Intro
Firstly thank you for engaging with my mods and taking the time to help me improve them and squash bugs.
I've written this short article as a reference that applies to all of my mods for the purpose of users reporting bugs. As the majority of my mods rely on scripting for their functionality it is really difficult to understand what has gone wrong from narrative accounts alone. Hopefully these steps to gather debug evidence alongside the narrative from users will help me to identifiy and fix bugs quicker whilst reducing the back and forth of comments to get to a good start point.
Bug Report Template
As a minimum I request the following in any bug reporting for any of my mods, preferably in this order to make things easy to keep track of.
- Link to relevant Papyrus log(s) generated during the gameplay in which the bug was experienced (see below on how to do this).
- Link to Modlist and Loadorder documentson other mods that may be conflicting (see below on how to do this)
- Version history of the mod within that particular save
- A written narrative of what you were doing at the time the bug appeared in as much detail as possible
Here is an example based on my own gameplay.
- Papyrus log
- Modlist.txt and Loadorder.txt
- Version 1.0.0 installed at the game start and upgraded to version 1.2.0 within the same save prior to the bug occuring.
- I had interacted with the widget successfully for most of the game but after completing the quest to save the world the widget no longer works properly and I just get the repeated voice message telling me that I was under attack over and over. Unequiping and re-equipping the widget didn't stop the voice message and this has affected my character's ability to use the big stick item to automatically or manually defend myself from the attack.
Papyrus logging
Within all my mods I have written debug code that I can use to understand what has or hasn't happened when a block of code is executed. This link explains how to enable Papyrus logging for the user, it is a simple ini edit.
I would recommend just doing this by default, as if you enable it after you've experienced a bug there is no way to generate the log without attempting to replicate the conditions that caused the bug, which may not be possible (perhaps you don't have a suitable save from before the bug occurred for example).
Noting you're probably reading this after you've experienced a bug here are the steps to follow to generate a useful report.
- Follow the ini edit described in the logging link above.
- Load the closest save from before the bug occurred.
- Complete the same actions to the best of your ability from when you first experienced the bug.
- Close the game entirely.
- Navigate to and then open the file Papyrus.0.log in notepad or an equivalent from the address below (i.e. your user documents).
..\Documents\My Games\Fallout4\Logs\Script\Papyrus.0.log - Ctrl+A to select all of the text, then head to pastebin and paste the text into a new log. (there may be some personal information at the top of the log such as real name that you may wish to delete).
- Copy the generate web address for inclusion in the bug report
Here is an example Papyrus log from some testing I did (40 minutes of gameplay). Do not worry about the fact its 2,800+ lines or longer (or shorter), that's for me to sift through.
Modlist and LoadOrder
You'll know that plugin loadorder is important and that mod conflicts exist. It is impossible for me to test my mods against all possible loadorders out there. However, providing me with the modlist and loadorder files may offer a quick and easily identifible fix to an encountered bug. The location of these files depends on the mod manager you are using.
- MO2 - Navigate to the address below and grab the loadorder.txt and modlist.txt. Or within the MO2 programme use the menus as shown in the picture
...\ModOrganizer\profiles\profile name\
- Vortex - Navigate to the address belowand grab the loadorder.txt. Or within the Vortex programme use the menus as shown in the picture
...\AppData\Local\Fallout4\
- Again Ctrl+A and then head to pastebin and create a new log.
- Copy the generate web address for inclusion in the bug report.
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