Game unplayable--cannot reach menu, and user script doesn't actually update

[SaltyWaffles]

Okay, so to make a long story as short as I can, I downloaded a smoke submod (for improved performance by lowing smoke detail/duration), and followed the instructions for installing it. However, it seemed to make crashes happen more often, not less, so I decided to play without it for the time being.

I went to my user script and removed the bg_smoke pack from the list, updated the script, and went to play. Then...the game would not start up. It would crash before it reached the first menu screen without an error message. So I went back to check my user script, and lo and behold, bg_smoke pack is somehow still there. I removed it again, saved/updated the user script, and tried again. Same result; the smoke pack was inexplicably still there again.

Computer restarts, launcher restarts, checking and removing non-main-mod files, everything I could think of--didn't change a thing. Every single time, the bg_smoke pack is still there in the user script, no matter how many times I remove it and update the script, no matter that said pack no longer exists in the submods folder...ugh.

And to top it all off, the log continues to state, every time, that the game successfully launched and started up even though it does the exact opposite. The crash log is telling me that my game did not crash. Go figure.

I'll try to attach the log (with a few side-notes added in--it's obvious and I didn't change any original text); if that doesn't work I can just copy-paste the relevant parts here. Any help would be greatly appreciated; I've really been wanting to play the game in recent days, too.

[Trig]

Mods function in very mystical ways it seems.
A lot of people get various unexpected crashes, freezes, bugs, etc.

But oddly enough my copy of the mod works like a charm form the start. Only trouble I ever had was not manually starting Steam before running the mod launher, but once I did that i haven't had a single problem running 3.5 beta, the smoke mod, custom battles, campaigns, etc.

So if anything, while I do not doubt you have a legit problem there, I'd be careful about writing "Game unplayable-" since the game is well playable, it only seems unplayable for an unfortunate minority.

[SaltyWaffles]

I'm kind of leaving the "for me" aspect unsaid, just implied, as I obviously cannot (and am not trying to) speak for every user of the mod out there.

Honestly, this mod has been extremely difficult from the start for me. Just getting it to work at all was quite difficult; now, I can't even reach the menu and the crash log is, inexplicably, telling me that my game isn't crashing.

[Trig]

I get you, man. Can't help you myself, since I don't know anything about code and what makes anything crash, so I blame demons and evil spirits.

While I agree it is somewhat fickle to get working, myself and thousands of other people (according to download numbers) are running it with no problem whatsoever, so it is far from unplayable.
Just sayin that some thread titles here "Game unplayable" or "Unplayable mod?", seen from afar on the board's list of threads are sending a message out there that the mod is broken, which it is clearly not.
For some issues Steam is to blame, for others the users' faulty installations, etc, because if it was unplayable by itself, none of us could play it.

[Minas Moth]

ok, couple of things... first of all sorry for late response was busy in my rl...

the bg_smoke.pack;pack itself and command in user script don't have to be removed. game can be started without any problem whatsoever if non vanilla files (the ones you get your warning about) are either larger font or smoke mod related. they will cause no problem whatsoever...

however, it seems this is more of a launcher and not mod problem itself. have you tried removing the bg_smoke.pack from user script, then exiting the launcher (either vanilla or acw ready) and then starting it again? it could be that some changes (this for example) requires launcher to be started again.

the crash you are having is almost 100% related to the user script. so if you can't get it working with above I would suggest simply reinstalling the ACW only and give it a try with default settings, no fiddling with smoke mod or anything. and btw, should you untick the smoke mod option in submods launcher will update the user script automatically... so I am a little confused at what is the real issue here.

regards

EDIT: from your post I read that you went straight to editing the user script instead of deactivating the smoke mod in submods... so try that also...

p.s. the game successfully launched means that launcher has done all it is supposed to do (transfer files it should etc) not that you will actually be able to play the game. there is a difference between successfully launched and successfully running and neither log nor we claim that game launched will run in every occasion.