No game menu on start

[Indio21]

Hello, I added some city mods and relating patches.....a lot to note. All had to be done for it to work. I was in the process of testing them, before fine tuning LO manually as I just let vortex sort them to see how it reacted, and I had a CTD in one city and fps drops in two others. One ran fine.

I assumed it was a LO placement issue. It was late and I decided to pick it up again today. I shut everything down and restarted today. To start I thought I should get rid of all my saves and start a new testing go again. Note also the mods specify starting on a new game, so I had already done that, but I did a save in the one town. So, for a feel good, I removed the few saves and began again.

Now upon trying to launch the game the start menu does not appear. Icon is there, music plays, and smoke rolls, but no menu. I go into console and verify skse is running and it is. I then review the skse crash log, not that I can understand it, but hoping it shows something for a hint.

I scroll through all of it and at the end see my LO list and mod it ends on, which is not even close to half the mods I have installed. I hope that is the culprit as I did earlier testing with it in the LO and all was fine. I change its load position and try, doesn't work. I disable it and try, with same result.

Any ideas as I am lost! Thank you

[Indio21]

I found this on Reddit:

That basically means you have an outdated patch/dependency for something and that mod is trying to reference something in the master that's no longer there. Most commonly happens with child mods like RS and the Unofficial Patch, but anything could be responsible. Since you're saying this just started happening, what have you installed recently?

https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/fyvxek/skyrim_se_startup_menu_not_loading/?rdt=35113

Vortex is not saying anything about an update.

[Indio21]

Here is an old Steam thread the search pulled https://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/846960481969227066/
It says to go to console and type tm then press enter. I did so and its like the screen locks. No cursor and mouse doesn't respond. The thread then says to push the up arrow key and enter again. I did and console shows something like TM menus off and then TM menus on.

My mouse pointer goes back to working but no menu. I use task manager to quit and try to return, no menu. Repeat the steps above with the same outcome :(

EDIT: Also, ESC key does not work. Not sure if that helps identify the problem or not. Thanks

[Wizard]

Maybe posting a load order we can look at might be helpful.

[Synopse]

It is old but still helpful to nail issues:

https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/wiki/troubleshooting_guide/

Not loading main menu is a broken mod in your load order.

[Indio21]

Originally posted by Synopse:

It is old but still helpful to nail issues:

https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/wiki/troubleshooting_guide/

Not loading main menu is a broken mod in your load order.

Ugh, that is a loooong read, lol, thank you. I did scroll it quick to the section about the menu, but I don't have those mods installed. I will review it more though.

Originally posted by Wizard:

Maybe posting a load order we can look at might be helpful.

Hi Wizard, absolutely I can do that. Will you refresh my memory as to where it is stored again. What I am seeing online for a location I am not seeing it.

EDIT: I found it. It is quit long so I will see if I can upload the file without copy and paste

[Synopse]

Originally posted by Indio21:

Originally posted by Synopse:

It is old but still helpful to nail issues:

https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/wiki/troubleshooting_guide/

Not loading main menu is a broken mod in your load order.

Ugh, that is a loooong read, lol, thank you. I did scroll it quick to the section about the menu, but I don't have those mods installed. I will review it more though.

The guide advises that mods are broken. The guide is very old. Ignore the mod listed.
It also refers to the section above.

As I said: if your main menu not load, you have a broken mod installed.

[Indio21]

Originally posted by Synopse:

The guide advises that mods are broken. The guide is very old. Ignore the mod listed.
It also refers to the section above.

As I said: if your main menu not load, you have a broken mod installed.

Yes, I got all that and understand it. Now I have to find out how to find the mod. I'm also questioning the logic of it. If that was the case, why was able to go into game a few times last night.

I did alternate start and loaded at inn in Dawnstar, first city mod in list, and got CTD trying to leave inn. Then repeated and loaded into Morthal and all was fine. Then repeated same steps to load into Falkreath and Winterhold and got fps fluctuations. Now, next day, this.

[Synopse]

Did you by any chance changed your load order? Or did you toggled mods on and off again?

The CTD using alternate start is another hint that something is not right within your load order / something is broken.

[Indio21]

Great, thank you Synopse. From another post on nexus, that I pointed to the guide I am/was using, they just posted about a problem with Alternative Start. As it loaded the inn I didn't think it a culprit.

That being said, I will go through what I did:

That section to get the town mods together is pretty big. All the posts and links I found mention how specific the LO has to be. Seeing the posts were dated some, I decided, after I got it all patched together and sorted with vortex, to try it first before messing with anything.

Vortex had some of the plugins and most the patches mixed up below the last patch of The Great Cities of JK Skyrim Patch. The game loaded and did all I mentioned above in the towns.

Then figuring it is the LO arrangement, I went into vortex and grouped them accordingly below the relating mod. I have yet to sort them out more beneath the plugin they correspond to. I went back into game, after grouping, and got all the same results.

That is when I decided it was late and I needed to rest. Shut it all down and here I am. I was planning to return to arranging LO after I verified it was still doing the same today (maybe a fresh start would help), but cannot access the game and don't want to move anything else without being able to see what it did. That's all I've done as it took so long to find ALL the patches to make it work, etc.

[Indio21]

OH SHOOT, I did forget to mention as I was separating the LO list, to show the new installed mods, that I noticed The Great Cities of JK's North - Open Civil War Patch.esp is displaying. I have yet to install the civil war mod, I just added the patch knowing I am going to (after reseasrching it of course as I am dated with info). I went back into vortex to verify the plugin is disabled, and it is. So I have no idea why it is showing.

[Indio21]

Another point worth noting is I am using LOOT too. By that I mean I check it to see if I am missing patches, etc. It gives me no flags except to download a fix for SkyUI, which is not in the guide I am following and I am seeing no effect from in game for awhile now, so I skipped it. It is this fix mod
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/20406/
Other than that, LOOT only tells me to review compatibility sections for some mods.

[Indio21]

Originally posted by Synopse:

Did you by any chance changed your load order? Or did you toggled mods on and off again?

The CTD using alternate start is another hint that something is not right within your load order / something is broken.

I remembered ONE other thing I did, but IDK how it could make a problem. A while back I posted about getting a CTD in Solitude. After an immense amount of time I found the culprit. It was this mod WIDeadBodyCleanupScript Crash Fix https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/62413?tab=description

It required this mod ConsoleUtilSSE https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/24858

I started a thread here to ask about help. That thread is here https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/62413?tab=description see post 10, when I found the problem.

It was suggested I didn't need the mods, so I disabled them. Last night after sorting/grouping my LO I came across them and decided to remove them permanently as, since, I had found no issues in game testing, so I did so.

They been disabled since that thread and I've add a lot of mods since. I know the one has to do with scripts, but not sure how that affects things. Also to note again, for followers, all my saves were deleted to test the new town mods, as per instructions on the mods pages.

Not sure if that helps, but I know it really upsets experienced modders when newbs don't disclose ALL of what they did. I was so tired last night I am not sure if I removed them and then tried or just removed them as a last clean before I went to bed. Thanks

[Indio21]

Originally posted by Wizard:

Maybe posting a load order we can look at might be helpful.

Did you see anything Wizard, or you just shaking your head mumbling something about damn newb should have listened, lol

[Indio21]

Originally posted by Mugiwara:

I am not Wizard but will answer the question regarding how to find your load order doc. You can find your load order at the following directory:

C:Users\YOURUSERNAME\Appdata\Local\SkyrimSE\plugins.txt

Appdata is hidden by default so if you haven't already you will have to unhide it.

Wizard just asked for my LO list is why I asked him specifically. Hoping he seen a bad mod. I have no preference who helps!

Thank you for posting that. Made me feel better to know I posted the right list above for viewers. Thanks

[Indio21]

Well, I at least solved the mystery about the civil war pluggin. It was off but I had the mod on. Got the same result going in game, but now the LO list does not show it. So, still out of answers.