BethINI Was Working, Now Won't

[gath88]

I've been using BethINI for literally *years* now, alongside Vortex. I recently tried to switch over to MO2 to try and more effectively wrestle with a particularly stubborn load order, and all of the sudden, BethINI has become a complete paperweight.

I can't even get the .exe to load. When I select it, and push past the false alarm virus warning, a window will pop up for a fraction of a second asking me to link the program to a game, before disappearing. Then, the .exe disappears entirely, forcing me to redownload the whole program file.

Like... What on Earth gives? I can't imagine its the anti-virus causing the problem, because it was working just fine before I tried to switch to MO2. MO2 must have broken something. Except, I deleted MO2, and BethINI is still broken.

Any ideas? I'm about at my wits end with Skyrim modding in general here, ngl. Feel like I need a friggin' Computer Science degree to even attempt to run some of the stuff out these days.

Edited December 24, 2022 by gath88

[z929669]

False alarm virus warning?

That's not normal. What game/version are you modding?

Install the latest versions of BethINI and MO into paths not under Windows UAC control. See our System Setup guide for details on configuring your modding environment.

[gath88]

It's the latest stand-alone version off of the Nexus page, version 1.1.33.10. I literally just redownloaded it to make sure. The read-me did mention that aggressive anti-virus programs might false flag the program, so I honestly didn't think much of it. And, like I said, it was doing that previously when I was still running under Vortex, and the program worked.

Update: I actually figured out how to get the AV to back off a bit while looking in the properties to verify the version number. I no longer get the warning when I load the program. I also took the set up guide's recommended step of creating a C: Modding Tools folder. However, the .exe is still crashing almost immediately after load, and then deleting itself.

The only other thing I can think that I've changed recently was that I installed the C++64 Redistributable tool off of Nexus because I was intending on trying to use some mods that required it. Is that something that could break BethINI?

Edited December 24, 2022 by gath88

[z929669]

21 minutes ago, gath88 said:

It's the latest stand-alone version off of the Nexus page, version 1.1.33.10. I literally just redownloaded it to make sure. The read-me did mention that aggressive anti-virus programs might false flag the program, so I honestly didn't think much of it. And, like I said, it was doing that previously when I was still running under Vortex, and the program still worked.

Update: I actually figured out how to get the AV to back off a bit while looking in the properties to verify the version number. I no longer get the warning when I load the program. I also took the set up guide's recommended step of creating a C: Modding Tools folder. However, the .exe is still crashing almost immediately after load, and then deleting itself.

The only other thing I can think that I've changed recently was that I installed the C++64 Redistributable tool off of Nexus because I was intending on trying to use some mods that required it. Is that something that could break BethINI?

Then I am clearly wrong that AV warnings are not an issue. I guess it can be, depending on the AV/security on the OS.

I use ESET under Windows 11 and never ever had an AV issue or warning with BethINI, so you are likely running Windows Security defaults or an aggressive AV, because your AV is probably quarantining the EXE (probably due to a recent Windows update). You will need to figure out how to tame your AV and whitelist BethINI and any number of other EXEs related to modding.

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The first couple of posts on this topic may still apply.

[DoubleYou]

This can only be an antivirus software that would do this.

[gath88]

Unfortunately I'm running Mcafee LiveSafe as my AV, which has probably the most obtuse UI I've ever seen in my life, and doesn't seem to allow the exclusion of entire folders.

[gath88]

Okay, cool. Not entirely sure what it was that ultimately did the trick; changing Mcafee settings to open all ports and disable NetGuard for both Skyrim.exe and BethINI.exe, temporarily disabling real time Mcafee file scanning, or setting program net connections to "managed" instead of "smart" (in addition to the directory changes in the guide), but BethINI seems to be working now.

Guess I'll reinstall MO2 now, and see if I can get those two working together.

Thanks for the help! I actually learned quite a few things today. lol

Edited December 24, 2022 by gath88