Issue¶

If Morrowind.esm has a later creation date than either Tribunal.esm or Bloodmoon.esm, then the Installation Wizard will try loading those plugins before Morrowind.esm. Upon starting OpenMW, the Bethesda logo plays and then the user gets an error message like this:

ESM Error: File /Users/Will/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/Data Files/Tribunal.esm asks for parent file Morrowind.esm, but it has not been loaded yet. Please check your load order.
File: /Users/Will/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/Data Files/Tribunal.esm
Record: TES3
Subrecord: DATA
Offset: 0x16a

To reproduce¶

1. Change the creation date of Morrowind.esm to a later date. On macOS or Linux, that can be accomplished in the Terminal with

   touch Morrowind.esm

2. Run the Installation Wizard, importing a Morrowind installation that has not been seen before (you might want to delete launcher.cfg in the preferences folder first)
3. Without configuring anything else, launch OpenMW

Also, launcher.cfg shows that the files are out of order. For me, this is the order that it provides.

[Profiles]
currentprofile=2017-06-18T21:33:00
2017-06-18T21:33:00/content=Bloodmoon.esm
2017-06-18T21:33:00/content=Tribunal.esm
2017-06-18T21:33:00/content=Morrowind.esm

Workaround¶

When this happens, you can do the following to "fix" the ordering.

1. Uncheck the boxes next to Tribunal and Bloodmoon (Bloodmoon may be listed first)
2. Launch the game
3. Quit
4. Start up OpenMW
5. Check the boxes next to Tribunal and Bloodmoon (Tribunal will be listed first if it wasn't earlier)
6. Launch the game

Launcher.cfg now shows the following:

[Profiles]
currentprofile=2017-06-18T21:33:00
2017-06-18T21:33:00/content=Morrowind.esm
2017-06-18T21:33:00/content=Tribunal.esm
2017-06-18T21:33:00/content=Bloodmoon.esm

Desired Fix¶

A first time user running the Installation Wizard should not get into a state where Morrowind.esm is not the first plugin loaded, regardless of the file creation date. Intelligently load the expansions so that new users will not run into this issue.

Additional Notes¶

This issue was initially reported in this forum thread, where Morrowind was downloaded on a Mac via Steam. According to the file dates, Bloodmoon was downloaded first, then Morrowind, then Tribunal.