ianpatt / sfse

SFSE does not launch properly through Vortex for me, when Starfield is installed on an external SSD.

I have sfse_loader.exe at D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Starfield, and it's a symlink to:
C:\Users\rayga\AppData\Roaming\Vortex\starfield\mods\SFSE-106-0-1-2-1694730447\sfse_loader.exe

I've tried setting Start In: to D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Starfield but it doesn't work.
I get an error popup: Couldn't find Starfield.exe

SFSE loader: initialize (version = 0.1.2 010701D0 2023-09-23 21:06:31, os = 6.2 (9200))
config path = C:\Users\rayga\AppData\Roaming\Vortex\starfield\mods\SFSE-106-0-1-2-1694730447\Data\SFSE\sfse.ini
procPath = C:\Users\rayga\AppData\Roaming\Vortex\starfield\mods\SFSE-106-0-1-2-1694730447\Starfield.exe

However, if I run sfse_loader.exe from a shell in D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Starfield, then it launches fine and prints:

D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Starfield>sfse_loader.exe
SFSE loader: initialize (version = 0.1.2 010701D0 2023-09-23 19:54:45, os = 6.2 (9200))
config path = D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Starfield\Data\SFSE\sfse.ini
procPath = D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Starfield\Starfield.exe
launching: Starfield.exe (D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Starfield\Starfield.exe)

By using the -altexe flag, I can get a little further, but it doesn't find the rest of the mods:

I'm assuming this is due to the working path used by the loader library, and it incorrectly using AppData\Roaming\Vortex
I'd imagine it's related to:

sfse/sfse_loader/main.cpp

Lines 87 to 88 in 8c4af40

    
           const std::string & runtimeDir = getRuntimeDirectory(); 
        
           std::string procPath = runtimeDir + procName;

Below is my Vortex SFSE config:

This is intended behavior. People not being able to get the current working directory correct are much more common than people doing silly things with symlinks. Install SFSE correctly; do not use symlinks.

Just an FYI, the symlinks are a default behavior when installing with Vortex, so you might get more people reporting this 🤷

Hoo boy, that's going to cause problems with several DLL plugins. Symlink installation only makes sense for raw data, not things that are going to go through the PE loader.

Yeah, not saying it's a reasonable default in this instance, just that it happens to be, unfortunately.

Maybe worth adding a footnote in the Vortex mod description about:

"Hey, if this happens, try running sfse_loader.exe from the Starfield directory in a shell manually."

The mod managers are trying some crazy things out for Starfield. It's going to be a mess until Bethesda shows how things are intended to work and (hopefully) everything settles down. Of course, if BGS wants mods in My Documents, it's going to be war.

I know this ticket is closed but just wanted to drop and say that sfse works fine with Vortex and sfse installed via the mod manager normally. It might be because I'm using hardlinks rather than symlinks. Just an FYI.

	const std::string & runtimeDir = getRuntimeDirectory();
	std::string procPath = runtimeDir + procName;

Suggestion: Allow setting working directory `runtimeDir` via flag (SFSE doesn't work with Vortex for me)