Bethesda Mods

How do I install mods directly?

In Mod Organizer 2, you can:

• Click File > Install Mod...
• Click the Install Mod button on the toolbar (second from the left)
• Press Ctrl+M to install a mod from an archive

Other mod managers have similar procedures. Refer to their documentation.

Papyrus

How do I enable logging?

In Skyrim.ini or Fallout4.ini, add or change this section to match:

[Papyrus]
fPostLoadUpdateTimeMS=500.0
bEnableLogging=1
bEnableTrace=1
bLoadDebugInformation=1

Where can I find the logs?

• SLE: %USERPROFILE%\Documents\My Games\Skyrim\Logs\Script
• SSE: %USERPROFILE%\Documents\My Games\Skyrim Special Edition\Logs\Script
• FO4: %USERPROFILE%\Documents\My Games\Fallout 4\Logs\Script

Logs created for specific mods may be written to the User subfolder.

Note: %USERPROFILE% is an environment variable. It is equivalent to $HOME on Linux.

Can logs help debug crashes?

No. The Papyrus logger outputs explicitly user-defined messages through the Papyrus subsystem. It does not output call stacks for any other system or subsystem. It does not run in a separate process either, so when the game crashes, the Papyrus logger does, too.

How do I debug crashes then?

You can use Microsoft's Debug Diagnostic Tool (DebugDiag) to produce memory dumps for crashed processes and to present this data as a call stack. That call stack can be used by an experienced programmer or reverse engineer to identify the point of failure. If the issue can be identified, however, resolving the crash may not be possible for you.

Can scripts cause crashes?

With respect to vanilla Papyrus, no. With respect to third-party extensions, of course. If you are looking for the source of a crash, the most likely culprits are bad navmeshes and malformed assets, such as meshes, textures, and sounds. Bethesda games tend to not validate assets at runtime because the developer's internal workflow always produces the correct assets for their games. That is not the case for mod authors who use a hodgepodge of official and unofficial tools. When these games encounter invalid assets, they will throw unhandled exceptions.