QueueTeePie

To clarify for others landing here with this issue: TES5Edit will properly remove a master file reference from a mods file header if the mod has no reference to that master file. For me this problem is usually related to a mod having been deleted or a record in the master file being removed leaving another mod with a bad reference. In the case of a mod being deleted and another mod still depending on the deleted file TES5Edit will not even load to allow you to fix it. I use WryeBash to create a dummy mod that will allow TES5Edit to then load. The mod with the missing master appears in WryeBash with a red checkmark. Right-click it and select "Create Dummy Masters..." from the "Files" heading. Be sure to then move the created dummy mod above the mod missing that master file and load TES5Edit. Right-click on the mods filename in TES5Edit and select the "clean masters" option. Then exit and save TES5Edit without any edits to that file. If you manually remove the reference from within the file header all other references in your mod to any other master files will lose their references. There are likely other methods to accomplish this but this is what works for me - hope it helps someone else!