Sorry, I don't have a full load order so there may not be much you can do to help. I already uninstalled everything, including the base game and redownloaded the game from steam so I can start fresh tonight.

I ran into a big problem last night and I was hoping someone may have seen or heard about this before and give me some insight so I don't get the same thing happening on this install.

After my previous install problems where I was logging in and testing after each mod on a rock near Vilverin with no problems only to find my game explode when I went to the Imperial City Waterfront I resolved to do more extensive testing between mods.

I installed a variety of mods and was having no problems anywhere, I had the Steam addition with all the DLC (including Frostcrag Spire). I had the 3 Unnofficial patches installed and a bunch of other stuff that shouldn't affect Frostcrag like Midas Magic, Supreme Magicka, Realistic Levelling, Darnified UI, Dynamic Maps, Map Marker Overhaul, Display Stats.

Everything was working well.

I installed Better Cities and travelled all around the IC and to a couple of smaller cities, it all worked great, no huge memory problems. I installed Frostcrag Reborn, I think a patch for it also, Unique Landscapes Compilation (including Snowdale) and the Frostcrag Reborn/Snowdale Compatibility Patch.

I used coc frostcragspire01 to teleport to frostcrag, I was in a room with a bunch of stuff and a groundskeeper, everything seemed fine. I took a teleport pad to the frostcrag living quarters and everything was fine there. I went through a door to the outside and I was on a platform atop the spire overlooking the IC and another city (I think it's Bruma). Great!

With this great view I decide it's the perfect time to install RAEVWD so I do that, enabling all options in the wizard (although it doesnt install RAEVWD Cities since Better Cities is installed). Cool, now I can see a bunch more detail in Bruma's city walls. I go and run TES4LODGEN and log back in, now I can see all sorts of other structures, this is great. I'm taking screenshots of the same view after each mod change so I can compare what the mods are doing.

After installing RAEVWD I decide to turn around, enable god mode and jump down the spire to head toward Bruma and see what that looks like.

This is where the problem became apparent. There were missing textures/meshes all over the tower. Not the Yellow exclamation points I've seen before but just missing stuff, walls and floors and doors floating in mid air. The tower was probably less than 20% actually there and I have no idea if it had been like that since I got there or if it was something I had added since getting there (because I coc'd to get there and hadn't turned around after getting out the door.

I started uninstalling mods one by one and relogging in but nothing fixed it. First RAEVWD, then XulSnowdale and the compatibility patch, then frostcrag reborn. The problem now is that when I uninstalled frostcrag reborn it removed my frostcrag.esp file, so now I don't even have the original DLC file, just the patch for it (which won't activate because the master file frostcrag.esp is missing). Since I have the steam version I couldnt reinstall the DLC, it all comes together as a single download with the game.

Everything was installed and uninstalled via Wrye Bash 303 python version and ordered using BOSS

I've looked for similar problems but haven't found much that matches perfectly. Some people complain of missing textures/meshes but they report seeing the big yellow exclamation marks. Others have the same problem of missing walls and such but only from a distance, saying that it looks like crap but once it gets in your viewable distance the correct model "pops" in and everything is ok. I can't even walkin the front door because that part of the tower doesnt exist.

Anyone know what might have caused this? Anyone know why I had no Frostcrag.esp file after I uninstalled the FrostcragReborn Mod? I thought part of the point of using Wrye Bash was so that if I uninstall mods it knows what was there before the uninstalled mod overwrote files and so returns your data folder to the correct state.

I'm sad that I had to reinstall from steam for a 4th or 5th time but what really concerns me is that I don't know what I did and I don't want to spend another 3-4 days re modding things and then unknowingly make the same mistake, especially as it seems to be a mistake that can't be undone with Wrye.

Thanks for reading this far, and thank you in advance for any help you can offer.

This is probably the root of your problem. I am guessing you are using the old orginal Frostcrag Reborn, which actually replaces the official DLC ESP with its own identically named ESP. This is obviously not an ideal way to do things, so Frostcrag Reborn De-Isolated was, er..., born. The updated mod no longer replaces the original ESP. That's what you want to be using.

Secondarily, RAEVWD has a tricky uninstallation process, which you'll want to follow if you ever end up in a situation again where you want to remove it from an active game.

Thirdly, the IC Waterfront is generally the worst spot in the whole game for performance, modded or not. So, I would suggest not worrying all that much if things get bad for you there. Just don't spend a whole lot of time there, and save often when you do.

IC Waterfront being terrible was why I was using it to test, I figured run my tests in the toughest spot in the game and if I'm stable, everywhere else should be good to go.

This time I'll install the de-isolated frostcragreborn and see if that works better. Do you think using the old frostcrag reborn mod was responsible for the invisible walls and stuff or just the crap that happened once I tried to uninstall it?

My point about the Waterfront is that it may be the only unstable point in your game. So your tests may be a bit unreliable.

When you uninstalled the old Reborn, it removed the ESP file and did not reinstall the original ESP from the official DLC. This means you did not have any of the new content added by the DLC available. Thus all the missing resources. Even though you are going to use the De-Isolated version now, you still must have the official DLC ESP file, or you will have similar problems.

(And, when playing Reborn, either version, do yourself a favor and skip Avalon entirely.)

Right, after I uninstalled the old reborn my game was just broken and crashed on startup.

The missing stuff was the reason I started uninstalling everything in the first place.

I wiped everything and redownloaded a fresh copy of the game from Steam last night while I slept so it will have the original DLC file when I start to mod it again tonight.

I understand that it was the old version of FrostcragReborn that gave me the problems with uninstalling, so I'll use the de-isolated version on my next build.

I am wondering if you think it was the old version of FrostcragReborn that was causing things to go missing in the first place, or if you have any idea what might have caused the problem?

One thing I was wondering was, usually Frostcrag has a quest associated with it right? Do you think I might have caused the errors by just coc-ing there without doing the actual quest?

Thanks!

Could be. I've never done that. I always use the SM Refurbished mods which delay the DLCs appropriately - some until you are a certain level, some until you fulfill certain conditions, etc. And then I have never tried to go to those places early.