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  1. Frequently Asked Questions - BUGS What constitutes a bug? A bug is defined for our purposes as a defect in the game that can be factually proven to be broken. This can be anything from a quest that won't advance a stage when it should, to a typo in a book, and pretty much everything in between. Some judgment is used for issues that are more cosmetic than functional, such as the lack of heat blurs on smelters and forges. The game will obviously function just fine without those, but they constitute unrealistic visual presentation. How do I report a bug? Gather as many details as possible. Where did it occur? What did you expect to happen instead? What form IDs (if any) are involved? Are there any specific circumstances that can help narrow things down, like time of day, whether you're a vampire or not, what part of which quest you're on, etc. Be prepared to justify the report and be as detailed as possible. Details, details, details! You need to be able to provide as many as possible. Post your report on our bug tracker. Posts to forum threads are too easily lost. Posts to Nexus are going to get hopelessly buried. In fact, posting to any forum at all is just as likely to get ignored due to the high turnover rates. The forums are appropriate for discussing details, not for filing initial reports. "It's broke, fix it." ---> This is BAD! Always bad, because, well, WHAT is broken?!? "This armor has bad stats." ---> This is also BAD! "I found a floating tree 5 miles from Windhelm." ---> BAD! "There's a house in Solitude with ugly columns." ---> BAD! "Fix the Gelebor bug." ---> BAD! (What bug?!?) "It's broke. Stage 15 did not get set as expected when I turned in the Macguffin. Instead I ended up at stage 12 and some idiot told me to kill a zombie instead of a bear." ---> Better. "This armor should have 15 points of protection. The game is only showing me 10." ---> Better. "In the tundra southeast of Windhelm, I found a floating tree. It's form ID is [form ID]. Here's a screenshot." ---> Better. "The alchemy store in Solitude has front support columns that are too short. Here's a screenshot." ---> Better. "Gelebor won't walk over and activate the wayshrine after he called to me and we talked about his brother. Here's a save to show you." ---> Better. Your bug tracker is broken. I can't use it. AFKTrack may not be the most elegant of web programs, but it's ours. It does what we need it to do, and yes, it can be a bit eccentric at times. We will do our best to assist you with using it, but we can't just go on "this sucks" or "it won't work" any more than we can for bugs in the game itself. If you find something that's genuinely broken, ie: it triggers a fatal error and you get kicked out, we'll be notified of that and can usually fix it pretty quickly. The tracker should work properly in any browser that follows proper web standards. It's also open source, so if you've been looking for something like this for your own projects, you can download it here: https://github.com/Arthmoor/AFKTrack Contributions are also welcome to improve or fix things too! What kind of evidence is accepted as proof? Your bug report must first and foremost be reproducible on a vanilla setup using no mods other than the unofficial patches. If this is not the case, no amount of proof is going to sway the decision to fix something. A lot of people have simply stated "it's on the internet" or "the wiki has it listed". This is *NOT* sufficient proof, even if you provide a link directly to a report on a wiki that describes it in detail. All bugs handled by the Unofficial Patch Projects are independently verified before being fixed. There are too many reports in too many unreliable places of "that bug" that are caused by external factors. Acceptable proof, in no particular order: A mod which actually fixes the problem and can be downloaded from a trusted source. No shady off the wall file sharing sites. They tend to be havens for piracy and viruses. A saved game with as few mods as possible that will immediately or very shortly exhibit the problem. For quests: Logs from quest stages that detail the current state of things, vs what you think they should be at a given moment. The Conskrybe utility is invaluable for this purpose. For scripts: Output from the Papyrus logs is best as they will generally detail what precisely is wrong if a script is not working as it should be. For weapons & armors: A clear example of what you're reporting. What stats are wrong? Is it a typo? A bad sound setting? An armor model that's pointing to the wrong thing? For meshes, a detailed description of what the precise problem is. Overlapping polygons? Bad UV mapping? Holes? Warped posts or doors? Collision that isn't working? Whenever possible, provide the path to the actual model file if you can. Otherwise, get a form ID from the object or something immediately nearby. Provide a screenshot as well because it isn't always obvious when looking at these things in the CK. For anything else, provide as many details as possible, screenshots where applicable, and a healthy dose of patience Make sure any evidence being supplied is done with a save that has no mods other than the unofficial patches installed. All too often we find that there is nothing wrong because the vanilla game has no defect to fix. Check first. It's very easy for mods to not only undo official fixes, but also too undo or alter things that the unofficial patches have already addressed. What kinds of issues can be fixed by the Unofficial Patch Projects? We can fix the following things: Actors: Anything that can be edited in the CK. Traits tab, stats tab, AI tab, etc. This also includes issues with facegen textures. Audio: We have limited ability to splice in segments of audio which are proven to be incorrect. Whether an audio issue can be fixed or not is handled on a case by case basis. Crashes: We have extremely limited ability to do anything with this. If something that the CK can edit will resolve a CTD, then we will do so. Otherwise don't hold out much hope. Havok: This generally covers issues with animation and some cases of collision. The ability to fix these types of issues relies on the state of external utilities such as Nifskope. Often times, even with appropriate tools, someone with the experience to know how to use them is required. Issues in this area may take a long time to get fixed. Interface: As a general rule, the Unofficial Patch Projects will not address interface issues due to the high probability of generating conflicts with both the official game updates and with other UI mods. We strongly advise you to take advantage of SkyUI to resolve most of the issues with the PC UI. That said, if a strong enough case can be made that the unofficial patches should address the issue, knowledge of Flash and Scaleform will be required to fix the problem. Items: This covers all manner of objects the player can pick up and possess: Weapons, armors, ore, plants, cups, plates, ingredients, etc. This covers the BASE objects. That is, the records the game uses to generate the actual items you see in the world. The CK can fix nearly all issues associated with items. Locations: Generally covers things like cells, navmeshes, landscape, interior data, and other forms of world data. The CK can fix nearly all issues associated with locations. Magic: Anything to do with magic, shouts, powers, spells, or their underlying effects. The CK is generally able to fix most issues involving magic. Meshes: The actual 3D models that make up everything you see in the game, from buildings to rocks, birds, and trees. Knowledge of external programs such as 3DS Max, Blender, and Nifskope are required to work with mesh files. The CK has no functionality to address these issues beyond assignment of texture sets. Perks and Skills: Any issue which involves a perk or a skill you can access via the levelup menu. Issues ranging from faulty descriptions to perk formulas and advancement problems. Certain things, such as actor values and the layouts of the perk trees in the UI, are not editable via the CK. Attempting to edit an Actor Value will crash the CK. Placed References: Problems with the actual objects placed within the game world: floating trees, rocks, misaligned walkways, buildings turned on their sides, etc. The CK can fix all issues relating to placed references. Quests: Anything that shows up in your journal as a task to perform is considered a quest. All dialogue in the game is also a quest within the underlying structures. Any issues with aliases, stage progression, dialogue scenes, journal entries, and objectives will be found here. The CK can fix all issues relating to quests. Scripts: The actual source code and/or compiled files which drive all scripted events. These are all external files stored outside of the plugin files. While the CK is capable of editing them internally, it's generally best to do so using a text editor such as Notepad++. Knowledge of the Papyrus language is required to fix issues in scripts. Text: Minor text issues such as typos, misspelled words, or other trivial issues. All such problems can be fixed via the CK. Textures: Everything you see in the game has a texture. They are what provide the details, on top of the meshes, to render the complete presentation. Textures are stored in .dds files. Knowledge of a graphical editing tool that can handle this format is required (Photoshop, Paint.NET, Gimp, etc). The CK has no functions for editing textures at all. What kinds of issues CANNOT be fixed by the Unofficial Patch Projects? Anything which is a fault in the executable code for the game engine is something the project cannot address. A few examples: NPCs not having enough time to complete their dialogue. NPCs interrupting themselves because the player bumped into them or got too close. The orientation of the player swimming in 3rd person. The issue that causes Khajiit tails to wave even when dead. Objects making the wrong noises when picked up (provided they have the correct sound setting in the CK). The way the player clips and sometimes becomes invisible when riding horses in confined spaces. The way mounting a horse in the water will cause it to move as though you're on land. Giants sending people flying several cells through the air. Unowned items being marked stolen when your followers pick them up. Corpses that fall through the ground, spring up from underground, or fall from the sky on you. Being entirely helpless while swimming. The way items sometimes just blip out when you're staring right at them. Mouse lag in the menu to load a game. Glitches with transformation into a werewolf or a vampire lord. There's more, if you're in doubt, just ask. I gave you all the details you asked for, supplied proof, and even gave you 3 of my saves. Why hasn't the bug been fixed yet? Some bugs are easy to fix. A dagger that should do 5 points of damage that only does 4 is a 10 second number edit. Some bugs are very difficult to fix. Don't understand why "the Gelebor bug" isn't fixed yet? That's because none of us knows what the problem is, even if you supply saves that clearly illustrate that the problem exists. So these bugs take much longer to work through. Consequently, they are also much more satisfying to see fixed. There is a lot of variation in difficulty for things in between: Quests take time to pick apart. Scenes take time to parse. AI packs sometimes break for mysterious reasons. Certain quests may simply be riddled with bugs, like our old pal Blood on the Ice. Meshes need time for someone to import them, work on them, and export them back. Posting comments to Nexus every 2 days about how X is still broken and why haven't we fixed it won't get it fixed any faster. All that does is irritate us, and wastes your time. Some bugs we may not be able fix yet, but are things we think could be fixed once tools advance further to allow it. Wondering why it took so long to fix something so "simple" as missing heat blurs on forges and smelters? Nifskope wasn't up to the task early on. It couldn't copy the block containing that effect. I have a fix, or found a fix I'd like to contribute. How do I do that? If you found a fix that isn't yours, provide us a link. The mod in question absolutely MUST have clear permissions listed saying that the assets within the file can be used freely. If this information is not readily visible, we will not pursue it further. Though it may seem otherwise, we have little time to chase these sorts of things down. If you authored a fix yourself, report it to the bug tracker. Archive the fix (zip, rar, 7z, etc) and attach it to the bug report. If you have posted it to Nexus or another mod hosting site, you can instead provide us the link to that and we'll download it there. Make sure you specify that you are giving permission for us to use the fix. Be aware that if you provide us a fix, and that fix is implemented in a public release, we are under no obligation to later remove that fix. If you want your fix removed, make sure you ask us to do so BEFORE the beta cycle for the upcoming release it will be implemented in. If you have a certain way you'd like to be credited for a fix, let us know that too, so we can make sure the readme is correct. We take the issue of permissions very seriously and documentation of everything is kept, and will be provided as needed, when asked by any of the sites the unofficial patches are hosted with. Having to remove something because it has inadequate proof of permission wastes our time, and hurts the users as well, when a fix has to be backed out because of it. If you provide us a fix under false pretenses (ie: it's not yours, but you lied and said it was) the fix will be removed and we will no longer accept further submissions from you. Your privileges on the bug tracker will likely also be revoked permanently. What if I find a bug in the unofficial patch? Bugs in the unofficial patches should be reported the same way as any other bug, using the above methods. We are only human, mistakes will happen, but we need the details or nothing can be done about it.
  2. Frequently Asked Questions - About the Project Will the unofficial patch ever cost money if paid mods return? Short answer: No. Longer answer: The unofficial patches are a community driven effort in probably the purest possible way. It would be wrong of us to attempt to capitalize on that by suddenly shifting to a for-profit model for these patches. Even if there were to be some super simple way to remove all of the logistical and legal barriers to trying it, we still wouldn't do it. Put simply: It would be wrong on so many levels. So no. The unofficial patches will never cost money. They will always remain free. If we are involved in the effort to generate unofficial patches for Elder Scrolls VI, those will also remain free. What platforms is this mod available on? Currently the Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch is available for PC (Steam, GoG, Epic Games Store), XBox One (OG, X, and Series X), and PS4/PS5. We do not provide support for Skyrim VR. The VR version of Skyrim was forked from an old code branch for Special Edition that does not even have support for Creation Club functions added to the game. The official ESM files are out of sync with the current data set, and there are numerous differences in meshes and scripts as well. Thus, support for VR is not practical and we cannot help with this. Bethesda has also clearly stated that VR does not support mods and that they have no plans to change this in the future. There isn't even a CK for it, so no reasonable expectation of support can exist. Anyone using SSE mods on VR is running a high risk of corrupting their saves due to the data mismatches. Not to mention the crashes and other problems caused by incompatible assets used in mods for the standard PC version of the game. Will you be making patches for Creation Club DLCs? We will not be making any patches for Creation Club content. Any legitimate bugs in these DLCs should be reported directly to Bethesda to be addressed. There are likely to be far too many of these released over time for us to reasonably be expected to buy and support them all. That being said, you can find unofficial patches for Creation Club DLCs made by Garthand here: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/18975 What happens if Bethesda releases a patch for something you already fixed? Should this happen, then the next available release of the unofficial patch will remove the changes we've made - assuming the issue is completely fixed by Bethesda's patch. In cases where they are not completely fixed, we will remove only those portions of our changes that are confirmed to be fixed. Does using this mod disable achievements while playing? Yes. This is a decision that was imposed on Bethesda by Microsoft and Sony. It is not something we have control over and cannot address. If you have an issue with this policy, you need to take it up with Bethesda on their official Discord server. If you are using this mod on PC, a bypass for this restriction exists. You will require the SSE Script Extender (SKSE64) to make this work. Has the mod been cleaned? Yes. The unofficial patch has been cleaned using the latest available version of xEdit. You do not need to clean it yourself. Do I need to do a clean save when upgrading? No! When upgrading the unofficial patch, you simply need to copy the new files in and overwrite the old ones. NEVER follow advice given by someone to do a "clean save". In Skyrim Special Edition, there is no such thing. Performing one can lead to corrupting your save, and nobody really wants that. Is it safe to install the unofficial patch on an existing save? Yes. The unofficial patch comes with scripts designed to go over the state of things we've fixed and make sure your save is up to date with those. You can install them at any point during your game, whether you've completed the entire main quest or you just left Helgen for the first time. Some issues may not be possible to fix retroactively. Those which can't are listed in the version history with an [NR] tag. Only starting a new game will resolve those issues. Will the mod be released as an ESM file? No. Although this file has a .ESP extension, it is flagged as an ESM, a process often referred to as "false-flagging" a file. The game only cares about the flag itself and will load the mod in the proper section of your load order. Have you included the source code to the modified Papyrus scripts? Yes. All of the modified and added script source code is included in the .bsa. You'll need to unpack the file in order to be able to view them. You used to have a patch for the hi-res texture DLC. Isn't that still needed now? Not anymore. With Skyrim Special Edition, Bethesda folded all of the hi-res DLC content into the main distribution. The USSEP is a truly all in one package as a result and includes all relevant fixes from the old Unofficial Hi-Res Patch. What if I want to use something the unofficial patch has provided? Can I do that? Yes. You are allowed to use any assets contained in the mod: Scripts, meshes, textures, text, etc. You do not need to obtain permission beforehand. In fact, it is strongly encouraged that you check regularly with the unofficial patch and see if you have edited anything with your own mods that might cancel out a fix. If you find that you have, you may feel free to copy whatever is needed in order to retain the fixes. In fact, with the nature of Papyrus, it is almost critical that you check to see if a script you intend to change has been updated by the project. Papyrus conflicts can result in CTDs, bloated saves, and performance degradation. If you feel it necessary, you may also use the unofficial patch as a master to your own mod in order to be sure you're not overwriting a fix. It is up to you to inform your users of this, if you wish to use our file as a master for your own. Do not include the USSEP's ESP file in your distribution if you use it as a master. ALWAYS refer your users to our downloads so they can be sure to obtain the proper files. Am I allowed to modify your fixes and distribute supplemental packages based on that? No. We do not permit modification of the actual bug fixes. This policy unfortunately had to come about because certain people took it upon themselves to "fix" things in the USKP they thought were broken but were not. This has led to a number of false reports of bugs attributed to our project that these people are actually responsible for causing. Since these folks have refused all meaningful attempts at communication to resolve this, we are making it explicitly clear we do not condone this type of behavior. It has always been the community's understood etiquette that permission to do things like this is required, and it's backed up by copyright law if you really need to go there. Nobody has EVER had standing permission to produce modified copies of the work this project has done, and it's extremely disappointing that we apparently need to spell this out clearly now. This is not the same as the previous question though! If in the course of modifying the game you realize you need to incorporate a USSEP fix to prevent it getting lost, that's entirely fine and we encourage that. If you are confused, ask us, don't just assume you can do as you please. Our Readme file also covers the details on this. The unofficial patch changed something that conflicts with my mod. Can you fix this? No, unfortunately not. The Unofficial Patch is only answerable to Bethesda's updates and to the bugs in the vanilla game. We are not responsible for any problems fixing a bug may cause in your mod, no matter how popular it may be. It would be best to incorporate the fix into your work so as to avoid the issue to begin with. There can be certain exceptions made in some scenarios, but they will be handled on a case by case basis. If you feel you have grounds for such an exception, make your case on the AFK Mods forum. Do yourself a favor and don't waste your time trying to rally support by getting a bunch of Nexus or Reddit users to comment about it. Such tactics will be ignored. Does text edited by the patch show up in English in non-English games? Yes, it does, unfortunately. At the moment the only viable way to fix this is for translators to manually update the text in the ESP file and issue a translated package in their preferred language. It's a tedious process, but at present the only one available that doesn't risk corrupting the file. As the state of translation tools progresses, it may become possible in the future to issue the ESP file in localized format with external string files that can be translated into other languages more easily, thus allowing for the possibility that the mod could be distributed in one location with multiple translation files available. What is the proper load order for the Unofficial Patch? As of September 2022, the load order for the mod has changed! It must now be loaded as follows: Skyrim.esm Update.esm Dawnguard.esm Hearthfires.esm Dragonborn.esm ccBGSSSE001-Fish.esm ccQDRSSE001-SurvivalMode.esl ccBGSSSE037-Curios.esl ccBGSSSE025-AdvDSGS.esm Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch.esp [Everything Else] For getting load order set with other mods loaded, please use LOOT. It will provide you a solid starting point for everything that you can then tweak as needed. I'm getting errors when trying to install the patches using Nexus Mod Manager If you get the following error: BOSS_API_ERROR_INVALID_ARGS: Master files must load before other plugins. The mod was not installed. You need to perform the following steps: - Uninstall and delete all the Unofficial patches in NMM. - Exit NMM. - Launch NMM again. - Download and install all of the unofficial patches. - Run LOOT to sort your load order. Any other errors you get are likely to be problems with NMM itself or some other issue unrelated to the change in archive formats. It would be better to use a different mod manager though as NMM is no longer supported by Nexus. Can I disable the 4 new DLCs and still use the patch? No, you can't. These new DLCs have been a part of the basic game distribution since November of 2021 and that isn't going to change. Since they are now considered base game content, we need to treat it as such and patch things accordingly. I don't like Survival Mode but you require it now. How do I deal with this so I can use another mod? Survival Mode will prompt you after you advance the main quest far enough to ask you if you want to enable it or not. Say NO at the prompt. You will not be bothered by it again unless you want to turn it on later in the game options. I have numerous mods that used one or more of your old patches. What do I do about this? My game won't load now! Using mods intended for Classic Skyrim is not supported on Special Edition. Those mods need to be updated by their authors and run through the new CK and then properly adjusted to make use of USSEP as a master. This is NOT a process that can be done automatically by a script in SSEEdit and will lead to problems if that is attempted. Let the mod authors take care of it. If they do not, then don't try to use those mods anyway.
  3. Frequently Asked Questions - About the Project Will the unofficial patches ever cost money now that Valve and Bethesda are allowing paid content? Short answer: No. Longer answer: The unofficial patches are a community driven effort in probably the purest possible way. It would be wrong of us to attempt to capitalize on that by suddenly shifting to a for-profit model for these patches. Even if there were to be some super simple way to remove all of the logistical and legal barriers to trying it, we still wouldn't do it. Put simply: It would be wrong on so many levels. So no. The unofficial patches will never cost money. They will always remain free. If we are involved in the effort to generate unofficial patches for Elder Scrolls VI, those will also remain free. What happens if Bethesda releases a patch for something you already fixed? Skyrim Legendary Edition reached end of life in 2013. No further updates will be forthcoming from Bethesda since they have switched all their focus to Skyrim Special Edition. Has the mod been cleaned? Yes. All of the unofficial patch mods have been cleaned using the latest available version of TES5Edit. You do not need to clean them yourselves. Do I need to do a clean save when upgrading? No! When upgrading one of the unofficial patches, you simply need to copy the new files in and overwrite the old ones. NEVER follow advice given by someone to do a "clean save". In Skyrim, there is no such thing. Performing one can lead to corrupting your save, and nobody really wants that. Is it safe to install the unofficial patch on an existing save? Yes. All of the unofficial patches come with scripts designed to go over the state of things we've fixed and make sure your save is up to date with those. You can install them at any point during your game, whether you've completed the entire main quest or you just left Helgen for the first time. Some issues may not be possible to fix retroactively. Those which can't are listed in the version history with an [NR] tag. Only starting a new game will resolve those issues. Will the mod be released as an ESM file? As of October 2013, the answer to this is "yes" - but with a catch. The files themselves are what the CK and the game consider "master files" - that is, a file with the ESM flag set on it internally. However, the file extension on them is still set as .esp. This is what's known in modding as a "false flagged ESP file" which basically just means you won't damage your save by upgrading to the new format but at the same time will gain the various benefits provided by this. Not the least of which is that the game will be more stable and entire classes of engine related issues will no longer be present. Have you included the source code to the modified Papyrus scripts? Yes. All of the modified and added script source code is included in the .bsa. You'll need to unpack the file in order to be able to view them. You will also need to unpack the .psc files should you decide to make mods which depend on or want to incorporate our script fixes. What if I want to use something the unofficial patches have provided? Can I do that? Yes. You are allowed to use any assets contained in the mod: Scripts, meshes, textures, text, etc. You do not need to obtain permission beforehand. In fact, it is strongly encouraged that you check regularly with the unofficial patch and see if you have edited anything with your own mods that might cancel out a fix. If you find that you have, you may feel free to copy whatever is needed in order to retain the fixes. In fact, with the nature of Papyrus, it is almost critical that you check to see if a script you intend to change has been updated by the project. Papyrus conflicts can result in CTDs, bloated saves, and performance degradation. If you feel it necessary, you may also use the unofficial patch as a master to your own mod in order to be sure you're not overwriting a fix. It is up to you to inform your users of this, if you wish to use our file as a master for your own. Do not include the USKP's ESP file in your distribution if you use it as a master. ALWAYS refer your users to our downloads so they can be sure to obtain the proper files. Am I allowed to modify your fixes and distribute supplemental packages based on that? No. We do not permit modification of the actual bug fixes. This policy unfortunately had to come about because certain people took it upon themselves to "fix" things in the USKP they thought were broken but were not. This has led to a number of false reports of bugs attributed to our project that these people are actually responsible for causing. Since these folks have refused all meaningful attempts at communication to resolve this, we are making it explicitly clear we do not condone this type of behavior. It has always been the community's understood etiquette that permission to do things like this is required, and it's backed up by copyright law if you really need to go there. Nobody has EVER had standing permission to produce modifies copies of the work this project has done, and it's extremely disappointing that we apparently need to spell this out clearly now. This is not the same as the previous question though! If in the course of modifying the game you realize you need to incorporate a USKP fix to prevent it getting lost, that's entirely fine and we encourage that. If you are confused, ask us, don't just assume you can do as you please. Our Readme file also covers the details on this. The unofficial patch changed something that conflicts with my mod. Can you fix this? No, unfortunately not. The unofficial patches are only answerable to bugs in the vanilla game. We are not responsible for any problems fixing a bug may cause in your mod, no matter how popular it may be. It would be best to incorporate the fix into your work so as to avoid the issue to begin with. There can be certain exceptions made in some scenarios, but they will be handled on a case by case basis. If you feel you have grounds for such an exception, make your case on the AFK Mods forum. Do yourself a favor and don't waste your time trying to rally support by getting a bunch of Nexus users to comment about it. Such tactics will be ignored. Does text edited by the patch show up in English in non-English games? Yes, it does, unfortunately. At the moment the only viable way to fix this is for translators to manually update the text in the ESP file and issue a translated package in their preferred language. It's a tedious process, but at present the only one available that doesn't risk corrupting the file. As the state of translation tools progresses, it may become possible in the near future to issue the ESP file in localized format with external string files that can be translated into other languages more easily, thus allowing for the possibility that the mod could be distributed in one location with multiple translation files available. What is the proper load order for the Unofficial Patches? As of November 2015, the load order for these mods has changed! They must now be loaded as follows: Skyrim.esm Update.esm Dawnguard.esm Hearthfires.esm Dragonborn.esm Unofficial Skyrim Legendary Edition Patch.esp [Other ESM Files] HighResTexturePack01.esp HighResTexturePack02.esp HighResTexturePack03.esp Unofficial High Resolution Patch.esp [Other ESP Files] For getting load order set with other mods loaded, please use LOOT. It will provide you a solid starting point for everything that you can then tweak as needed. I'm getting errors when trying to install the patches using Nexus Mod Manager If you get the following error: BOSS_API_ERROR_INVALID_ARGS: Master files must load before other plugins. The mod was not installed. You need to perform the following steps: - Uninstall and delete all the Unofficial patches in NMM. - Exit NMM. - Launch NMM again. - Download and install all of the unofficial patches. - Run LOOT to sort your load order. Any other errors you get are likely to be problems with NMM itself or some other issue unrelated to the change in archive formats. Do I still need to keep the old patches (USKP/UDGP/UHFP/UDBP) after I upgrade to the Legendary Edition (USLEEP)? No, the install instructions are relatively clear that you need to remove the old patches after you install the new one. This will not cause any problems in your game as transition upgrades were extensively tested and proven to be problem free across a wide variety of characters, both old and new. Before removing the old patches, you may need to check the next question. I have numerous mods that used one or more of your old patches. What do I do about this? My game won't load now! The preferred solution is to wait for authors using our patches as masters to update them properly for USLEEP compatibility. They know best what does and doesn't need to be done to accomplish that. If a mod has been abandoned, or the author refuses to update for some reason, you can use Mator's xEdit Script for updating any files you have that used the old patches as masters. This script requires knowledge of how TES5Edit works, and any issues that come up with it must be directed toward Mator. We did not write this script, nor are we involved in its continued development or support. It has only been lightly tested by the team on a few small test cases to make sure nothing was outwardly wrong. If you'd prefer to do the changes manually, refer to the sticky post at the top of our file comments on Nexus. Manually changing the files can be risky, so only do this if you REALLY know what you're doing. Once this process is done and your mods have been updated, you can safely remove the old patches. I've seen something called the Skyrim Misc Patches Collection (SMPC, aka USKP_Addon)? What is this? Do I need it? Is it safe? As of July of 2015, the SMPC is no longer available for download and is not supported by its authors. You would be strongly advised to uninstall it and start a new game. The authors have publicly stated it will never be updated for compatibility with USLEEP.
  4. Frequently Asked Questions - BUGS What constitutes a bug? A bug is defined for our purposes as a defect in the game that can be factually proven to be broken. This can be anything from a quest that won't advance a stage when it should, to a typo in a book, and pretty much everything in between. Some judgment is used for issues that are more cosmetic than functional, such as the lack of heat blurs on smelters and forges. The game will obviously function just fine without those, but they constitute unrealistic visual presentation. How do I report a bug? Gather as many details as possible. Where did it occur? What did you expect to happen instead? What form IDs (if any) are involved? Are there any specific circumstances that can help narrow things down, like time of day, whether you're a vampire or not, what part of which quest you're on, etc. Be prepared to justify the report and be as detailed as possible. Details, details, details! You need to be able to provide as many as possible. Post your report on our bug tracker. Posts to forum threads are too easily lost. Posts to Nexus are going to get hopelessly buried. In fact, posting to any forum at all is just as likely to get ignored due to the high turnover rates. The forums are appropriate for discussing details, not for filing initial reports. "It's broke, fix it." ---> This is BAD! Always bad, because, well, WHAT is broken?!? "This armor has bad stats." ---> This is also BAD! "I found a floating tree 5 miles from Windhelm." ---> BAD! "There's a house in Solitude with ugly columns." ---> BAD! "Fix the Gelebor bug." ---> BAD! (What bug?!?) "It's broke. Stage 15 did not get set as expected when I turned in the Macguffin. Instead I ended up at stage 12 and some idiot told me to kill a zombie instead of a bear." ---> Better. "This armor should have 15 points of protection. The game is only showing me 10." ---> Better. "In the tundra southeast of Windhelm, I found a floating tree. It's form ID is [form ID]. Here's a screenshot." ---> Better. "The alchemy store in Solitude has front support columns that are too short. Here's a screenshot." ---> Better. "Gelebor won't walk over and activate the wayshrine after he called to me and we talked about his brother. Here's a save to show you." ---> Better. Your bug tracker is broken. I can't use it. AFKTrack may not be the most elegant of web programs, but it's ours. It does what we need it to do, and yes, it can be a bit eccentric at times. We will do our best to assist you with using it, but we can't just go on "this sucks" or "it won't work" any more than we can for bugs in the game itself. If you find something that's genuinely broken, ie: it triggers a fatal error and you get kicked out, we'll be notified of that and can usually fix it pretty quickly. The tracker should work properly in any browser that follows proper web standards. It's also open source, so if you've been looking for something like this for your own projects, you can download it here: https://github.com/Arthmoor/AFKTrack Contributions are also welcome to improve or fix things too! What kind of evidence is accepted as proof? Your bug report must first and foremost be reproducible on a vanilla setup using no mods other than the unofficial patches. If this is not the case, no amount of proof is going to sway the decision to fix something. A lot of people have simply stated "it's on the internet" or "the wiki has it listed". This is *NOT* sufficient proof, even if you provide a link directly to a report on a wiki that describes it in detail. All bugs handled by the Unofficial Patch Projects are independently verified before being fixed. There are too many reports in too many unreliable places of "that bug" that are caused by external factors. Acceptable proof, in no particular order: A mod which actually fixes the problem and can be downloaded from a trusted source. No shady off the wall file sharing sites. They tend to be havens for piracy and viruses. A saved game with as few mods as possible that will immediately or very shortly exhibit the problem. For quests: Logs from quest stages that detail the current state of things, vs what you think they should be at a given moment. The Conskrybe utility is invaluable for this purpose. For scripts: Output from the Papyrus logs is best as they will generally detail what precisely is wrong if a script is not working as it should be. For weapons & armors: A clear example of what you're reporting. What stats are wrong? Is it a typo? A bad sound setting? An armor model that's pointing to the wrong thing? For meshes, a detailed description of what the precise problem is. Overlapping polygons? Bad UV mapping? Holes? Warped posts or doors? Collision that isn't working? Whenever possible, provide the path to the actual model file if you can. Otherwise, get a form ID from the object or something immediately nearby. Provide a screenshot as well because it isn't always obvious when looking at these things in the CK. For anything else, provide as many details as possible, screenshots where applicable, and a healthy dose of patience Make sure any evidence being supplied is done with a save that has no mods other than the unofficial patches installed. All too often we find that there is nothing wrong because the vanilla game has no defect to fix. Check first. It's very easy for mods to not only undo official fixes, but also too undo or alter things that the unofficial patches have already addressed. What kinds of issues can be fixed by the Unofficial Patch Projects? We can fix the following things: Actors: Anything that can be edited in the CK. Traits tab, stats tab, AI tab, etc. This also includes issues with facegen textures. Audio: We have limited ability to splice in segments of audio which are proven to be incorrect. Whether an audio issue can be fixed or not is handled on a case by case basis. Crashes: We have extremely limited ability to do anything with this. If something that the CK can edit will resolve a CTD, then we will do so. Otherwise don't hold out much hope. Havok: This generally covers issues with animation and some cases of collision. The ability to fix these types of issues relies on the state of external utilities such as Nifskope. Often times, even with appropriate tools, someone with the experience to know how to use them is required. Issues in this area may take a long time to get fixed. Interface: As a general rule, the Unofficial Patch Projects will not address interface issues due to the high probability of generating conflicts with both the official game updates and with other UI mods. We strongly advise you to take advantage of SkyUI to resolve most of the issues with the PC UI. That said, if a strong enough case can be made that the unofficial patches should address the issue, knowledge of Flash and Scaleform will be required to fix the problem. Items: This covers all manner of objects the player can pick up and possess: Weapons, armors, ore, plants, cups, plates, ingredients, etc. This covers the BASE objects. That is, the records the game uses to generate the actual items you see in the world. The CK can fix nearly all issues associated with items. Locations: Generally covers things like cells, navmeshes, landscape, interior data, and other forms of world data. The CK can fix nearly all issues associated with locations. Magic: Anything to do with magic, shouts, powers, spells, or their underlying effects. The CK is generally able to fix most issues involving magic. Meshes: The actual 3D models that make up everything you see in the game, from buildings to rocks, birds, and trees. Knowledge of external programs such as 3DS Max, Blender, and Nifskope are required to work with mesh files. The CK has no functionality to address these issues beyond assignment of texture sets. Perks and Skills: Any issue which involves a perk or a skill you can access via the levelup menu. Issues ranging from faulty descriptions to perk formulas and advancement problems. Certain things, such as actor values and the layouts of the perk trees in the UI, are not editable via the CK. Attempting to edit an Actor Value will crash the CK. Placed References: Problems with the actual objects placed within the game world: floating trees, rocks, misaligned walkways, buildings turned on their sides, etc. The CK can fix all issues relating to placed references. Quests: Anything that shows up in your journal as a task to perform is considered a quest. All dialogue in the game is also a quest within the underlying structures. Any issues with aliases, stage progression, dialogue scenes, journal entries, and objectives will be found here. The CK can fix all issues relating to quests. Scripts: The actual source code and/or compiled files which drive all scripted events. These are all external files stored outside of the plugin files. While the CK is capable of editing them internally, it's generally best to do so using a text editor such as Notepad++. Knowledge of the Papyrus language is required to fix issues in scripts. Text: Minor text issues such as typos, misspelled words, or other trivial issues. All such problems can be fixed via the CK. Textures: Everything you see in the game has a texture. They are what provide the details, on top of the meshes, to render the complete presentation. Textures are stored in .dds files. Knowledge of a graphical editing tool that can handle this format is required (Photoshop, Paint.NET, Gimp, etc). The CK has no functions for editing textures at all. What kinds of issues CANNOT be fixed by the Unofficial Patch Projects? Anything which is a fault in the executable code for the game engine is something the project cannot address. A few examples: NPCs not having enough time to complete their dialogue. NPCs interrupting themselves because the player bumped into them or got too close. The orientation of the player swimming in 3rd person. The issue that causes Khajiit tails to wave even when dead. Objects making the wrong noises when picked up (provided they have the correct sound setting in the CK). The way the player clips and sometimes becomes invisible when riding horses in confined spaces. The way mounting a horse in the water will cause it to move as though you're on land. Giants sending people flying several cells through the air. Unowned items being marked stolen when your followers pick them up. Corpses that fall through the ground, spring up from underground, or fall from the sky on you. Being entirely helpless while swimming. The way items sometimes just blip out when you're staring right at them. Mouse lag in the menu to load a game. Glitches with transformation into a werewolf or a vampire lord. That ugly ass outline around fire effects that showed up after Patch 1.6. The lip sync bug introduced by Patch 1.9. There's more, if you're in doubt, just ask. I gave you all the details you asked for, supplied proof, and even gave you 3 of my saves. Why hasn't the bug been fixed yet? Some bugs are easy to fix. A dagger that should do 5 points of damage that only does 4 is a 10 second number edit. Some bugs are very difficult to fix. Don't understand why "the Gelebor bug" isn't fixed yet? That's because none of us knows what the problem is, even if you supply saves that clearly illustrate that the problem exists. So these bugs take much longer to work through. Consequently, they are also much more satisfying to see fixed. There is a lot of variation in difficulty for things in between: Quests take time to pick apart. Scenes take time to parse. AI packs sometimes break for mysterious reasons. Certain quests may simply be riddled with bugs, like our old pal Blood on the Ice. Meshes need time for someone to import them, work on them, and export them back. Posting comments to Nexus every 2 days about how X is still broken and why haven't we fixed it won't get it fixed any faster. All that does is irritate us, and wastes your time. Some bugs we may not be able fix yet, but are things we think could be fixed once tools advance further to allow it. Wondering why it took so long to fix something so "simple" as missing heat blurs on forges and smelters? Nifskope wasn't up to the task until recently. It couldn't copy the block containing that effect. I have a fix, or found a fix I'd like to contribute. How do I do that? If you found a fix that isn't yours, provide us a link. The mod in question absolutely MUST have clear permissions listed saying that the assets within the file can be used freely. If this information is not readily visible, we will not pursue it further. Though it may seem otherwise, we have little time to chase these sorts of things down. If you authored a fix yourself, report it to the bug tracker. Archive the fix (zip, rar, 7z, etc) and attach it to the bug report. If you have posted it to Nexus or another mod hosting site, you can instead provide us the link to that and we'll download it there. Make sure you specify that you are giving permission for us to use the fix. Be aware that if you provide us a fix, and that fix is implemented in a public release, we are under no obligation to later remove that fix. If you want your fix removed, make sure you ask us to do so BEFORE the beta cycle for the upcoming release it will be implemented in. If you have a certain way you'd like to be credited for a fix, let us know that too, so we can make sure the readme is correct. We take the issue of permissions very seriously and documentation of everything is kept, and will be provided as needed, when asked by any of the sites the unofficial patches are hosted with. Having to remove something because it has inadequate proof of permission wastes our time, and hurts the users as well, when a fix has to be backed out because of it. If you provide us a fix under false pretenses (ie: it's not yours, but you lied and said it was) the fix will be removed and we will no longer accept further submissions from you. Your privileges on the bug tracker will likely also be revoked permanently. What if I find a bug in the unofficial patch? Bugs in the unofficial patches should be reported the same way as any other bug, using the above methods. We are only human, mistakes will happen, but we need the details or nothing can be done about it.
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