Creation Kit Will Not Launch

[Skullimbrain]

Whenever I try launching the CK, I opens a window with text reading initializing archive for several minutes before suddenly closing. Does anyone know what could be wrong?

[Vlad 254]

Assuming you've set everything up properly this might be something included in your load order. Did you try setting up another Profile in your mod manager with a minimal amount of mods in order to see if the CK would then open properly?

[Skullimbrain]

Originally posted by Vlad 254:

Assuming you've set everything up properly this might be something included in your load order. Did you try setting up another Profile in your mod manager with a minimal amount of mods in order to see if the CK would then open properly?

I don't see how my load order has a effect on the CK program's operation. Admittedly, I've never used CK before as I'm not very program savy. I just want to make a few small edits to some mods that I've downloaded. I was trying to open it through Steam (as they moved it there since from the time when I originally downloaded it on the Bethesda Launcher.)

On another note, I've actually been trying out your minimum mod method for the last month, just to get the game to operate. Just before I was notified of your post, I tried to Open SKSE after putting the finishing touches on (the Bashed Patch, which I might've failed). When I opened the game, it loaded for several minutes before going to the menu, with a cursor in the middle of the screen (like some programs that are running but aren't currently selected.) When I selected the game, it minimized with the game and played the menu music in the background, while refusing to display properly. Do you know anything about this either? (Apologies for the rant; I've been repeatedly minimizing my modlist trying to get this to work, and I still keep failing.)

[Vlad 254]

Skullimbrain - When you say "minimum" mods which guide are you using?

The two smallest guides are the "Vanilla plus" which is between 4 and 12 mods depending on what you choose after the first 4. The other is the Basics+ which is approx. 175 mods, again depending on which optional mods you choose.

Neither guide should need a bashed patch which is mainly for leveled lists.

I'm not sure what your experience is with the Creation Kit but I have much information on setting up the CK in this guide in the 2 "Creation Kit" sections.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2266129651

I'm also not sure what your experience is with modding Skyrim. This can be important especially considering you should make sure your load order is setup properly before making bashed patches and before attempting the creation kit.

Also, when you say you are "repeatedly minimizing" your mod list, this can be the problem when trying to launch your game. Removing mods can cause issues depending on which mods and if they and any mod/patch associated with it/them is not also removed. I'm not really sure exactly what you have there.

I do have much information in the load order guides regarding the caution that must be exercised when removing mods including mods that can not be removed. You also should be starting with a clean slate before you start building your load order. This is also important if you unsuccessfully modded your game and removed mods improperly. You just might have to start over from square one.

[alexander_dougherty]

Originally posted by Skullimbrain:

Whenever I try launching the CK, I opens a window with text reading initializing archive for several minutes before suddenly closing. Does anyone know what could be wrong?

Daft question, because so many of us own both versions of skyrim, are you downloading the creation kit from the steam page for the SE Creation Kit?
(Rather than downloading the oldrim creation kit under tools, which wouldn't run if Oldrim isn't on your computer)

[Skullimbrain]

Originally posted by alexander_dougherty:

Originally posted by Skullimbrain:

Whenever I try launching the CK, I opens a window with text reading initializing archive for several minutes before suddenly closing. Does anyone know what could be wrong?

Daft question, because so many of us own both versions of skyrim, are you downloading the creation kit from the steam page for the SE Creation Kit?
(Rather than downloading the oldrim creation kit under tools, which wouldn't run if Oldrim isn't on your computer)

I only have Skyrim SE, and I'm definitely using the SE version of the Creation Kit, I double-checked to be sure.

[Skullimbrain]

Originally posted by Vlad 254:

Skullimbrain - When you say "minimum" mods which guide are you using?

The two smallest guides are the "Vanilla plus" which is between 4 and 12 mods depending on what you choose after the first 4. The other is the Basics+ which is approx. 175 mods, again depending on which optional mods you choose.

Neither guide should need a bashed patch which is mainly for leveled lists.

I'm not sure what your experience is with the Creation Kit but I have much information on setting up the CK in this guide in the 2 "Creation Kit" sections.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2266129651

I'm also not sure what your experience is with modding Skyrim. This can be important especially considering you should make sure your load order is setup properly before making bashed patches and before attempting the creation kit.

Also, when you say you are "repeatedly minimizing" your mod list, this can be the problem when trying to launch your game. Removing mods can cause issues depending on which mods and if they and any mod/patch associated with it/them is not also removed. I'm not really sure exactly what you have there.

I do have much information in the load order guides regarding the caution that must be exercised when removing mods including mods that can not be removed. You also should be starting with a clean slate before you start building your load order. This is also important if you unsuccessfully modded your game and removed mods improperly. You just might have to start over from square one.

I've never used a guide for modding my game; when i first started modding skyrim back in 2017, when I first got my computer and Skyrim SE, I relied on NMM to install my mods and organize them. After that was replaced by Vortex, I've been using it ever since. Back then, my policy was: Install, download, move on.

I played around with a Modded skyrim for a time after that, but a problem that kept recurring was after several hours of gameplay when starting a new playthrough, all of my saves would inevitably end up getting corrupted. After this happened several times, I finally gave up and left the modding scene.

I downloaded the CK back when it was on the Bethesda Launcher, just in case I ever got into modding myself, but I never used it.
As far as modding goes, I've learned through making adjustments outside of Vortex that I read about on forums and Reddit when specific mods needed changing.

I never really bothered with Tools like SEEdit or Wrye Bash, because I didn't have the patience for learning about them before. I probably would've learned about them back in August of last year when I decided to give modding skyrim another shot, but after Bethesda announced their automatic Anniversary update (and the modbreaking features it would include), as well as Nexus changing their policies to contribute to their new Collections feature a month later, I left again. I didn't want to try learning more about modding when it felt like (to me at least) that Bethesda and Nexus had ended up setting the modding community on fire.

I've come back now, and I'm learning what I need to know from the Tools to make the small yet significant touches like bashed patches. If I'm going to be honest, I still get a little confused about the load order sometimes; I know that as you go down the load order, the next mod has the potential to overwrite a previous mod, but how that affects the synergy between specific mods will confuse me sometimes.

As for my "minimizing", I do start fresh each time. I understand that trying to keep mods and their specific settings organized can be a real mess when you start nit-picking it down to individual mods to make adjustments to a load order. That's why I repeatedly start with a blank profile and slowly adding mods onto it, trying to keep the count down as low a possible; only installing the mods I want most.

I'm aim for making a mod pack that provides increased immersion (like Campfire, Frostfall and Hunterborn), heavy and broad character customization (basically most of Enai Siaion's mods), increased features (CCOR and SkyUI), high difficulty, and won't mellow out too in later game once I make it past level 70 or 80. (Morrowloot Ultimate)

BTW, thanks for responding to my post about the load order, especially when we've basically gone off track from what this discussion was originally about.

[Vlad 254]

Originally posted by Skullimbrain:

BTW, thanks for responding to my post about the load order, especially when we've basically gone off track from what this discussion was originally about.

Always a pleasure, and my apologies as I went slightly off track but I needed to get a better feel of where you were at and it sounds like you have it under control.

I'm still setup with the Creation Kit using the Bethesda Launcher but will soon be forced to use New Creation Kit via Steam. So if you looked at the Creation Kit sections of the guide I posted there are 2 sections, Creation Kit Old and Creation Kit New. I foresee no problems setting up the New Creation Kit as per the original setup as I plan to use Halgari's Creation Kit Downgrade Patcher which "Downgrades the new Steam Creation Kit back to the way it was from Bethesda.Net so you can use the Creation Kit Fixes again", which is the only reason I'll be downgrading.

But don't confuse this with downgrading the game itself. Halgari's downgrader mod ONLY downgrade's the kit and is simply so we can use "Creation Kit Fixes" again. Contrary to what some may say there is no difference game version wise as far using the Creation Kit. In other words you can use the old kit for 1.5.97 or 1.6.353 and the new kit for both versions as well. You only would need the downgrade patcher IF you want to use the CK fixes mod, which I do.

So you install the new kit, then downgrade the kit, then follow the setup instructions in the "*Creation Kit - Old" section of the guide I posted.

We are here if you have questions going forward. ~enjoy

[Altbert]

You most probably have a CK version mismatch. Check the following:

You will have SSE CK version 1.5.3.0, 1.5.73.0 or 1.6.438.0. With the 1.5.x.x version you can only use CK64Fixes Rev. 1948737 (the first release). With the 1.6.x.x version of the CK you may additionally need the CK64 Fixes Update. However you still need to install the original release first and then install the update.

Personally I use CK 1.5.73.0 with CK64Fixes Rev. 1948737 (not the update).

[Vlad 254]

it's all in the note