ESO Can't find addons and user settings

Zagreth · January 2018

ESO seems to have forgotten where my addons are. Nothing has changed with regard to location, and yes, the "Allow out of date addons" box is checked.

Opening the Addons menu shows a blank list, even with the out of date box checked. Minion finds them just fine in the same location. I have tried doing a full repair on the game with no change. Is the a way to tell ESO where to find them or find out if it's looking in a different directory for some reason?

ZOS_Bill · January 2018

@Zagreth

Check your add-on folder and make sure it has not been moved or altered. By default add-ons should be in your documents folder. By default this is the following: C:\Users\<username>\Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\

Turelus · January 2018

If you're an EU player also make sure your add-on files are in the "live" folder and not "live_eu".

Back when ZOS changed to use a single client rather an an EU/NA one the paths for add-ons changed for EU players but it seems it doesn't trigger right away.
I've known people only a couple of months ago to see all their add-ons vanish because the game started looking in live and not live_eu.

Reverb · January 2018

I had that problem yesterday as well. I found that for some reason the game created new live folder, inside the existing Live directory. No idea why, but the game is now pointing to E:\Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\Live\live.

Since that directory didn't exist, it created it and created new files for user settings, add-ons, etc. Copying all of the files from the Live directory into the newly created live directory solved the problem. I asked around in game, and nobody else had this happen, so it may just be my client that's jacked up, but it's worth looking at to see if that's what's happening to you as well.

kyria.paganb16_ESO · January 2018

You are likely to find a new folder in "C:/ProgramData/ElderScrollsOnline/live"
The ProgramData folder is invisible, so you would have to be able to view hidden folders to locate it. My game will sometimes alternate between the two addon locations, so for the ease of things I now have two ESO profiles in Minion now I keep identical to easily update both places. It caused a lot of frustrations until I located the ProgramData folder and I know others who also experienced this.

Zagreth · January 2018

Reverb wrote: »

I had that problem yesterday as well. I found that for some reason the game created new live folder, inside the existing Live directory. No idea why, but the game is now pointing to E:\Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\Live\live.

Since that directory didn't exist, it created it and created new files for user settings, add-ons, etc. Copying all of the files from the Live directory into the newly created live directory solved the problem. I asked around in game, and nobody else had this happen, so it may just be my client that's jacked up, but it's worth looking at to see if that's what's happening to you as well.

How did you find out that it was pointing to this new directory?

Zagreth · January 2018

Update.

Great suggestions - here are the results.

I verified I had addons in C:\Users\<username>\Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\ - no change

I checked for nested Live folders (live\live) - nope. I created it just in case and tested it - no change.

I checked for C:\ProgramData\ElderScrollsOnline\live. It does exist - I copied addons there - no change.

I looked in the previous OneDrive folder path for when I had OneDrive enabled (C:\Users\<username>\OneDrive\Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\live. It exists and a copy of the addons are there. No change.

Any other ideas? Is there any way to tell what location the game is actually using? Is there a way to specify the location?

Nestor · January 2018

Zagreth wrote: »

Update.

I looked in the previous OneDrive folder path for when I had OneDrive enabled (C:\Users\<username>\OneDrive\Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\live. It exists and a copy of the addons are there. No change.

Any other ideas? Is there any way to tell what location the game is actually using? Is there a way to specify the location?

If One drive is active, Disable One Drive for this game if you can. The game does not know to look in /something/OneDrive/anything. Best thing is to uninstall the program completely as there is no reasoning with it.

Others have had this issue and that is the reason. First thing I uninstalled from my gaming laptop was One Drive. Problem is it intercepts all calls for My Documents even if they are pointing to something that is not OneDrive, but the game can't read that alternative directory natively.

Once that is gone from your system it should be able to use addons in the stock location in My Documents

Zagreth · January 2018

The final solution was the following:

1. Delete and disable OneDrive. reboot.
2. uninstall ESO
3. Search all drives for ESO files (live, Addons, etc.) delete them ALL. You did make a backup of your addons, didn't you?
4. Uninstall minion
5. Reboot because Windows.
6. Install ESO.
7. Run ESO to make sure it works
8. Copy backup of live directory over to c:\<username>\Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\live
9. Run ESO to make sure it sees the Addons - it does!
10. Reinstall minion.

Klord · February 2018

tried all that and still no good. using steam also btw. never had the problem till i added it to steam

also my game settings isnt saving, and cant find them anywhere, even after a total reinstall. followed all steps stated above. 1 - 10

barigood54_ESO · June 2018

I just had this problem in the last few days...here is what I did...much easier

somehow my active addons file got moved to a totally different location. Dont know if it was the animation fix Zos provided or if it went up against some Win10 update or what happened but I knew the addons were not being seen by the game.

I went into the game and modified some video settings which updated the UserSettings.txt file. Closed the game and searched for that userSettings file.

Found the new one under C:/ProgramData /Elder Scrolls Online /live /addons .... I loaded my addons, variables and updated the txt files, fired up the game and MIRACLE....addons restored! I plan to add this profile to Minion so both locations stay up to date!