Game crashing on startup if i modify manifest.json

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#1

Hey,
Have been experimenting with modding and have written a custom version of the aura_buff and add_health_buff to make the cleric only target hearthlings with the combat role. To this end i made the relevant changes and as soon as the fullscreens it crashes. I reset everything back to default and put only the modified .luas in. I then added only the manifest.json, with the extra 2 .luas included and the crash happened again, so it is the manifest.json causing the crash. the only thing different with this manifest.json is having the 2 luas i mentioned included on it. the crash report is here:
crash.zip (28.5 KB)
If it’s of any use, the manifest.json is here also:
manifest.txt (202.5 KB)
The 2 extra files are directly below there unedited counterparts

Error image:
stonehearth crash

#2

First, the manifest needs to be a .json, not a .txt
Second, there is a lot inside the your manifest, it looks like it was copied from stonehearth. You don’t need all that stuff unless you’re making a modified copy of stonehearth itself. (This is, assuming you are writing a additoional mod, and not modifying stonehearth.smod)

There might be more going on, I just saw these two.

#3

You cant upload a .json, so i made it .txt.

It is a modified copy of Stonehearth. At this stage i am only doing very minor changes to get a feel for what i can do with what i have available to me so making an entire mod just to make these minor changes seemed unnecessarily time consuming when i can just tweak stoneheart.smod itself. When it comes to making the actual mod it will of course be its own .smod

#4

That would be because without the manifest, the game will not even try to load your mod, that is why it didn’t error when without it.

Oh, so the above is untrue. That is only when you are doing a separated mod.

I honestly think changing the stonehearth mod instead of doing a new one is more time consuming. (Unless it is just changing a single value, like 5 to 7 or other tweaks like that)

Having your own mod make it easier to see in the error messages what is going wrong. It probably will say what file and how/when it error. It will also save the main game from damage.

All in all, the errors refers to missing aliases. Your “modded” manifest is missing some aliases used by the game, you probably erased those.

#5

All the changes i was making were, as in the previous topic you helped me on with setting cleric abilities to target combat job hearthlings only, was to create a seperate aura_buff and add_health_buff and point the relevant cleric files to these 2 as opposed to the original. so basically just creating 2 new files, altering the 10 relevant cleric files and updating the manifest with the 2 new .luas. simply adding these in myself seemed easier then creating mixintos, etc to achieve just a couple of directory changes. Will check you alias theory in the morning, if this yields no results then i’ll try making it into its own mod. Not sure how i managed to delete some but fingers crossed it is the case so will be an easy fix.

#6

Is there anything in the stonehearth.log?