Switching Profiles Messes Up Load Order

[Sarcasm]

Simple and infuriating problem. When I switch to a different profile and launch any executable with that profile, be it the GECK, FNVEdit, or the game itself, the load order on my main profile is scrambled. Esm's are jumbled around and moved to the bottom of the esm portion of the load order and some esp's are moved to the top of the esp portion of the load order.

 

Obviously this is a huge problem that will cause instability within saves if the load order keeps changing. How do I stop this from happening?

[GrantSP]

What exactly are you doing? The behaviour you are describing is not that which I see when I follow your steps.

The profiles contain text files that order your mods and plugins peculiar to that profile, what you do in one profile will have no bearing on another.

To see what I'm talking about open the Profiles folder in explorer and see that there are separate folders named after each of the profiles you have. In each folder you will see the following files and a saves folder (if you have activated that option):

saves

lockedorder.txt

archives.txt

initweaks.ini

plugins.txt

modlist.txt

falloutprefs.ini

fallout.ini

 

The only way GECK or FNVEdit will 'mess up' your main profile is if you have incorrectly set those tools and they are not being loaded by MO to see the selected profile's load order and are instead seeing your main profile's order.

 

To put it more plainly, this looks like an incorrect installation of MO rather then an error with MO.

Edited February 4, 2015 by GrantSP

[Kelmych]

  On 1/28/2015 at 10:02 PM, Sarcasm said:

Simple and infuriating problem. When I switch to a different profile and launch any executable with that profile, be it the GECK, FNVEdit, or the game itself, the load order on my main profile is scrambled. Esm's are jumbled around and moved to the bottom of the esm portion of the load order and some esp's are moved to the top of the esp portion of the load order.

 

Obviously this is a huge problem that will cause instability within saves if the load order keeps changing. How do I stop this from happening?

You seem to be expecting changes in one Mod Organizer profile to automatically be applied to the mods and plugins in another Mod Organizer proflle. That isn't how profiles work in Mod Organizer; they are independent. You can, for example, create an MO profile (e.g., Profile1) and then organize the profile priorities in the left pane (mod installation order) and the plugin load order in the right pane. You can "Copy" that profile to a new profile and give the copied profile a new name (e.g., Profile2). At the time you created the new profile the mod installation order and the plugin load order in the two profiles are exactly the same. If you change the priority of a mod in the first profile, the new profile won't have this change to the mod's priority. If you change the plugin load order in the first profile (e.g., by running LOOT or BOSS), the plugin load order in the new profile will not get the new changes. Any executable you run will see the plugin load order for the currently selected profile, and if you change to a different profile that has a different load order then the executable will see a different load order.

 

I'm not sure how you are using profiles and what you expect with different profiles.

[Sarcasm]

I'm not sure how to explain it. My Skyrim MO works fine when switching between profiles, and uses similar programs in much the same way (CK vs GECK, TESVEdit vs FNVEdit, etc) so I don't think it's a matter of being installed incorrectly.

 

I have four profiles: my main profile plus two copies of it - one a backup, and one for tinkering around without affecting the main profile. I haven't used either in a while. Then I have fourth profile of very basic mods to test mods on a low load order. Whenever I switch to my basic load order profile and launch the game, the GECK, or FNVEdit, the load order on my main profile becomes disorganized. It's solved easily by just copying the loadorder.txt from my main profile between switching, and then copying it back in when I'm done. Still, it's another step that shouldn't be necessary. I organize my load order by hand, since it seems that no auto-sorter understands how to sort Tale of Two Wastelands or FOOK-PN Convergence, and they turn my load order into a mess. So it can't be that, either.

 

I'm not expecting any changes I make on a profile to carry over to another profile, that obviously defeats the entire purpose of profiles. Yet for some reason using one profile messes up the load order of the other, but it was my understanding that MO is supposed to keep everything isolated. So why would launching an executable in one profile change the load order of another? It's not a huge problem since I can copy the loadorder.txt, but I'd still be thankful on any suggestions for why this happens.

Edited February 4, 2015 by Sarcasm

[GrantSP]

I can't see how what you are describing can happen for the reasons mentioned previously.

 

In your basic profile, I'm assuming this contains perhaps only the vanilla plugins and maybe one or two others. When you activate that profile and run GECK or xEdit, are ONLY those plugins loaded, no others?

 

I have a 'Vanilla' profile that only contains the main game files. If I load that into ANY tool, ONLY those plugins will be available. No matter what I do in this profile, the order of plugins for another profile simply cannot be changed because the lists of mods, plugins, etc, exist in an entirely separate folder.

The only way I can think of what you describe happening is when mods exist in a shared environment, this WILL happen if mods are installed directly into the Data folder and not installed via MO.

Since you mention TTW, have you installed all the needed files via MO, or are some 'non-vanilla' files existing in the real 'Data' folder?

[DoubleYou]

Use the load order backup button then.

[Sarcasm]

  Quote

 

 

The only way I can think of what you describe happening is when mods exist in a shared environment, this WILL happen if mods are installed directly into the Data folder and not installed via MO.

Oh well this might it be then. I have TTW installed through MO, but MO doesn't know how to handle some New Vegas mods so I had to install them directly to Data with old fashioned FOMM. Weapons of the New Millenia for instance simply does not work with MO at all, it uses some fancy custom installer that fails to load in MO. I had to install that to Data. So switching between profiles with mods installed outside MO will cause messy things with my load order, even if those mods are active on both profiles?

[GrantSP]

You can install a mod that needs FOMM by running it via MO. Other mods that might be a problem to install can also be changed to work inside MO.

 

Upshot is never have mods in tha data folder AND via MO.

 

Also there are users here on STEP currently installing TTW that don't have to do what you are describing. Have look around here and see if you can pick up their hints.

[KeltecRFB]

All TTW mods can be handled by MO but there are currently two exceptions ...

 

This one has a work around ...

 

https://issue.tannin.eu/tbg/modorganizer/issues/993

 

[spoiler=Work Around]

BSAs and Mod Organizer

Bethesda Software Archives (BSA) can be used to store mod files in an attempt to reduce file sizes. The added benefit is the reducing in file system fragmentation caused by having many loose, small files. The main problem with BSAs is, if there are loose files that need to be overwritten by a mod that is packaged in a BSA, then the BSA must be extracted. This is due to loose files always 'winning' when the game loads the "Data" folder. Enter Mod Organizer. Using the 'Hide' feature of MO, it is easy to remove the loose file without much extra work from the user. This means that BSAs would only need to be extracted if the textures in the BSA need to be optimized.

There is a limit to how many characters are allowed by the game engine when loading BSAs. If the names of all the BSAs being loaded are more than 254 characters, the game will not load or if there are just too many files in the data folder directory, thrashing can take place which causes the game not to load either. This creates an issue that either causes users to rename BSAs or extract some of them to remain under the 255 character limit.

So, how does MO even know what files are in a BSA? Simple, just go to the Archives tab on the right pane of MO and tick the checkbox for every BSA and any mod that overwrites a file will have an icon next to it on the left pane. If the BSA's file is the preferred file then just hide the file from the mod that overwrites it. Greyed out BSAs will be checked no matter what due to their plugin requiring that BSA to load, but it can still be extracted.

The other option is to just extract all the BSAs from mods and put everything in the correct order in the left pane. Some people say one way is correct and some say the other is correct. If the advice is all or nothing, it is best to ignore it. Life is not black and white, it is gray. Extract when necessary, plus this guide will have a few directions when it is needed along the way.

Throughout the course of this guide instructions will be given as to how to extract BSAs after they are already installed. An alternative method is to change the setting for the BSA Extractorplugin. Open the Settings and change false to true. Each time a mod that has a BSA is installed a dialog will be presented offering to extract the included BSA.

 

 

This one currently does not ...

 

https://issue.tannin.eu/tbg/modorganizer/issues/997

 

Any other issues are usually related to installing manually.

 

I will test out Weapons of the New Millenia since I want to use that one.

 

EDIT:  According to Weapons of the New Millenia, you probably want to install it manually anyway because the TTW support ESPs are not in the install application.

 

You have to install WotNM manually, and then replace the level lists and the optional cabinet esp with the _OPTIONAL TTW replacers or the one made by GrandBulwark (GB).  I posted a message to see which is better, T3T's or GB's or if they are one and the same.  People should use their same Nexus name with anything Fallout related to help mitigate confusion.

 

Currently, I am leaning towards GB's to be the best level list ESP.

Edited February 8, 2015 by KeltecRFB

[Sarcasm]

As I said, TTW installs just fine via Mod Organizer. The TTW developers themselves recommend using MO to run the mod. But two mods would not install via MO correctly for me: Weapons of the New Millenia and Project Nevada. Project Nevada had some problem detecting the Mod Configuration Menu through MO and kept giving me an in-game error about .xml files which would then break MCM entirely. Installing both through FOMM makes them work. Did I do something wrong or do these two mods not know how to talk to each other in MO?

 

So if WotNM can only be installed manually, and manually installed mods cause MO to scramble its load order when switching profiles, do I just have to deal with this then ? Though I'm afraid the damage may be done either way. Now that MO has messed up my load order, I'm getting problems in game with invisible ghouls and cannot figure out the cause or what my load order was before. I played for 60 hours before MO scrambled my load order and never saw this invisible ghoul problem. A huge pain...

[GrantSP]

Manually doesn't mean "into the data folder directly". It just means you need to either remove the scripts used by the installer or run the exe installer from inside MO or repackage the archive.

I understand your frustration with your messed up load order but it isn't MO that did that.

[Sarcasm]

While I try to do that, I have a question. How does Mod Organizer store its load order? I see that my main profile has no loadorder.txt file in Mod Organizer\profiles anymore. I thought this was how it stored load order, but apparently not since it would not have any load order at all without a file. How do I back up my load order and create a .txt of it?