[Skyrim CK] Timestamps on official files issue

[Arthmoor]

Just a heads up since I finally have confirmation that this is an issue beyond some quirk of my own PC. If you are doing any sort of work with the official Skyrim DLCs in the CK, make certain the timestamps on your ESM files does NOT go past the year 2014.

 

For some bizarro world reason, if you set the dates into 2015 (not sure exactly where though) or anywhere in 2016, the CK will load Dawnguard and Dragonborn in the wrong slots and you will be potentially editing things in the wrong order which will lead to bugs, not to mention an ESP with its masters out of order.

 

I ran into this one myself during the USLEEP merges but though it was a fluke and moved on, but then Pete ran into it as well on his PC which makes it more than just some random fluke.

 

There's no telling how long this has been a bug in the CK or why it even matters, but it does. This is especially problematic if you need to do a cache validation on your game because it may redownload DLC files and change the timestamps on you when it does.

 

For reasons unknown, Hearthfire is not affected, but it needs to be dated between the 2 DLCs to load in the proper order. Skyrim.esm and Update.esm should obviously both be dated before the DLCs.

 

Using Wrye Bash, you can change the timestamps on the files fairly easily. Open it up, highlight an ESP, edit the date in the "Modified:" box. Save the file. You'll want to be sure that when you're done editing, all the dates are in order according to the load order.

 

Once you have the issue with the timestamps fixed, any mods you have with the out of order masters can be fixed by loading them into xEdit, right clicking on their names, and selecting "Sort Masters". Exit the program once that's done and they should be fixed. Do them one at a time, I'm not sure if the master sorting can handle multiple errant mods loaded at the same time.

[zilav]

Hmm, it is already known that CK sorts plugins by timestamps like in previous games regardless the real load order in plugin.txt, what exactly is different here with DLCs? If you change their dates, they will load in wrong position if there are any 3rd party esm with older dates present. I can't catch what's new here.

[Kesta]

I did have similar issue at one point, but I thought it was because I had applied the itm/udr cleaning process to the masters in the wrong order and xEdit changed their time stamp at this point. If xEdit isn't changing the timestamp when cleaning files (not idea if it do or not), then I did encounter the very same issue.
 
However, using LOOT to timestamp them in the regular load order fixed the whole thing properly, dlcs shows up in the right order in the CK, and plugin's master list is in the expected order. That said, maybe LOOT did set the timestamp to a date prior to the one you mention, as I have no idea to what it set them.
 
 
As for this :

 

if you set the dates into 2015 (not sure exactly where though)

My best guess would be the date of the infamous CK update back in march/april. That's the only plausible date I can think of. (Maybe a bit anterior, if it's related to the last compilation of the CK and not its upload date). But even so, the "why" remain oO

[Arthmoor]

Hmm, it is already known that CK sorts plugins by timestamps like in previous games regardless the real load order in plugin.txt, what exactly is different here with DLCs? If you change their dates, they will load in wrong position if there are any 3rd party esm with older dates present. I can't catch what's new here.

Nothing is different except that there's a bug. Even if you have the 5 official files in order by timestamp, the CK will load Dawnguard and Dragonborn in the wrong slots. You'll end up with DB going first, followed by HF where it should be, then DG after. The masters will then be out of order.

 

Setting the dates on those files to the year 2014 fixes this problem so long as the order of the rest of the date is also correct. Kesta may be right about when in 2015 it breaks, because I used to have mine all set in 2015, then when the USLEEP merge started and I had them dated July 2015, it refused to load properly. So it's at least from July onward that it gets hosed. No idea why, it just does, and it's easily verified.

[Leonardo]

It looks like CK is sorting the DLC by it's file size, I assume CK does that, and I just checked Dragonborn.esm is larger than Dawnguard.esm.  Perhaps the latest official CK patch has a timestamp bug.

 

Dawnguard - 23.3 Mb

Dragonborn - 61.1 Mb

 

But take that with a grain of salt since Dragonborn DLC contains the Solstheim Island.

 

Heartfire.esm is a lot smaller the file size is only 3.30 Mb.