Space Engineers

Various Nexus related things from the Skyrim SE launch aftermath

  • Comment
Hi folks,

As most of you know, Skyrim Special Edition was released on Friday and naturally, a lot of people are clamouring to get mods for the game. Skyrim has always been our most popular game on Nexus Mods and the release of the Special Edition has seen an unprecedented amount of users access our site over the past 36 hours. There are currently 16,500 people online this Saturday afternoon (in the UK) when, on a normal Saturday, it would be around 8,500 people. As you can imagine, our web servers are taking a hammering. Thankfully our download CDN is extremely responsive to these sorts of short-term bursts and it's happily pumping out 15 Gbit of traffic to people downloading mods from the site and counting.

Our previous highest simultaneous user count was back during the Fallout 4 launch at around about the 13,000 mark. With 16,500 users currently online right now at a time that isn't even peak time (peak time being 7-9pm GMT when both the EU and US are online at the same time), I think we're heading to loftier heights yet. Saturday also isn't our busiest day, Sunday is. It's going to be an interesting weekend...

The reason why I'm telling you all this is to manage your expectations of this site over the weekend. Demand for Skyrim mods is obviously ridiculously high right now as many people are coming back to the game and starting on a fresh install. We're doing better than we have done in the past, for sure, and we're carefully shuffling our limited resources around to try and optimise things as much as possible. If the site is slow for you, bear with us. Similarly, if you get a bit of "maintenance" downtime or the like, please, bear with us. We've got staff monitoring the situation 24/7 right now in shifts to make sure we keep on top of it, but we can only manage and shuffle so much before things get overloaded.

Lastly, if things get too bad, we'll have to shut off the NMM services (and potentially other services). While NMM is important to us, it requires a crazy amount of resources to keep up and running and if we find it's affecting the performance of the site too much (to the point the sites aren't able to load) then we'll shut NMM login and download services off until things cool down. You'll still be able to use NMM offline, and install mods manually (download the mod to your hard-drive, then drag and drop the mod from your hard-drive to NMM), you just won't be able to login and download files from within NMM until such time as we turn the services back on.

You don't need to tell us when you can't login or download via NMM because we know, we're the ones who did it! If you see people asking why NMM isn't working for them on our Discord or on the forums, please direct them to this news post for clarification.

Lastly, we're aware of a few minor issues on the Skyrim SE site right now. First, we know the favicon is the wrong colour. You don't need to continue letting us know! Second, we're aware of an issue with the categories on Skyrim SE getting a bit...muddled. This was due to a mistake we made before launching the site. We believe we've corrected it, but some of your mods might currently be in the wrong category. Sorry about that, please move it back to the right category for your mod at your convenience. Because of all these category changes, NMM users might find that the categories they see in NMM don't match with the categories on the site. When you see a category mismatch in NMM, click the Category menu button and select "Categories: Update and reset to Nexus site defaults". This will fix the issue for you.

Thank you for your patience during this time, and the support being offered from many of you.

564 comments

Comments locked

A moderator has closed this comment topic for the time being
  1. DemonLord7654
    DemonLord7654
    • premium
    • 113 kudos
    If I have a mod for the original Skyrim Nexus, can I reupload it on The Skyrim Special Edition Nexus or do I have to recreate it using a new set of tools? Or can people download my mod from the original Skyrim Nexus and use it in the special edition?
  2. AngryGrampa99
    AngryGrampa99
    • BANNED
    • 0 kudos
    BOYCOTT SKYRIM SE!!! DEATH TO BETHESDA!!!
    1. nahuelst
      nahuelst
      • supporter
      • 3 kudos
      True, if you thought a little, we are only in this mess because of the consoles. Bethesda Nexus pays for this ridiculous and unnecessary movement?
      Google translator

      Cierto, si pensaramos un poco, solamente estamos con este desastre por culpa de las consolas. Bethesda le paga a Nexus para este ridícula e innecesario movimiento?
    2. Castironwolf
      Castironwolf
      • premium
      • 5 kudos
      Gramps, my favorite game of all time is from Bethesda. Even so, how is this Bethesda's fault? They are a company that wants to make money and just happen to be pretty awesome at making awesome games.
      Maybe you should cry death (I mean figuratively) to whiners.
    3. Castironwolf
      Castironwolf
      • premium
      • 5 kudos
      nahueist, perhaps a little education would help you a great deal if you would just stop and realize that the console peeps don't access the nexus.... I mean they can't they are on consoles.
    4. Vokuun
      Vokuun
      • supporter
      • 7 kudos
      Castironwolf, what about the entire thing about having mod support for consoles? And the entire above article describing a new portion of the site dedicated to Nexus support for mods on console?
    5. nahuelst
      nahuelst
      • supporter
      • 3 kudos
      Skyrim SE is just a mercantile move. There is new new nothing under the sun, but we are getting paid kit creation console. Ridiculous.

      Google tranlate
    6. Castironwolf
      Castironwolf
      • premium
      • 5 kudos
      Vokunn, my bad I totally didn't see that in the article by the Dark One at all, I must have gone blind by reading about how NMM is just for PCs (some crazy mac users too) but not where NMM is now for consoles because somehow PC software now works on consoles. Gosh I am such an idiot for not reading the article more carefully. Thanks for pointing out how console users are now able to use the nexus to download mods to their consoles.... let me reread the article aloud to myself to see where I missed that the nexus now supports console mods......hmmmm I don't see it.
      maybe I am just blind.

    7. Castironwolf
      Castironwolf
      • premium
      • 5 kudos
      nahueist, Skyrim SE might just be a marketing move for pc users, but if you play on the xbox or ps4 it means that you can now play skyrim with mods... I know that this sounds crazy but it still doesn't really concern the Nexus. Skyrim SE may end up being a better replacement/upgrade for pc endusers I mean since the new creation kit is made specifically for skyrim se not regular skyrim (which has it's own) Bethesda is actually doing a reasonable job of ensuring longevity by doing this for it's fanbase.
    8. User_39115125
      User_39115125
      • account closed
      • 2 kudos
      why? Anyone who owned the original copy of skyrim on PC got SE for free... I mean, there's nothing to boycott there...
  3. totalmentalcase
    totalmentalcase
    • member
    • 1 kudos
    I get that login and download services have been shut down. Any idea as to when they will be put back up?
  4. FMBacon
    FMBacon
    • member
    • 0 kudos
    Well that explains why i couldn't log into MO. At least i now i know that i didn't just install it incorrectly. I guess i'll have to wait. Btw, is there a confirmed date as to when NMM and the other managers will get back online?
  5. Zhinzhaw
    Zhinzhaw
    • member
    • 1 kudos
    Now I see a lot of "You can still manually download so stop whining" on here. Yea thats all fine and dandy unless, ya know..... you CAN'T download manually. Honestly out of the 10 or so mods I have been trying to download this week, only 5 of them even started and only 2 actually completed. That was with using the mod manager, giving up, and attempting to download manually. Its not my down/up speeds because I can still face chat on skype perfectly fine with a youtube video loading in the background and pandora playing at the same time. Guess I'll use some other things to get the job done until the site is back to normal because this is just ridiculous.
    1. nahuelst
      nahuelst
      • supporter
      • 3 kudos
      A pause while arranging or not this disaster. Play Dishonored 2.
    2. Vokuun
      Vokuun
      • supporter
      • 7 kudos
      Either you can't download manually, or it's a complex mod that doesn't have instructions or support for manual installation. I don't want to break my Skyrim too.
    3. EmeraldShadow
      EmeraldShadow
      • member
      • 19 kudos
      @Vokuun
      You can still use the manager to INSTALL the mod, you just have to download the file manually and drag it into the mod manager.
  6. DagothBob
    DagothBob
    • premium
    • 4 kudos
    Well, Google and BingBong are sort of useless these days but I have searched for this question as best I can sorry if it's an asked and answered.

    I have SE, NMM, Loot, Wrye and a box of Alphabits in case I need more letters.

    Loot seems to be doing things pretty well for a new game, although it did default to standard Skyrim a couple times even though I have uninstalled it. That's ok. The problem is NMM and WRYE both ignore the Loot load order changes. I know Loot is working because each test load I check the mods catagory in-game and the order is true to Loot not to Wrye/NMM.

    So the question is [tangent here, WRYE LOCK ORDER is off, no select icon} why do the other two files not see the new order. Is there a lock order in NMM that I can't see. The game is fine but obviously Bashed Patch is going to be funky if it's working off a separate load order than the game.

    Wrye is run from within the NMM enviornment.

    Thx
  7. CaptainSparkelz
    CaptainSparkelz
    • premium
    • 23 kudos
    Why won't you guys upgrade your servers instead of shutting them down as soon as the load gets too high? For over a week now I've been unable to enjoy the convenience of downloading mods via NMM all because you keep shutting the servers down.

    If it's a money issue I understand, but since your servers are sort of the most important thing that you currently own when it comes to maintaining your services. Logically that is where your priorities should lie.
    1. Ethreon
      Ethreon
      • premium
      • 619 kudos
      Did you really post this nonsense?
    2. Dark0ne
      Dark0ne
      • Site Owner
      • 2,887 kudos
      The issue isn't actually with the servers perse, it's with our code. So what we really need is more time, rather than more servers.
    3. CaptainSparkelz
      CaptainSparkelz
      • premium
      • 23 kudos
      Ahh, alright, I understand. Know that I wasn't trying to be a prick or anything with this, it's just I can get a little impatient sometimes. I appreciate the work you guys all do though, so don't take this post the wrong way.
    4. slbrgt
      slbrgt
      • member
      • 8 kudos
      Let me start by saying that I really appreciate the work done by those who manage these nexus sites. It’s definitely the best thing that happened for modders and mod users of the supported games. I understand that the massive interest for SkyrimSE mods presents some challenges for hardware and software. On the other hand I also understand the OP’s message. It’s frustrating and annoying that still today it’s virtually impossible (for me in any case) to connect to nexus and download SkyrimSE mods. With the exception of hours when most people are either working or sleeping.
    5. Meatster
      Meatster
      • member
      • 0 kudos
      From what I gathered you can just download the mods manually and add them to nmm. simply add manually then choose the mod rar/zip file. Then when nmm will let you log in again you can update the ID of the mod.

      That's how I think it works at least, please correct me if i'm wrong.

      Edit: Also totally offtopic but a delete button for comments would be awesome.
    6. Voldearag
      Voldearag
      • supporter
      • 0 kudos
      If there were deletable comments then nobody could be held accountable for anything they said, posts like CaptainSparkelz's up there would disappear as soon as they started getting negative feedback, and most arguments would vaporize after or before their conclusions, restricting the contenders and readers from learning from them.
      Short version: Anything we put on the internet becomes the internet's property, posts included.
      Edit: Then again there's an edit button and that's pretty close.
    7. Castironwolf
      Castironwolf
      • premium
      • 5 kudos
      @darkone. Beyond us (end users) needing to have patience...ironically this reminds me of the panic on Reddit whenever Fallout updates and FOSE goes down, people go bezerk and quite possibly cry...but I digress.
      Is there or are there things we can do to help you with the coding/code (stuff even I the IT in the IT Crowd don't comprehend)?
      I am a bit out of touch with torrenting these days but I do know Blizzard still uses a similar process for downloading. I may be in left field on that, but it could alleviate the overload....no wait I am in left field.
      sighs, one moment you think you know what's going on and then the internet waves as it goes happily by.
      Anyway, if we can help, drop us a line.
      Thanks.
    8. SkyrimPsycho
      SkyrimPsycho
      • BANNED
      • 0 kudos
      funny... the code has worked for many years without issues. The errors I have been seeing do not apply to coding. They apply to bandwidth. I can only assume you use some third party for your server hosting. Probably godaddy, cloudflare or some other third party hosting service. I know it is painful Dark0ne, growth usually is. You should check into purchasing your own server instead of using a third party server. Right now NMM is shut down but people are still using the website and downloading, which means your bandwidth is still being used constantly and your server hosting provider will tolerate a little more before they start putting bandwidth limits on your account. I am already seeing it. I have clicked a few links in your website only to be taking to a bandwidth limit page.
    9. Dark0ne
      Dark0ne
      • Site Owner
      • 2,887 kudos
      funny... the code has worked for many years without issues. The errors I have been seeing do not apply to coding. They apply to bandwidth. I can only assume you use some third party for your server hosting. Probably godaddy, cloudflare or some other third party hosting service. I know it is painful Dark0ne, growth usually is. You should check into purchasing your own server instead of using a third party server. Right now NMM is shut down but people are still using the website and downloading, which means your bandwidth is still being used constantly and your server hosting provider will tolerate a little more before they start putting bandwidth limits on your account. I am already seeing it. I have clicked a few links in your website only to be taking to a bandwidth limit page.


      The code hasn't worked for many years. We had stability issues until we sorted our database cluster out in 2015, something you wouldn't know as you only joined the site 2 weeks ago. Our code and cluster has never been tested with this much traffic before. We're currently seeing a 50% increase in traffic on our previous highest traffic time (FO4 launch) and a sustained 75% increase on our normal traffic conditions. We're up from 11,000 active users a second to 19,200 active users a second.

      We have 13 cloud-based VMs with a total of 104 CPU cores and 320GB of RAM serving the site front-end. A database cluster of 5 dedicated servers with a combined total of 160 CPU cores and 960GB of RAM (yes, 960GB of memory) handling database operations. And almost all our files are served via a global CDN that's currently pushing an average of 15 Gbit a second (and is burstable to 100Git+). That's not even mentioning the multiple firewalls, DDoS protection, load balancers and so on and so forth that we utilise.

      So when I say it's a code issue, it's a code issue. Don't try and call me on it when I obviously know a lot more about it.

      RE: any bandwidth errors you may or may not have seen, our load balancers were capped at 300mbit/sec on our end, mainly to ensure we don't send more traffic to the VMs and cluster than they could handle. We've since upped that cap to 500mb/sec. That's completely unrelated to our CDN and file serving.
    10. rblood01
      rblood01
      • premium
      • 2 kudos
      Thank you Dark One and your crew. I was able to log on in NMM and do some basic updates and downloads through the system (the preferred way) tonight. Thank you for the efforts and updates so that we can get the mods we so love easily and quickly.

    11. Castironwolf
      Castironwolf
      • premium
      • 5 kudos
      @darkone.
      wow, I mean wow. that's impressive.
      That was an awesome explanation. One day, I hope to be that smooth. I mostly just sit at my desk and ask them if they have turned it on and off again. Then tell them that they must have broken the internet and to call back tomorrow.
    12. eskanonen
      eskanonen
      • member
      • 91 kudos
      Even if upgrading the server capacity would fix current issues it doesn't mean it makes sense to do so. Skyrim SE just launched, so there is a huge influx of people downloading lots of mods, as they're all starting from scratch. I'm almost 100% that in a month the site traffic/download rate will be much closer to what the servers are used to handling.
    13. psnwishyouwerehere
      psnwishyouwerehere
      • supporter
      • 0 kudos
      I purchased a premium membership and Downloads worked fine at the height of the server invasion.:->
    14. DagothBob
      DagothBob
      • premium
      • 4 kudos
      They always do. And rightly so, the premium users [of which I occasionally am one] support the site. They also give those of us who go premium a few times a class called Supporter which is not quite premium but it's pretty damned good.
  8. yum2014yum
    yum2014yum
    • supporter
    • 0 kudos
    Forgive me for asking what might be a daft question, or one already asked. I'm do 50,000 things at once and don't have time to read everything - as much as I'd like to.

    It's been over a fortnight since this news post.

    Is Skyrim SE getting added to NMM? As it is, I can't see it in the list of games to detect. Is it due to be switched on or something?

    I'm really, REALLY bad with computers - like caveman using an iPhone for the first time, bad! I need NMM to sort my mods and I cannot play SSE without Arthmoor's fantastic bug fixes or Cutting Room Floor.

    I read that MO has been abandoned, so any thoughts on how I can safely (and within my noob level of comprehension) mod SSE to play?

    Thanks for your time.
    1. yum2014yum
      yum2014yum
      • supporter
      • 0 kudos
      Actually, I just relaunched NMM again and rescan for games and SSE is there. Problem solved xD...or is it -raised eyebrow-.
  9. QueenOfTheSilence
    QueenOfTheSilence
    • premium
    • 6 kudos


     
    In response to post #44279340.


    Spoiler:  
    Show

    QueenOfTheSilence wrote: Is it just me or has Morrowind been removed from the list of games supported by Nexus Mod Manager? I can't find it at all when searching for game installations and Skyrim SE has taken it's spot. I know it's an old game but I don't see why it had to be removed. :/


    Queenofthesilence:

    Been modding a new Morrowind setup for the past 2 weeks, while waiting several months for the dust to settle in Skyrim mod country. I can confirm that 63.3 does in fact search for and find Morrowind - even if I had to manually point to the directory after a clean install. Seems to be working as intended.

    Can not comment on the 63.6 version, as NMM crashes whenever I try to upgrade it, and the ability to log into the Nexus and download mods directly has been spotty at best for weeks now.

    As to modding, many, if not most, of the best mods for Morrowind were not designed for NMM, with a lot of the recommended mods in S.T.E.P., BtB recommendations, and MSGO not even on the Nexus. My recommendation is to download your mods manually (yes, it kinda sucks with the connection issues right now), and repackage all but the ones with installers to work with NMM. This means 1. decompressing them, 2. make sure they are in the right order in terms of directories (e.g. you might decompress and just find an ESP, the texture/mesh folders, or even just a collection of texture files) - you may have to create a data, texture, or mesh folder within that to contain the mod, 3. use something like 7zip to re-archive, 4. and then send to NMM to install.

    Considering that much of the best stuff I have come across are new textures or meshes, reading carefully about what order to install is key. Even S.T.E.P. is a little fuzzy on what works together, requires a patch, or which part of a mod to leave out. This method, although a pain up front, saved me massive headaches in terms of resolving conflicts by easily allowing me to back out one mod at a time, see the impact, and reinstall as needed.

    Sorry for the off topic advice, and hope I answered your question. Honestly wish I knew this stuff when I started a few weeks ago!

    - E
     


     
    Oh I do make sure all my files are in order and that they're set up to install correctly. The only reason I use NMM for Morrowind is because I can't be assed to go and remove all the individual files from textures and meshes and what not. Too lazy. I liked the support. And I have the current version of NMM, there is no Morrowind. It's not on the list of games being scanned. :/
    1. eduardo4
      eduardo4
      • supporter
      • 9 kudos
      Well, there's a lot of words I wasted! I should have asked you for advice on my setup. If I may suggest downgrading to an earlier version and making a bug report? I gather that this line of NMM is going the way of the 5x line, so stick to a version that you know works - unless you are also playing SE. Like I said, 63.3 or earlier still listed it when I repurchased the game two weeks ago.

      Either way, feel your pain on this one. Cheers, and hope my advice helps you or anyone else revisiting that masterpiece!

      - E
  10. QueenOfTheSilence
    QueenOfTheSilence
    • premium
    • 6 kudos
    Is it just me or has Morrowind been removed from the list of games supported by Nexus Mod Manager? I can't find it at all when searching for game installations and Skyrim SE has taken it's spot. I know it's an old game but I don't see why it had to be removed. :/
    1. eduardo4
      eduardo4
      • supporter
      • 9 kudos
      Queenofthesilence:

      Been modding a new Morrowind setup for the past 2 weeks, while waiting several months for the dust to settle in Skyrim mod country. I can confirm that 63.3 does in fact search for and find Morrowind - even if I had to manually point to the directory after a clean install. Seems to be working as intended.

      Can not comment on the 63.6 version, as NMM crashes whenever I try to upgrade it, and the ability to log into the Nexus and download mods directly has been spotty at best for weeks now.

      As to modding, many, if not most, of the best mods for Morrowind were not designed for NMM, with a lot of the recommended mods in S.T.E.P., BtB recommendations, and MSGO not even on the Nexus. My recommendation is to download your mods manually (yes, it kinda sucks with the connection issues right now), and repackage all but the ones with installers to work with NMM. This means 1. decompressing them, 2. make sure they are in the right order in terms of directories (e.g. you might decompress and just find an ESP, the texture/mesh folders, or even just a collection of texture files) - you may have to create a data, texture, or mesh folder within that to contain the mod, 3. use something like 7zip to re-archive, 4. and then send to NMM to install.

      Considering that much of the best stuff I have come across are new textures or meshes, reading carefully about what order to install is key. Even S.T.E.P. is a little fuzzy on what works together, requires a patch, or which part of a mod to leave out. This method, although a pain up front, saved me massive headaches in terms of resolving conflicts by easily allowing me to back out one mod at a time, see the impact, and reinstall as needed.

      Sorry for the off topic advice, and hope I answered your question. Honestly wish I knew this stuff when I started a few weeks ago!

      - E