. The missing items seem mostly to be CC items, but I only have 4 cc plugins in right pane (I have full version of AE with the AE DLC installed)- is that correct?

update: I went thru additive testing to determine the mod or plugin causing the CTD. Turned all mods off: Game starts to menu Add mod groups 1-4 > LOOT > Game starts to menu ADD Mod Groups 5-8 > LOOT > Nemesis > Game Starts to Menu ADD Mod Groups 9-12 > Loot > Game Starts to menu Add Mod Groups 13-18 > LOOT > Game Starts to menu Add Mod Group 19 > Loot > Game starts to menu Add Mod Group 20 > Loot > Game launches to imperial icon and CTD Turn off bottom half off group 20 > Loot > Game Launches to menu Add mods line by line repeating this result until Add "Step Patch -Lighting and Weather" > LOOT > Game launches to imperial icon and CTD Turn on ALL mods except above step patch > Loot > Game launches to menu Attached ESP is the issue causing the CTD. What I don't know is if it is this plugin's issue or a conflict with something else. I hope this added info helps narrow it down. Step Patch - Lighting and Weather.esp

I have followed the guide thru install the 20- mod group from a clean install of skyrim 1.6.640 +dlc. The initial game startup (at the beginning of the guide) went fine. I did a full install of the mod list including all "optional" mod groups. At the Benchmarking step following the 20- Mod group, I disabled A Clear Map... and made the INI adjustments in SSE Display Tweaks. I do not have G-sync. Benchmarking Step 3 says to launch skyrim, but does not say to run LOOT and Nemesis first- that seemed like just an oversight in the instructions because I have never had a successful game launch with this many mods unless I run loot and Nemesis first, so I ran LOOT and Nemesis as normal. LOOT kicked back a mess of errors, missing masters, etc, but I ignored this assuming it will be adjusted later in the guide. Was I literally supposed to not run these? Snips of the MO2 Missing Masters errors attached, The game will either: try to launch but CTD without actually launching at all, OR it will launch to the first display of the Imperial icon, but no menu about 15% of the time. Then CTD. Load order, modlist and plugins files attached from MO2. Thanks for any help. I'll keep poking at this, but would really appreciate any thoughts. If any other files help, let me know. loadorder.txt modlist.txt plugins.txt