Missing Skyrim.esm [SOLVED]

[Marty_the_Martyr]

In a nutshell:
- Reformatted my harddrive 2 days ago.
- Reinstalling everything
- Reinstalling skyrim + Nexus mod manager
- NMM claims I don't have Skyrim.esm file
- Verify Skyrim cache
- Says I'm missing a file and it will be reacquired
- File not reacquired
- Reinstall skyrim
- Skyrim.esm still missing

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Roscaria]

In your Windows Start menu type Folder options. Open and go to View. Scroll down and uncheck hide extensions for known file types.

[Marty_the_Martyr]

Just now tried it, and no .esm file is showing up in the data folder.

[SpeedFreak1972]

Did you try to just start the game? if it isn't there the game won't start period.

[Marty_the_Martyr]

Tried starting the game.
It works fine.
NMM just can't seem to find the damn .esm file. And nor can I.
EDIT: I'm one dumb ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I found it.
EDIT 2: I had to reinstall steam yesterday due to some funk, and NMM was looking through a steamapps folder that hadn't been deleted. Now I just have to fix that and I'll be good.

Thanks to both of you for your help.

[Trigger]

the only things that show up in your DATA FILE are add-ons, Skyrim.esm and updates.esm are the base game and DO NOT show up as they ARE NOT add-ons. Top of your load-order will show Dawnguard.esm, Hearthfires.esm, Dragonborn.esm and then the Hi Res Texture Pack 1, 2 and 3. That is your load-order for a vanilla Legendary Skyrim..

[Mezner]

I'm having a similar issue with NMM. Skyrim runs fine, and the skyrim.esm and update.esm are in the data folder. https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/911004-nmm-cant-find-skyrimesm/page-3#entry40516440 this forum page has 2 quotes, the 2nd post has a video that basically shows my exact problem.

To be clear here though. The file path for my skyrim installation is as follows. Oh I also recently did a format of my hardrive if that matters.

E:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim This is the base installation folder.
E:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim\Data this is the folder that contains skyrim.esm

But this is the folder NMM is looking for.
E:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim\Data\Data

Now I copied all the .esm's into the 2nd data folder and NMM still wont start up after manually entering this file location or copy and pasting it. It loads, scans for games, click skyrim as the game i wish to mod, the logo fills with color as if to load.. then it crashes.

I've verified my game cash multiple times via steam and each time it says a single file failed to validate. It says it downloads this file, but the file is 0 of 0 bytes. No it doesn't tell me which file doesn't validate.

I've tried reinstalling nexus 3 times. Nothing seems to be working, is there some way to forcibly change the path nexus is trying to find? Because manually doing so via the NMM's normal option isn't working.

[Saren]

I'm having the same problem. Reviving thread.. if anyone could help this would be awesome. Never had this issue before. I've redirected Nexus to the base Skyrim folder and there's no "!" saying the game file is missing, then it auto checks the data file when loading and can't find the .esm and won't load. Wtf.

[Foba Bett]

If you're still having this issue, simply launch skyrim then close it, open NMM scan for games select the games you want (including skyrim) hit ok then Restart NMM worked for me

[Wolf from State Farm]

Well, I know I'm like 1-2 years late, but if you have to different drives (believe that is its name) like A n B for example and it says there is no Skyrim.esm in B just find it in your pc, copy and paste it into your Skyrim SE on B.

[hacker666666hack]

I opened the skyrim steam data file with NMM open, so It finally found it, and it worked.

[PrinceLoxx]

That's good

[TheClassyArchitect.]

Just bringing a little update and conclusion to this conversation, for future internet searchers, and to quell the unhelpful posts that tend to plague these particular posts.

If your \downloading\72850\Data folder is empty, it's not necessarily because you have a cracked version of Skyrim, and really, the reason for its disappearance isn't very important because the fix for this is very simple.

NMM wants the .esm files for all of your moddable game and DLC content, and it looks in the 'downloading' folder, rather than the 'common' folder, even though everything in wants is actually in the 'common' folder.

-- Missing folders --
The quick fix for this issue is this:
If the 'downloading' folder is missing << C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\downloading >>, simply add a folder to 'steamapps' called 'downloading'.
If the '72850' folder is missing << C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\downloading\72850 >>, simply add a folder to 'downloading' called '72850'.
If the 'Data' folder is missing << C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\downloading\72850\Data >>, you got it, simply add a folder to '72850' called 'Data'.

-- .esm Errors --
Again, NMM wants the .esm files for all of your moddable game and DLC content. Some have suggested to copy the entire steamapps\common folder, but that's at least 4.5 GB of unnecessary extra stuff on your computer.

The quick fix for missing .esm files in the << downloading\72850\Data >> is this:
- Navigate to << C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim\Data >>
- Copy the "Dawnguard.esm", "Dragonborn.esm", "HearthFires.esm", "Skyrim.esm", "Update.esm"
- Paste these files into << C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\downloading\72850\Data >>

-- UAC Error --
Now, if you stop following the directions at this point, you may get an error that NMM can't gain writing access to the .esm files. This is because your NMM is installed in your Program Files // Program Files (x86) folder will generate a UAC error. This isn't necessarily due to any fault on your part, and again, it wouldn't matter anyway because the fix is easy.

Some suggest to disable UAC, but a simpler task is just to move your entire 'Nexus Mod Manager' folder from within << C:\Program Files // C:\Program Files (x86) >> to another location, 'My Documents' or 'Documents' for example.

-- "Just to Be Sure" (Most likely not necessary, but better safe than sorry) --
- After the above steps are completed, right-click on Skyrim in the games list within Steam, and click properties.
- In the dialog box that opens, click the 'Local Files' tab, and then click 'Verify Integrity of Game Files'.
- Furthermore, after all of these steps, close out of all programs and restart your computer.


If each of these steps are followed, to my understanding you shouldn't have any problem getting NMM to work.

[Mitty]

Publicado originalmente por Saren:

I'm having the same problem. Reviving thread.. if anyone could help this would be awesome. Never had this issue before. I've redirected Nexus to the base Skyrim folder and there's no "!" saying the game file is missing, then it auto checks the data file when loading and can't find the .esm and won't load. Wtf.

If you are still having problems, I checked your profile and it says you haven't played since the 15th of Jan. When you open NMM to scan games, when it says it found skyrim, hit the little red x, and go to C: Steam, steamapps, common, skyrim and after you highlight the skyrim folder hit ok. After that you go to manage skyrim, it says you need to create a file for mods to download, problem fixed.

[sleepyboy]

Publicado originalmente por WaLLhAcK :

If you're still having this issue, simply launch skyrim then close it, open NMM scan for games select the games you want (including skyrim) hit ok then Restart NMM worked for me

this worked perfect, was missing skyrim.esm + update.esm for an armor mod i was preivously using before i redid my mods, i simply closed nmm, closed steam in icons tray, reopened nmm, and both of them were there and checked in the box

[methos94]

I don't know if anyone is still having this problem but I solved it by having NMM rescan for installed games and then instead of letting the search function find it (it was finding the right folder though) manually selecting the game location.