LIbHarvensAddonSettings to LibVotan change guide

SugaComa · March 6

HI I began the change over of my addons and followed the instruction to set LHAS as OptionalDependsOn: this is not the correct way to do this due to background setting we cant control. so here is the best way to work around the issue and update your addons ready for the next patch.

With the theory that the manifest alone is not the source of truth, and Bethesda’s mod portal dependency metadata has to be updated separately because apparently one dependency system was not enough chaos.

I have a confirmed fix

Update manifest to:
## OptionalDependsOn: LibVotans
Delete all references to LHAS from the manifest
Upload via ESO Add-On Uploader
Go to the Bethesda ESO mods page and sign in
Add LibVotans as a dependency there
Publish

What this tells us

The real issue was almost certainly:

local manifest changed correctly Bethesda backend dependency metadata did not automatically follow install/update then failed because the portal still had the wrong dependency state until you manually corrected it

So the practical rule for console becomes:
changing manifest dependencies is not enough. You must also update the dependency on Bethesda’s mod page before publishing.

That’s the important bit. The sort of hidden two-step workflow that never gets document until after several people lose an afternoon to it.

To save you from rediscovering the same stupid ritual every time. you may want to add the below to your personal development space as a reminder.

TL,DR - update your addons with these steps

1 - update manifest to OptionalDependsOn: LibVotans
2 - delete all reference to LHAS from Manifest.
3 - upload via ESO Add-On Uploader
4 - go to https://mods.bethesda.net/en/elderscrollsonline/all sign in and find your addon
5 - add LibVotans as a dependency 6 - Publish.

votan73 · March 6

Hi.

I have to correct this a bit:
You just need to change the dependency in your bnet ESO Add-On Uploader to LibVotans. For ESO is it LHAS.

No need to update the manitest file.

Greets,
votan

Solinur · March 6

Inside ESO the addon is still called "LibHarvensAddonSettings", so in the .addon file it needs to stay as it was. (There was a bumpy road getting there, and there were temporary name changes on the way, but this is what we finally arrived at)

To summarize it: In the bethesda.net store the addon is called LibVotans, inside the game it's LibHarvensAddonSettings.

The auto-downloading feature is related to bethesda.net. The dependencies inside ESO are resolved via the .addon files. In the end they are completely separated systems.

So what needs to be done is:

Keep manifest dependencies at LibHarvensAddonSettings. (Whether to decide to use DependsOn or OptionalDependsOn, is up to you)
Go to https://mods.bethesda.net/en/elderscrollsonline/all, sign in and find your addon.
At bethesda.net remove the dependency to LibHarvensAddonSettings. Most likely the dependency is hidden, see below for how to remove it.
Add LibVotans as a dependency.
Publish

To check for and remove hidden dependencies:

Important: This can only be done on the web site, it won't work if you try this inside the uploader tool.

On the Overview page of your addon, scroll down to the "Required" section. Take note of the number of dependencies mentioned there. Click on the "X mods" link. Check if the number mentioned before matches the number of listed dependencies. If not, you have a hidden dependency.
Add any other addon as dependency.
Remove that dependency again. This should remove one hidden dependency. (Repeat if necessary)
Check if the correct number of dependencies is shown.

SugaComa · March 7

votan73 wrote: »

Hi.

I have to correct this a bit:
You just need to change the dependency in your bnet ESO Add-On Uploader to LibVotans. For ESO is it LHAS.

No need to update the manitest file.

Greets,
votan

Doing this as everyone is suggesting stopped my addons from updating /installing

You can put back LHAS after the flush, I don't have a pc so I don't deal with that I only have a ps5 I build and test directly on it and I followed everyone's instructions and it just didn't work

This is how I gor round it.

After the flush takes you can put LHAS back into the manifest as optionaldepends on with out it now being incorrectly held in the meta data

What’s actually going on
DependsOn and OptionalDependsOn are not interchangeable to the ESO add-on system.
DependsOn means the add-on manager treats that library as a hard install/enable requirement.
OptionalDependsOn means “load this after that thing if it exists,” but the add-on is supposed to remain valid without it.
That distinction matters because your package is being judged by two different layers:
the game/add-on loader
Bethesda’s console add-on distribution metadata/backend
And those two are clearly out of sync, because apparently one broken library purge wasn’t enough entertainment for them this month.
Why your old DependsOn: LHAS version still works
Because the system is almost certainly relying on stale dependency/cache metadata for already-published add-ons.

M0R_Gaming · March 7

SugaComa wrote: »

Why your old DependsOn: LHAS version still works
Because the system is almost certainly relying on stale dependency/cache metadata for already-published add-ons.

This is factually incorrect. The reason why DependsOn: LHAS works is because LibVotan IS LHAS. The game does not see any "LibVotan" it only sees "LibHarvensAddonSettings"

By setting LibVotan as your required dependency in your manifest, your addon will not load at all. In the manifest, you still need to have LibHarvensAddonSettings as the dependency.

SugaComa · March 8

Good god are you seriously not understanding

Changing LHAS from dependson to oprionalbdependsonon uploading and going to mods bathesda and adding libvotans as a dependent didn't work for me

It showed I had an updated ,I had libvotans installed but the game refused to install my update, I uninstalled and tried to install it still would not do it

So I removed all mention of LHAS and made libvotans optional depends on in the manifest

And low and behold this allowed the updates to install.

Tried and tested several times same outcome each time

Now granted the game doesn't recognise the link between libvotans and mybaddon as a dependant but it functions I can change the manifest once more to optionaldependson back to LHAS and it now shows in libvotans

I didn't make the rules of this madness I simply followed the same testing path I do in UAT which I do professionally and figured a working loophole i chose to share that doesn't make my information factually incorrect what it does do is offer another solution for anyone facing the same issue I had when creating an update.. hopefully Monday's update will give the whole thing a nice clean flush and we won't need to do these band aid fixes.

But if it doesn't get the flush it needs, isn't it better author's have several "tricks" to force the update rather than resering their addons impotent of change