A long time ago when I first started trying to make mods, I was trying to make an underground house mod, and I had a problem. I put a trap door on the cement waterfront in balmora that would supposedly lead down into the interior cell where the house proper was built. The problem was that in-game, the trap door was never there.

I raised it, I lowered it, I deleted it and replaced it, but no matter what I did, when I went into the game, it just wasn't there. I eventually put a door in the wall that runs behind the stilt rider, and it finally worked,.. but I never did find out what the problem was.

I had someone ask me about a very similar problem in an interior cell where the door leading out is visible in the CS, it says it's teleport marker is appropriately placed and all is well... but in-game, there is no door, so once you're in the house, you're there to stay, barring something like console coc or recall spell.

I had no answer for this person, since I never did solve my own problem in this regard, and I was wondering if this is something that happens occasionally enough to have a definite answer for why it happens and how to fix it.

Does anyone know? An answer to this would really be appreciated by both of us,k I'm sure.

What was the id of the trap door? Maybe there is a slight chance that there was a script attached to it where it would be disabled under certain circumstances.

It was ex_h_trapdoor_01 if I remember right, and the only way that would be disabled is if somebody put a script on it without changing the ID, eh? I didn't have many mods in those days and they are all popular mods noe, by and large, so that isn't likely.

I've had issues with disappearing objects, can't remember if I ever had a door vanish, but other things. I put it down to a corrupt savegame (even after cleaning it with Wrye Mash, still problems), did you test the mod with a new character or did you load a game?

I discovered my savegames "break" when I reload them several times for testing my mods, have to make a new savegame every now and again if cleaning it doesn't work.

You know, I don't really remember back that far exactly what I did, but I'll have to see if this other person is loading new games or not. It's a good idea.

My first inclination is to suspect the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes3Mod:Mod_Conflicts#Local_References, which can cause things to disappear (especially noticeable with doors), and it can also cause doubling. I would try the MCP (Morrowind Code Patch) and see if the problem persists, and if it does use Wrye Mash to "renumber refs" for that plugin.


This is a known problem, when testing a mod, if you keep using the same savegame while loading newer versions of your mod, you will get doubling and missing items. The cleanest way to get around this is to start a new game from scratch after you have made any cell changes in your mod. The reason this happens is that when you save a new version of your plugin with cell changes, the CS will renumber the references of items in the cell, but the savegame will remember the old reference numbers.

That was really interesting, and I'll bet it is the root of the issue. My problem occurred in Balmora, and the other person's missing door is in Seyda Neen, both popular places according to the UESP article.

It's really great to get an answer to such a perplexing question, thanks a lot!

I got the disappearing door problem bad once when adding a door to Seyda Neen. No matter what I did, the door would not show. LOL, I even made a huge tree a door in desperation, figuring that would be hard to miss ingame. No door.

Whenever doing a test mod, where I just want to get to a cell fast and easy now, I make something like a basket a door and place it inside Arrile's Tradehouse. It is outside where doors tend to not appear. Inside cells seem to be more stable.

I have found that it helps to launch MW directly into your mod, bypassing the chargen or saved game issue. I normally select a fairly stable cell, and put that in the morrowind.ini. You start out as a nondescript dunmer acrobat, but you can always call enableracemenu if necessary.

do you currently have any other mods that alter balmora? cos i was thinking maybe a load order thing.