How to Fix Mods Loading Before Their Dependencies in the Load Order

A mod that extends another throws null references at startup because the library mod it builds on has not loaded yet. Loading by folder name happens to work sometimes and fails after a rename, which is the classic symptom of missing load-order resolution.

How to fix it

1. Declare dependencies in a manifest

Give each mod a manifest listing dependencies by id and minimum version. Parse all manifests first, before loading any mod code, so you know the full graph up front.

2. Topologically sort the graph

Build a directed graph from each mod to its dependencies and run a topological sort (Kahn's algorithm). Load mods in the resulting order so every requirement is initialized before its dependents.

3. Detect and report cycles

If the sort cannot complete, you have a dependency cycle. Report the involved mod ids and skip them rather than crashing, so one bad pair does not break the whole load.

4. Fail missing dependencies loudly

If a required id or version is absent, disable the dependent mod and show a clear message naming the missing mod, instead of letting it load and crash later with an opaque null reference.

Catching the ones you can't reproduce

The hardest version of this to fix is the one you can't reproduce — it only happens on a player's hardware, OS, driver, or save state, under conditions that simply aren't present on your machine. A report that says “it crashed” or “it froze” gives you nothing to act on, so the bug survives release after release while quietly costing you players.

Automatic error capture closes that gap. Each failure arrives with its full stack trace, the device and OS, the build number, and a breadcrumb trail of what the player did right before it broke, so even a failure you have never seen becomes a specific, reproducible issue. Fold identical failures into one signature ranked by how many players each hits, and your worklist sorts itself worst-first instead of arriving as a stream of vague complaints.

This is where a tool like Bugnet earns its place. Its SDK captures every error automatically with the full stack trace plus device, OS, memory, build, and game-state context, folds duplicates into one grouped issue with an occurrence count, and ties each to the build it first appeared on — so you fix the problem that hurts the most players first and confirm it is gone when its signature disappears from the next release.