Failed to start helper

[aboutthe1910s]

I've used MO2 with the classic version of Skyrim for a while, so I was already familiar with it. It was working fine. But I finally decided to switch over to SSE, and I uninstalled and deleted nearly everything on the SSD I keep Skyrim on. The problem came when I downloaded MO2 again and tried to set it up to work with Nexus links. I had them working fine before. But now every time I try to associate them, whether I do it through MO2 itself or by trying to run nxmhandler.exe, nxmhandler.exe mysteriously *disappears* from the folder and if I'm trying inside MO2 I get a message that says "Sorry, failed to start the helper application."  When I try to run helper.exe to see what's going on with it, all it says is "Invalid number of perameters -1." I scoured the internet before making this post trying to figure it out for myself. I made sure I was running as administrator--I even set nxmhandler.exe and helper.exe to run in administrative mode too, just in case. It made no difference. I redownloaded and repaired the VC redist files suggested on the MO2 Nexus page (even though MO2 was working fine this morning, so I was pretty sure it wasn't that.), and that didn't help. I have the entire drive set as an exception in my antivirus software. I had some MO files in my App Data folder that I deleted. I even reformatted my SSD because I thought it might be a weird Windows 10 administration/privilege issue, and that might solve it. I mean, yeah, I know perfectly well how to just download manually and install, but it's nice to be able to right click a mod and go to the Nexus page for it after it's installed, and that doesn't work with manual installation. Also, I'm not sure what else the helper.exe does, but I feel like there might be other issues at some point if I can't get it working. Help, please?

 

 

And now I'm getting a message saying that I don't even have administrative permission to put the nxmhandler.exe file in the drive at all. Everything else copies over just fine, it's just that one fine that Windows is being ridiculous about. I checked the properties for the folder, and sure enough Windows thinks it's Read Only and no matter how many times I unset it, it keeps stubbornly saying that it is when I close and reopen the properties. I tried disabling Read Only through commands, and even that didn't help--when I checked the properties it still thinks the folder is Read Only. And I ran a diagnostic tool on the drive, and it says it's fine, so I don't think the drive is just broken. So I'm guessing this is a Windows10-is-awful-and-I-hate-it issue, not actually an MO2 issue.

Edited August 29, 2018 by aboutthe1910s

[GSDFan]

Sounds like Antivirus activity to me. I would download an archive version of MO2 from the discord channel and before unzipping the archive, right click on it and select "Unblock" and then copy the files to their final destination. This should be away from any Windows UAC controlled folders and not in the games directory.

[aboutthe1910s]

Hm, I don't have "Unblock" as an option, but I tried starting my computer in safe mode and installing then running nxmhandler.exe from there, and it actually ran then, and now that it's done it's initial thing and I've restarted normally, all seems to be working fine... I can download to MO2 with the buttons on Nexus and I am not seeing any message about helper.exe working or not one way or another. Since this absurdity didn't stop me from copying that file over, I'm hoping I won't have any other problems related to it... We'll see...

 

Thank you so much for the suggestion though!

[Four_Months]

I've been facing the same problem.I restarted windows in safe mode but it didn't solve it for me. Also there is no unblock option in any exe or dll of MO2. Other than the irritating message the MO works fine.

Any help?

[merusalem]

Sorry, I responded to the wrong thread.

Edited September 8, 2018 by merusalem