[SOLVED] Infinite progress bar when entering vehicles (modded)

[Marshall]

I have a lot of mods in my game. I just recently added a swathe of new mods, and now I get an infinite progress bar right after entering a car. I get no error message (I use errorMagnifier to see the root mod cause of errors, but no message means no easy diag).

I have tried:
Disabling all vehicle mods.
Disabling all recently added and untested mods.
Restarting game.

I was able to enter vehicles after disabling all mods, so it is definitely a mod issue.

Recently added mods:

LVX Tactical Animations
20% metal weight
Ash's Muzzle Retexture
Evil's Boutique
Federal Ranger V5
KATTAJ1 Body Retexture
KATTAJ1 Military Pack
KATTAJ1 Clothes Core
Nepenthe's Colored Battery Status
School's Out
Schoolbag Bundle for Large backpack

The problem is only one of these mods has anything to do with vehicles, so I am unsure if they are at fault by themselves, or possibly as a combination with another mod I have. (I'm not posting a full mod list because I have over 150 easily unless requested).

If anyone knows if any of these mods are at fault, or any other mods which cause this issue that would be greatly appreciated!

[SOLUTION]
No specific mod or mods were found to be the problem, likely an accidental conflict with two mods of the same or similar purpose which just had a side effect of causing entering vehicles to not work.

RECOMMENDATION:
Disable all mods and carefully nit-pick your mods for any possible conflicts (two building menus, cheat menus, UI mods, texture mods, vehicle mods which replace vanilla vehicles, moodle mods, etc.)

If that does not work (ESPECIALLY IF SWITCHING FROM B42 BACK TO B41):
1. Backup any presets/saves you wish to keep.
2. Uninstall Project Zomboid via Steam.
3. Open your installation folder and ensure all files have been removed.
4. Navigate to C:/Users/[Your User Name]/Zomboid (this is where your presets/saves will be) and delete all files.
5. Reinstall Project Zomboid STABLE.
6. Test on a fresh save with your select mods.

[Armagenesis]

If you have multiple vehicle mods, it's possible they conflict with one another.

[Marshall]

UPDATE: I disabled only the mods I most recently downloaded, and the issue persists. It is definitely a conflict of another kind.

[Marshall]

Originally posted by Armagenesis:

If you have multiple vehicle mods, it's possible they conflict with one another.

I will try disabling all vehicle mods and see if that will fix the issue, then I can troubleshoot from there.

[Ictiv]

I'm not familiar with the mods in question, but right off the bat, I imagine if it has to be one of those, it will be either the Animation pack, or the battery status one, as what you're describing is either a GUI issue (in which case it might be caused by the Battery Status mod), or an issue with your character getting some status/state flag set but not unset. In the latter case case it would likely be the Tactical Animations one, especially since when you try to enter a vehicle, the game always routes your character to the door, as if you were using Walk To, and also makes your character go into the Aim animation, which I'm pretty sure Tactical Animations does some stuff with.

[Ictiv]

Originally posted by Marshall:

UPDATE: I disabled only the mods I most recently downloaded, and the issue persists. It is definitely a conflict of another kind.

Ah, Steam only loaded this now.

My personal hunch, is that there is an issue when your character is being pathed to the door. This can happen in Vanilla as well sometimes, such as when you park yourself too close to a gas pump, but not close enough for the game to decide that a door is completely unreachable, at which point it will just keep trying to move you closer to the sweet spot where you're supposed to enter, while being caught on the geometry of the gas pump and car.

If you're certain this always happens with your normal mods with every car in every situation, then again, I recommend you look for any mods that might change your character's movement.

[Marshall]

Originally posted by Ictiv:

Originally posted by Marshall:

UPDATE: I disabled only the mods I most recently downloaded, and the issue persists. It is definitely a conflict of another kind.

Ah, Steam only loaded this now.

My personal hunch, is that there is an issue when your character is being pathed to the door. This can happen in Vanilla as well sometimes, such as when you park yourself too close to a gas pump, but not close enough for the game to decide that a door is completely unreachable, at which point it will just keep trying to move you closer to the sweet spot where you're supposed to enter, while being caught on the geometry of the gas pump and car.

If you're certain this always happens with your normal mods with every car in every situation, then again, I recommend you look for any mods that might change your character's movement.

This happens with every car in every location. For more specificity, my character gets to the vehicle, opens the door, then the progress bar persists and the vehicle UI fails to appear. I can see the glovebox and seats in the loot menu, but I can't interact with anything inside of them.

[Marshall]

Originally posted by Armagenesis:

If you have multiple vehicle mods, it's possible they conflict with one another.

Tried disabling all vehicle mods, issue persists.

[Ictiv]

Originally posted by Marshall:

Originally posted by Ictiv:

Ah, Steam only loaded this now.

My personal hunch, is that there is an issue when your character is being pathed to the door. This can happen in Vanilla as well sometimes, such as when you park yourself too close to a gas pump, but not close enough for the game to decide that a door is completely unreachable, at which point it will just keep trying to move you closer to the sweet spot where you're supposed to enter, while being caught on the geometry of the gas pump and car.

If you're certain this always happens with your normal mods with every car in every situation, then again, I recommend you look for any mods that might change your character's movement.

This happens with every car in every location. For more specificity, my character gets to the vehicle, opens the door, then the progress bar persists and the vehicle UI fails to appear. I can see the glovebox and seats in the loot menu, but I can't interact with anything inside of them.

Ah, now that's definitely weird.

One thing that comes to mind, is the Better Vehicle Handling mod, and a couple of similar 'manual installation' mods.
If you're playing Build 42, and this issue also only now popped up (as in, in the past few hours), then you might want to go through the installation process of those mods again, as manual installation mods like that replace vanilla files, and when the game updated, Steam might have undone your changes in the process of downloading the latest update.

[Marshall]

Originally posted by Ictiv:

Originally posted by Marshall:

This happens with every car in every location. For more specificity, my character gets to the vehicle, opens the door, then the progress bar persists and the vehicle UI fails to appear. I can see the glovebox and seats in the loot menu, but I can't interact with anything inside of them.

Ah, now that's definitely weird.

One thing that comes to mind, is the Better Vehicle Handling mod, and a couple of similar 'manual installation' mods.
If you're playing Build 42, and this issue also only now popped up (as in, in the past few hours), then you might want to go through the installation process of those mods again, as manual installation mods like that replace vanilla files, and when the game updated, Steam might have undone your changes in the process of downloading the latest update.

I have no manually installed mods as I don't want to mess with the game files because of issues like this lol. All of my mods are Steam Workshop only. I also checked my mods, the only animation ones are "True Actions - Lying" and the tactical animations, but both I have tried disabling and it does not fix. I am 100% sure it is a mod conflict of some sort, but sifting through ~200 mods is extremely annoying and time consuming.

[Marshall]

I have some B42 mods installed and I have swapped back and forth between B42 Unstable and B41, is it possible some B42 mods are shadow enabled and conflicting with my B41 mods?

[Ictiv]

Originally posted by Marshall:

I have some B42 mods installed and I have swapped back and forth between B42 Unstable and B41, is it possible some B42 mods are shadow enabled and conflicting with my B41 mods?

Ahhhhh, okay, yeah if you swapped between Unstable and B41, that's probably it!

Steam is sometimes pretty dodgy when updating game files, especially if a game has game files outside of the Installation Folder, which Zomboid does.
Here's what I suggest you try:
1) Uninstall Zomboid completely via Steam. (Make sure that the Installation Folder is empty.)
2) Once Zomboid is uninstalled, go to C:/Users/[Your User Name]/Zomboid (which is a folder the game creates to store some stuff like configurations) and either move its contents elsewhere, or delete them outright if you do not want to keep your saves and presets/etc.)
3) Reinstall Zomboid, re-enable whatever mods you want, and see if on a fresh save, the issue persist.
(Optionally) 4) If it doesn't, then selectively move back the stuff you want from your backup of the previous Zomboid folder, such as the Saves folder.

Basically, what I think is going on, is that Build 42 and Build 41 have made conflicting changes to either your Installation Folder that Steam fails to fix because it leaves extra files in your installation folder when updating versions, or to the Zomboid folder in users, and stuff is breaking because of the two versions confusing eachother.

I had to do this song and dance when Build 42 came out, though for me the game straight up refused to launch due to one of these entanglements.

[Marshall]

Originally posted by Ictiv:

Originally posted by Marshall:

I have some B42 mods installed and I have swapped back and forth between B42 Unstable and B41, is it possible some B42 mods are shadow enabled and conflicting with my B41 mods?

Ahhhhh, okay, yeah if you swapped between Unstable and B41, that's probably it!

Steam is sometimes pretty dodgy when updating game files, especially if a game has game files outside of the Installation Folder, which Zomboid does.
Here's what I suggest you try:
1) Uninstall Zomboid completely via Steam. (Make sure that the Installation Folder is empty.)
2) Once Zomboid is uninstalled, go to C:/Users/[Your User Name]/Zomboid (which is a folder the game creates to store some stuff like configurations) and either move its contents elsewhere, or delete them outright if you do not want to keep your saves and presets/etc.)
3) Reinstall Zomboid, re-enable whatever mods you want, and see if on a fresh save, the issue persist.
(Optionally) 4) If it doesn't, then selectively move back the stuff you want from your backup of the previous Zomboid folder, such as the Saves folder.

Basically, what I think is going on, is that Build 42 and Build 41 have made conflicting changes to either your Installation Folder that Steam fails to fix because it leaves extra files in your installation folder when updating versions, or to the Zomboid folder in users, and stuff is breaking because of the two versions confusing eachother.

I had to do this song and dance when Build 42 came out, though for me the game straight up refused to launch due to one of these entanglements.

I was worried that that may be the problem. I'll try that and see if that works. I'll report back here afterwards. Thanks for your help so far!

[Ictiv]

Originally posted by Marshall:

I was worried that that may be the problem. I'll try that and see if that works. I'll report back here afterwards. Thanks for your help so far!

No worries, I just hope it works!
It's mainly because you mentioned not using any Manual installation mods, and the issue persisting even with all mods disabled.
Something very funky would need to be going on for it to be anything other than a base game hiccup from the version swapping.

[Marshall]

Originally posted by Ictiv:

Originally posted by Marshall:

I was worried that that may be the problem. I'll try that and see if that works. I'll report back here afterwards. Thanks for your help so far!

No worries, I just hope it works!
It's mainly because you mentioned not using any Manual installation mods, and the issue persisting even with all mods disabled.
Something very funky would need to be going on for it to be anything other than a base game hiccup from the version swapping.

I tried one more mod-manager runthrough, disabling all mods and re-enabling only those that I wanted to keep... and sure enough it worked! I don't have a clue what mod or mods were conflicting and causing issues, but it seems to have fixed itself. I think I'm going to still going to do a fresh install just to be sure, but I guess its good now.

Thanks again for your help! I'll get the main post updated.

[Ictiv]

Glad you managed to fix it!