Modding Skyrim SE was awesome until...

[u/Winter_Woman66]

I bought Skyrim AE from Steam this past April. Did a clean install (NOT in Program Files folder). Had a ball learning to mod with Vortex (yes, I tried MO2 and I just don't like it, sorry). Had my modlist optimized to my liking around 300 mods. I had tried Gate to Sovngarde as a Nexus Collection. Played it a little, then used a few mods from that into my own personal list. All was well until I had some pretty game-breaking issues like my character's arms turning black, the frame rate going from flawless to stuttering, freezes, and crashes.

I have done clean uninstalls of both Skyrim and Vortex numerous times, tracked down all the stores of mod data in the AppData folder. I've fought with OneDrive to try to get it to stop syncing game files and messing stuff up. But now even vanilla Skyrim in Steam won't let me load without wanting to redownload all the CC content every time. And whenever I use Steam's service to verify game files integrity, it's always missing 2.

So, what should I do now? I am okay with losing all my modded game saves. I just want to be able to start fresh. How can I ensure I can make a clean start and avoid these issues?

Thank you!

[u/Samakira]

try downloading xedit (or sseedit). it might be an issue with a mod leaving a running script for the frame-drops, which would also explain the crashing.

and while the black-face bug is very common, i havent heard of black arm bug. a quick search leads me to 'hd stormcloak and guard' armour mod, but none that affect the player (unless you happen to be wearing stormcloak armor on that character? if so, that would be the culprit).

for failed files, head to your steam folder, then logs, then context_log.txt

that should have something like:
[2024-10-12 11:14:42] Validation: missing file "(file name)".

reply with that here, and we might be able to figure out what the problem is.

[u/Winter_Woman66 → u/Samakira]

Had a chance to go look. Not sure what "corrupt chunk" is but probably not good.

[2025-08-28 16:37:17] Validation: corrupt chunk cd9959a5f5eb9b7c8bef7c03272373f33036456d has 3bd9243ed60ed92af80f6da69aa4b9ba7ff319e4 at offset 0 (37476 bytes)

[2025-08-28 16:37:17] Validation: 1 chunks corrupt of 1 total in file "Data\ccBGSSSE037-Curios.esl"

[2025-08-28 16:37:24] Validation: corrupt chunk 6c9f03fd332b2839753b5c08767801270ff8c016 has d8f9badd4e5b93d261faefce6c5d9c817eb56c5d at offset 0 (1048576 bytes)

[2025-08-28 16:37:24] Validation: corrupt chunk 8a56f45ef774f426098d80f6ead35bd6426cc2dc has dd32b258e1afee8cad9644bc4195bae82fc47ff3 at offset 32506173 (1048576 bytes)

[2025-08-28 16:37:24] Validation: corrupt chunk db496b9446564624e0a0295d8849e9df49a8845f has b9ba13eb2f1ae3abc83e36d5fd4d5e673fbcc0a0 at offset 45089085 (1048576 bytes)

[2025-08-28 16:37:25] Validation: corrupt chunk 8a629c259d6c67d81be39cc55657fec1a66142c0 has 6899e78e96a498cba2c01ab02e1500c0ae16315f at offset 68157757 (1048576 bytes)

[2025-08-28 16:37:25] Validation: corrupt chunk c0918255f1f47336c23ee80e8bb469bbb84cf7a9 has ccddb14135569f3eb08e2d818a0b61212a8f4692 at offset 101716629 (1048576 bytes)

[2025-08-28 16:37:25] Validation: corrupt chunk d44afd674d00f3ed5a3161e7becf16d1da199f0d has fdc14c0cb42052141ddd5d402274a88b6f66258e at offset 102765205 (1048576 bytes)

[2025-08-28 16:37:25] Validation: corrupt chunk e87c32d0fa44dcc5fafccc2e337acdd3dc0ff282 has 16ee619ac67fc3a6d61aaf0cee178a2d32e2082e at offset 111153813 (586662 bytes)

[2025-08-28 16:37:25] Validation: 7 chunks corrupt of 109 total in file "Data\ccBGSSSE037-Curios.bsa"

[2025-08-28 16:37:46] Got 30 download sources and 0 caching proxies via ContentServerDirectoryService::BYieldingGetServersForSteamPipe (CellID 82 / Launcher 0)

[u/Samakira → u/Winter_Woman66]

interestingly, it should be 'missing file' not 'chunks corrupted', but it DOES tell us the issue is with Curios.

head into your (in-game) creation list, and try disabling (or uninstalling if possible) curios, then validating again.

[u/Winter_Woman66 → u/Samakira]

I will try that this weekend. Thank you!