Almost blank screen on startup

[Cretgren]

Hi. You may have seen an earlier post by me (about a month ago) in which I ask some really simple questions. Well, I am happy to report that I finally finished modding Skyrim (I installed almost all the STEP mods, and all the Core ones).

 

The Problem: I started SKSE through Mod Manager (I did this right, right? I start SKSE, not Skyrim.exe?). When I start up, I just see a black screen WITH the Skyrim logo. I added exactly what it looks like as an attachment.

-It does not crash me back to the desktop. So this is not a "crash", I suppose. Just a lack of interface.

-I removed the Bethesda logo, so I didn't see that before this screen.

-I can shift-tab into the Steam overlay.

-I loaded everything through TESV Edit, and it didn't report any problems.

Any suggestions? 

 

Edit: I just noticed something else when trying to shut down Steam for the night. It said it wouldn't shut down until Skyrim shuts down (I already closed it, obviously). In Windows task manager, each instance of SKSE I tried to launch from Mod Manager was listed as a background process. I ALT-F4'd each time to get it to close, yet it still showed up. No idea if this is related, but it is something.

[Quahogs]

Cretgren, Your end result is all too familiar with what I've been going through. I added only STEP mods (though I just added CoT and RLO). I start SKSE through MO, get the Bethesda screen and then the frozen Skyrim emblem. No CTD. PC basically freezes. The offending mod that I just simply couldn't get around was bring out your dead. The freeze screen only happened when I had the BOYD ESP box checked. I deleted the mod and reinstalled... same thing. I have every other esp in the ESP tab checked and things are fine.

 

I have no clue. I'm just going to have to live without it. I guess the load order is fouling things up but I can't figure it out, time to move on.

[Cretgren]

Thanks, Quahogs, but unchecking BYOD doesn't do it for me. In fact, disabling that esp makes the game crash to desktop instead of just sitting there.

[Aiyen]

Which most likely means that you have a missing dependency somewhere on your list.

[Cretgren]

Is there an easy way to figure out what dependency I'm missing? The only thing BOSS said was that the patch for Better Quest Objectives and The Choice Is Yours wouldn't work, since I later opted not to install The Choice Is Yours. I left the patch unchecked, so that shouldn't be the problem, right?

[Aiyen]

Run tes5edit with all mods active.. it will stop when you hit the culprint and provide an error.

[Cretgren]

That's what I thought. TES5 Edit goes all the way through ("Background Loader: finished") and provides no errors.

[Aiyen]

So you have managed to create a list with no errors in tes5edit.. but it CTD at startup?

 

Then my next guess would be some cleaning action gone wrong, or some .esp that is not proper in the details. Sometimes files get corrupted that way... annoying as hell and why it is so vital to test your mod install while you do it to make troubleshooting easier once at the end.

 

Even STEP as simple as it is (relatively speaking!) can fail if one or more mods have turned out to be corrupted during install.

Or if all resources are not installed... for example in MO then certain mods will not function with the external FOMOD installer, and some will not function with the integrated one. This will still allow the game to start, but game resources will be missing and hence cause a massive instability inside the game.

[Cretgren]

Alright, I fixed it. Aiyen, I re-installed one of the mods that STEP said not to use FOMOD for: Even Better Quest Objectives. I think I may have corrupted something somehow the first time I tried to create a data folder for the mod esp's. This, combined with Quahogs suggestion to disable BYOD, allows me to launch Skyrim! I would love to be able to use BYOD, but I think I can accept it not running in order to play the game. The Helgen part of the game seemed a bit unstable (I'm assuming due to all the scripted stuff going on at the same time) but the game is running like a charm so far out in the world.

 

Once again, thank you both Quahogs and Aiyen. I have no idea how to put a solved tag on this thread, but it appears that my issues have been solved.

[Quahogs]

Alright, I fixed it. Aiyen, I re-installed one of the mods that STEP said not to use FOMOD for: Even Better Quest Objectives. I think I may have corrupted something somehow the first time I tried to create a data folder for the mod esp's. This, combined with Quahogs suggestion to disable BYOD, allows me to launch Skyrim! I would love to be able to use BYOD, but I think I can accept it not running in order to play the game. The Helgen part of the game seemed a bit unstable (I'm assuming due to all the scripted stuff going on at the same time) but the game is running like a charm so far out in the world.

 

Once again, thank you both Quahogs and Aiyen. I have no idea how to put a solved tag on this thread, but it appears that my issues have been solved.

:-) hey cheers for the noob !  1 month ago I didn't even know what a mod was.  Barely knew about Skyrim.  Glad you got it going though.

 

 BOYD has me stumped though.  I keep fiddling with it.  I watched a tutorial on load order and it really helped my understand what is going on.  I figure BOYD must load after diverse priests and consistent older people.  However does the patch for DIverse priests-consistent older people and the patch for diverse priests and BOYD come AFTER the other 3 ?   In any event no matter where put BOYD it freezes at startup.  If I uncheck the ESP I'm fine again.   

 

Does anyone know where MO has the info like NMM has about master files ?  Maybe that can tell me what else needs to run before BOYD.   

 

ALso would someone out there have a STEP load order I can view ?   Maybe that would help my BOYD issue...