My personal mods won’t show up in Build 42, even simple mods aren’t detected

[yuminekogirl]

Hey everyone. I’m really hoping someone here can help me out because Build 42’s mod system is absolutely destroying me right now. I’ve been making small personal mods for a while, nothing fancy, nothing public, just little tweaks I like to use for myself. I’ve never uploaded anything to Steam because I’m honestly not ready for people messaging me about bugs or demanding updates. It’s nothing personal, I just like keeping my stuff private until I feel confident enough to share it.

Before Build 42, all my personal mods worked perfectly as long as I put them in the right spot. But now that B42 is out, none of my mods show up in the in-game mod list at all. Not old ones, not new ones, not even a stripped-down test mod. There’s no error message, no “corrupted mod” warning, literally nothing. The game just acts like the mods don’t exist.

I’ve always placed my non-Workshop mods in the same directory: C:\Users[Yuminekogirl]\Zomboid\mods And yes, before anyone asks, I do have the new Build 42 folder structure as well,it’s there, everything is set up exactly like it’s supposed to be. Inside that folder I have all my personal mod folders, some old ones from Build 41, and the new B42-generated stuff. This is the same directory that worked perfectly before.

Each of my mod folders has all the basics: a mod.info file, a poster.png, and a media folder with scripts, items, lua, recipes, etc. Nothing fancy. This exact format worked flawlessly in Build 41. But now, in Build 42, every single mod I put in there is completely invisible to the game.

Just to show how simple I’m trying to keep things: one of the mods I’m working on is literally just a tiny script that gives you a stick of butter every time you butcher an animal. That’s it. Just butcher, get butter. I’ve tried rewriting the script, rewriting mod.info, making a brand-new mod with only one file, changing the folder name, removing everything except the bare minimum… and the game still refuses to recognize that the mod even exists. It never shows up in the list, no matter what I do. The mods never appear, not even as disabled or broken.

So now I’m wondering if Build 42 changed the required structure, added a new mandatory file, changed naming rules, changed how mods are indexed, or requires something closer to workshop-style formatting even for private mods.

If anyone knows what the minimum working mod is supposed to look like in Build 42, or if the mod loader changed, or if private mods need something different now, I would seriously appreciate some guidance. At this point I’m totally open to chatting on Discord if someone is willing to help me troubleshoot directly. I’m still learning all this and I genuinely want to understand what I’m doing wrong.

Thanks in advance to anyone willing to help, this has been driving me absolutely insane. 😭

[Arsenal[26]]

You need both of these folders

.../Zomboid/mods/YourModName/42
.../Zomboid/mods/YourModName/common

inside 42 folder
- mod.INFO
- poster.png
- media directory

common folder can be empty.

[yuminekogirl]

I already have both of those :(

I have a build 42 folder, a common folder, a media folder, a mod.info, a poster, and a Read me

The 42 and common folder are empty the media folder has a luau folder, the luau folder has a server folder, and inside the server folder is my mod

[Arsenal[26]]

Media folder goes in 42

[yuminekogirl]

Now I have the mod a build 42 folder and a common folder and inside the 42 folder is the media folder, the mod.info, and the poster.

is that correct?

[Arsenal[26]]

yep

[yuminekogirl]

OMFG IS THAT WHAT I'VE BEEN MISSING THIS ENTIRE TIME!!?? YOU ARE A LIFESAVER THANK YOU SO MUCH 😭😭😭❤️❤️

[Arsenal[26]]

Outstanding :)

[tofu]

I got to say, it took me an hour to find out that lacking common folder would disable the mod. Only if I have seen this post earlier.