Can’t absorb dragon souls, even with USKP and UDBP patches installed

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Anyone around coy with being Mr. Fixit? (Ms. Fixit would be even better, but either will do nicely.) I can't absorb dragon souls, and yes, I've been through almost every thread there is here on the answer. (So please, do not duplicate me. Pretty please?)

Mind you, I got a TRUCKLOAD of mods installed… (ducks in preparation for the coming brick) Odd thing is, I was playing with a very similar list before installing Dragon Combat Overhaul and Succubus Race, but deactivating either won't get me anywhere.

Done some digging on the Nexus and Steam forums… I read somewhere that No Spinning Death overwrites a script related to dragon death. It might be mucking up things some, but I can't tell. Disabling that mod didn't get me anywhere, but scripts are baked into saves (right?), so in theory I have to (cringes) restart the game to be absolutely sure…

Other bits worth (?) knowing:

  • Running SKSE
  • Running ENB
  • Using ModOrganizer

UPDATE: There is something seriously broken with my game itself. Tried the following:

  • Disabled ALL the mods, save for Alternate Start for quicker starts (and yes, this includes USKP, UDGP and UDBP)
  • Started a new game, created a vanilla Nord character
  • Toggled godmode on
  • Given the PC Lightning Storm
  • Spawned Mirmulnir
  • Turned the overgrown lizard into charred meat

And STILL I'm not absorbing its soul!

UPDATE 2: Verifying the game cache integrity turned up 3 corrupted files. Wish I knew which those were, but I had cleaned my master files using TES5Edit, so I thought I had screwed up something there. Created a new barebones game, and at last, I'm having some dragon spirit chow. Then, created a new fully modded game, and no soul chow for me… For a moment I wanted to pin the blame on TES5Edit but now I know that's not the cause. The culprit's still at large.

UPDATE 3: After having no luck with a fully modded game, started to gradually activate mods again… eventually I realized that the truckload of mods I had activated on my previous attempt broke something again on my vanilla installation, for even another barebones try was plagued with this issue. Re-check integrity, and bam, another file -a very small one, not even 1k in size- was corrupted. (Again, I wish there was a way to know which!)

UPDATE 4: Tried a new game with just these on:

  • USKP
  • UDGP
  • UDBP
  • Alternate Start

Guess what. AGAIN the corrupted file issue.

Tried again with only Alternate Start active, and still cannot absorb dragon souls. Even while today I could on a similar setup. (I don't understand anything anymore here…) Anyone knows of a way to skip the intro without installing this mod?

(Could it be that ModOrganizer is somehow mucking things up?)

UPDATE 5: Probably ModOrganizer has something to do with this. However insane it sounds. Instead of manually disabling ESPs, I right-clicked on the mod list, selected 'Disable all visible mods', manually re-activated Alternate Start, and this time I could dine on dragon essence. Read again: a near-completely barebones setup, without even the unofficial patches.

UPDATE 6: Disregard what I said about MO screwing up things. One of the unofficial patches is misbehaving. Even with a truckload of mods on, I can still eat dragonstuff–right until activating all three of them. Which one is to blame I don't yet know.

UPDATE 7 AND FINAL: Finally, finally figured what's going on.

USKP has a problem with the dragonactorscript.pex file.

Found and installed a fix available here: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/31685

Personally, I went and overwrote the file from USKP itself instead of treating this fix as a separate mod, keeping a backup available just in case.

Best Answer

Make sure that the mods' load order is correct (as explained in an answer by DouglasLeeder). If you're unsure on how to do this, just let BOSS take care of the mods' load order. BOSS has a database of mods and their proper load order, and can automatically decide optimal load order of mods, provided they are listed in that database.

Also, see the troubleshooting steps for the 'cannot absorb dragon souls' issue listed at the Unofficial Dragonborn Patch Nexus forums sticky post by Arthmoor, one of the UDGP developers:

Check for: dragonactorscript.pex and/or mqkilldragonscript.pex. Remove them if present. They are from dragon mods that came as loose files.

DSAMG - Dragon Soul Absorb More Glorious, and Diversified Dragons are known to cause this. Those mods need to be updated with a Dragonborn patch that incorporates the fixes from the UDBP.

Skyrim Unbound will cause this as well due to the script being unaware of the changes for Dragonborn.

Others may be a factor as well.

Note too that the offending mod may have the script packaged inside a BSA. That will need to be handled by that mod's author.

If you are using Mod Organizer and are here to report issues with dragon souls, sorry, but you're on your own as we do not support issues caused by incorrectly letting that program modify the BSA load order system the game has. Your post is likely to just be ignored. We don't have time to keep fending off false bug reports caused by people who insist on unpacking their BSA files using the program and thus subverting the entire system the game relies on for proper behavior.

...scripts are baked into saves (right?), so in theory I have to (cringes) restart the game to be absolutely sure...

Yes, scripts are baked into saves. However, there is a way to remove scripts left by uninstalled mods in savefiles. You need to configure Skyrim Script Extender (SKSE) to use its ClearInvalidRegistrations console command. It removes invalid scripts left running by uninstalled mods. This feature was introduced in v1.6.7 of SKSE:

add console command ClearInvalidRegistrations to remove invalid OnUpdate() registrations

This prevents orphaned OnUpdate() events and the resulting bloated/broken saves when removing certain mods. When applied to an already bloated save, it will stop growing further and instead shrink over time as the game processes all queued events. This may take hours depending on the amount of bloat.

To execute automatically after each reload, add this to \Data\SKSE\skse.ini:

[General]
ClearInvalidRegistrations=1

Use the skse.ini method to automatically remove invalid scripts left by uninstalled mods.

I read somewhere that No Spinning Death overwrites a script related to dragon death. It might be mucking up things some, but I can't tell.

After configuring SKSE to use the ClearInvalidRegistrations command, try uninstalling the 'No Spinning Death' mod and then see if the issue is fixed. Otherwise, you'll have to disable half your mods and then test again. Rinse and repeat until you find the offending mod.

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