Oh, and make sure the mods are 'enabled'. Your mod organizer isn't going to be able to save mod data if it can't write to the folder. And if you are using F4SE then you have to start it through that (yet another layer), which means installing that into your Mod Manger (there are plenty of videos on that).Īnd lastly - and I've run into this problem myself - make sure all concerned folders are 'writeable', NOT read-only. Thus, my next question is, 'are you starting it through Vortex?' You have to do that - don't use the Steam exe. Since you say the mods don't show up, I am going to assume its pointed to the right place (because you are able to start the game itself, albeit modless). Sometimes 'it just works', and other times you have to point it to your Steam folder. Next, make sure Vortex is pointed to the right place.
I am just going to assume you did since you say you watched a lot of videos. Couple of basic things - you edited your custom.ini file, right? You need to do that before ANY modding.