Frequently Asked Questions: General game functionality - Omni-guides/Tuxborn GitHub Wiki

We have a known issue where Tuxborn gets a little confused on initial launch and puts saves in the default Skyrim location, rather than in the directory it's supposed to normally use. At this time, this issue is known to be specific to Tuxborn setup on Proton, which would mean only Steam Deck players should be impacted, or PC players if and only if you are running Linux.

So the save you made isn't gone, it's just in the wrong place. And the good news is, you can copy save files out of that default Skyrim location and put them into Tuxborn's location. Once you do that one time, you should be clear to proceed normally.

Players impacted by this issue should do two things.

Steam Deck players: in Desktop mode, open your Konsole app and enter this command:

protontricks -l

Look for the line in its output that corresponds to your Tuxborn install, and make a note of the ID it gives.

Linux players on PC: you'll want to use the same command in your terminal.

Then once you have that ID, you can plug that into the following location to find your wandering save files:

/home/deck/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/YOUR TUXBORN ID GOES HERE/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/Documents/My Games/Skyrim Special Edition/Saves

Copy or move everything you see in that directory into the correct saves location for whatever profile you're playing on. That would be the "saves" subdirectory, underneath your chosen profile's directory. For example, if you are playing on the Tuxborn - Deck profile, then the path you want will be /profiles/Tuxborn - Deck/saves.

If you don't already see a "saves" directory there, make one, and copy or move your misplaced files into it. Then you should be good to go.

Until we're able to find a solid fix for this issue, we recommend that all Steam Deck players or PC Linux players do the following:

1. Spend your first session just doing your character setup
2. Do your first manual save either right after the museum lists finish building, or just after you enter the world
3. Close down that session
4. Go to the default save location described above immediately, and move or copy everything in it, as described
5. Then you should be ready to launch your second session and start playing, whenever you like

Yes, but you will have two major considerations:

1. Which profiles to use
2. How to move the save files back and forth

Consult the Save‐safe page for information on which profiles are compatible with each other, and which can therefore be used for the same save files. Pick whichever profiles work best for the devices you want to play on. This could mean using Desktop profiles on two different computers, or maybe Desktop + Handheld if one of your devices is a ROG Ally or other non-Steam Deck handheld.

Also, be aware that you will need to copy not only the .ess files generated by Skyrim, but also the .skse files generated by the mods in Tuxborn's load order. If you don't copy the .skse files as well, you will be at risk of losing important data for the mods in Tuxborn's load order to work! This has been reported before as an issue with Static Skill Leveling in particular.

Copying files manually is certainly an option, and there's no reason not to do that if that's fastest and most convenient for you.

But if you would like to consider options to let you do this automatically rather than manually, Annathepiper has a couple of unofficial guides for methods you can try. Here are links to the relevant posts on Anna's blog:

• HOWTO: Sync Skyrim saves between devices
• HOWTO: Use Syncthing to sync between devices

(DISCLAIMER: These two links are not officially supported Tuxborn content, they are Anna-supported content. So if you have questions about the links, please talk to Annathepiper on the Discord, or drop comments on her blog.)

This is a known issue, and can basically happen with anything you'd normally interact with by activating it: crafting stations, forges, carriages, etc. It appears to be an issue related to animations.

Fortunately, there is an easy workaround. Unsheathe your spells/weapons (whatever you have wielded), and then sheathe again. You may need to do this a couple of times, and you may find it works better if you temporarily look away from whatever you were trying to interact with.

If simply unsheathing and then sheathing doesn't work for you, you may need to try to swinging your melee weapon either through the air, or at the thing you're trying to interact with. (We do not, however, recommend hitting a carriage driver.)

If you are playing on a non-BFCO profile, standard Skyrim functionality should work for this. If you are playing on a PC and using a keyboard and mouse, that means your F key. If you play with a controller on PC, or are playing on a Steam Deck or any other handheld device, click your right thumbstick.

If you are playing on a BFCO profile, the same methods should work, but you have to hold down on the key or thumbstick, rather than just clicking them. A short press will lock onto a target, a longer press will change your camera view.

Yes. In the Optionals section of MO2, you should see "Main Menu" listed as the first mod there. Since it is classed as an optional mod in the load order, that means it's okay to turn it off if you so choose. Doing so will not invoke Rule 11 and void your access to Tuxborn support.

Turning that mod off will revert to the vanilla Skyrim menu on startup.

We're running the Subtitles mod, which still shows subtitles in situations where multiple people are speaking at the same time. For example, you might see subtitles pop up if you're walking through a city market and all the vendors are calling out their pitches for their wares. Or, if you're running multiple followers and they fire off their random chat lines at the same time.

If you have subtitles otherwise off, however, they should stay off outside of those specific types of situations. If you do see subtitles in other situations, do please report it to #txbn-support so we can have a look at the problem.

Yes, you can still set a skill as Legendary. However, note that given how the Experience and Static Skill Leveling mods work, the ability to do this is less useful in Tuxborn than it is in regular Skyrim. Since we have several additional ways of getting perk points (see Frequently Asked Questions: Character respec), it's not as vital for you to rearrange your perk points via setting a skill Legendary.

If you make it to level 81 and are still going strong in your playthrough, and find you're having trouble leveling any further, then you might still want to set a skill Legendary. But by then, you may also not actually have any open skills to spend perk points on!

If you play on a handheld, or if you play on PC with a controller, you will probably trigger a known issue in PC builds of Skyrim involving not being able to make a skill Legendary with controller buttons. Even though the UI will ask you to hit a button, that button will not work. The underlying code appears to expect you to use the keyboard, regardless of what the UI says. So the workaround for this is to use the spacebar instead, which still works. Handheld players should solve this problem by either of these two options:

• Having a Bluetooth keyboard handy to connect with your device, via USB or Bluetooth
• Mapping the spacebar to an available button (or menu option, if you have a menu set up to launch off one of your controls)

We use the Quest Journal Overhaul mod, which has a known issue with the vanilla journal trying to load if you use the J key while also playing with a controller. This is called out as a New Issue on that mod's bugs page. Look for the issue reported on March 29th 2025, subject line "can't go back to the other tabs when pressing Rt (gamepad) and it is completly bugged when opening the journal by pressing J".

This issue is most likely to reproduce for PC players who are playing with a controller, since that set of players is most likely to also periodically hit keyboard keys. Handheld devices players are not likely to see this issue, unless you have a Bluetooth keyboard available and decide to hit J to load your journal. Or, in the case of the Steam Deck, if you map J to one of your back buttons. In which case, you can in fact reproduce the bug.

Since this is reported on the mod's own bugs page, it's not a Tuxborn-specific issue. Until the mod delivers a fix, we recommend that all Tuxborn players who play on PC with a controller, or who play on handhelds with a keyboard available for use when needed, avoid using the J key to launch the journal. Use your available controller buttons instead.

This appears to be another issue with Quest Journal Overhaul, and not Tuxborn-specific, as it is reported as a bug on the mod's page on Nexus.

We're investigating the issue further. So far it does not seem to impact your ability to finish quests, or get new ones. Also, it does not seem to reproduce for all players. Confirmed repros for this issue are so far on Steam Deck. But if you can reproduce this issue on other platforms (such as ROG Ally, or on PC with a controller), please inform Annathepiper.

What we know about the issue so far is:

1. Does not seem to reproduce on a brand new character
2. Cannot be fixed even if a Steam Deck player temporarily uses a Bluetooth keyboard to navigate through the quest journal UI
3. Is not fixed by running Quest Journal Limit Fixer via its MCM
4. At least one PC player who plays on keyboard reports not seeing this issue

We will update this entry with a workaround if we identify one.

We have labeled FrameGen as currently broken on the Steam Deck in MO2, but Tuxborn devs and a small number of players have been conducting additional testing and can now report that Steam Deck players who take certain steps can get FrameGen working. These steps should be considered experimental, which is why FrameGen will remain off by default in Tuxborn until further notice. If you want to try it, please do the following:

1. Open up SSEDisplayTweaks.ini in Tuxborn - Settings
2. Find the line that reads: DisableBufferResizing = false
3. Change false to true so it should look like this: DisableBufferResizing = true
4. In the Optionals section in MO2, find Frame Generation and turn on the checkbox next to it
5. Before you launch the game, if you don't have a physical keyboard available and you haven't already done this, adjust Tuxborn's controller settings and do one of the following to give yourself the ability to launch Community Shaders:
   • Map the End key to a back button
   • If you have a radial menu set up, add the End key as an option to that
6. Launch the game as normal
7. Once you make it to the main menu, launch Community Shaders via whichever means you gave yourself to do so in Step 5
8. Click on Display in the Community Shaders settings and scroll down to the Frame Generation section
9. Make sure all three settings there are set to Enabled
10. Now restart the game again
11. This time you should be able to load your save and play

Additionally:

1. Capping Tuxborn's FPS at 60 FPS is recommended. If you set a higher cap than that, or leave FPS completely uncapped (which will put the Steam Deck at 90 FPS), you will likely see a wider range of FPS results. Capping at 60 seems to provide a much more focused, stable experience. You can set your FPS cap on the Deck by using the built-in Performance settings, available when you hit the three-dot button underneath the right trackpad.
2. You may periodically boot into a black screen and never make it to the main menu. So far in testing, this has been resolved by either exiting completely out of MO2, or by restarting the Deck.
3. You may periodically observe slight jitteriness of quest markers, or when scrolling along the in-game map. This is a known issue with FrameGen that we can't fix, and results from the created frames not being entirely a match for the real frames.
4. These tests have given best results on the most recent build of Tuxborn, 1.0 or 1.0.1 may not be able to handle them as well.

Players who want to try this, we again emphasize that this is experimental, so we cannot guarantee the ability to fix any issues that arise. If you do try these steps, let the devs know your findings, either positive or negative, as this will help us decide whether to activate this functionality by default in the future. We have an open research ticket for this on #txbn-support, subject line "Research post for testing FrameGen on SteamDeck". Thank you!

Reference link: Reddit post that mentioned the fix for SSEDisplayTweaks.ini

Proton Experimental dropped an update on 1/29/2026 which unfortunately broke some things with both Tuxborn's current official build (1.1.3) as well as the beta build. The two main symptoms noted are:

1. Duplicate icons for almost everything on the tween menu UI (Items, Magic, Quests, Map, etc.)
2. Sharp increase in how long it takes Tuxborn to load on Decks, going from about 7 minutes to about 15

Multiple players confirmed that changing Tuxborn from using Proton Experimental to Proton 10 instead restored normal expected behavior. So if you are impacted by either or both of these issues, please do the following:

1. In the Properties of your Tuxborn shortcut, on the Compatibility tab, change what Proton version is used from "Proton Experimental" to "Proton 10-0.4". Do this while the game is not running. You should be able to do this either in Gaming mode or in Desktop mode, it should not matter which.
2. If changing your Proton version does not immediately fix the problem, you may also need to reboot your Deck to get the change to take.

You should NOT need to do anything to your vanilla Skyrim, as far as Tuxborn is concerned.

Talk to anyone on the Tuxborn team if you have further questions!

This is standard Skyrim functionality, and not something Tuxborn is doing on its own. We don't currently have anything in our load order that would prevent a smaller sized soul from filling a larger sized soul gem, unfortunately.

Within Tuxborn's current selection of mods, you have three options for dealing with this:

1. Be selective about when you soul trap. This would require you to pay active attention to which size soul gems you're carrying. And you'd also need to only use a Soul Trap spell, or wield a weapon with a Soul Trap enchantment, when you're sure you have the necessary size soul gem to contain the soul of your target.
2. If you're willing to run the Project AHO plot, there is a side quest involved with that content that can get you access to a Dwemer automaton that has a built-in ability to charge soul gems, including ones already filled with smaller souls, up to full capacity. Information about that specific side quest can be found on the TES Mods wiki page for Crack'n'Chirp, and the TES Mods wiki page for Project AHO.
3. Vanilla Skyrim functionality allows you to simply drop a filled soul gem, which will cause it to empty. If you don't have Snippy (see previous option in this list), you can use this as an alternate method to clear out any soul gems that have the wrong size of soul in them.

Known issue, and not one we can easily fix, unfortunately. We've had reports of this on multiple races, so it's not limited to female characters of any specific race.

Recommended way to deal with this is to get your character gloves, bracers, or gauntlets, which will at least hide the issue.

A couple of players have reported issues with their health regeneration working for no apparent reason (not in Survival Mode, not impacted by any diseases, etc.). We are aware of the issue, but a fix is not anticipated until Tuxborn's next version.

Until we have a new Tuxborn version, some workarounds you can use if this happens to you are:

• Get the spell Ocato's Recital, and include a health regen boosting spell in the three spells it can launch for you at the start of combat
• If your Enchanting is suitably high, put a Fortify Health Regeneration enchantment onto any wearable item that can take that enchantment, such as jewelry or a cloak
• You can get a Homecooked Meal from your spouse if you have one, but you can also get one from Millie, the cook at the LOTD museum. This will buff all three attribute regenerations by 25 points for 600 seconds when consumed
• Pay a bit more attention to cooking in general, and try to make yourself foods that will buff your Health regen when critical to do so. This will require you to buy recipes from vendors when you see them for sale

The Mage, Thief, and Warrior Standing Stone abilities provided to Khajiit courtesy of the Freyr mod are scaled off of "each digit of gold carried". (This only impacts the Mage, Thief, and Warrior Stones, the ones near Riverwood; it's not a question on any other Standing Stone in the game. See the Freyr link for full descriptions of what the various Standing Stones do for all races.)

This is basically referring to how many numbers long the total value of gold in your inventory is:

• 1, 2, 3 ... 9 - 1 digit
• 11, 12, 14 ... 99 - 2 digits
• 10000 ... 99999 - 5 digits

And so on.

It does, as we're running SSE Engine Fixes.

HOWEVER: you won't see achievements fire off if they're achievements you've already gotten for Skyrim on the same Steam account. Steam tracks this at the account level, so your achievements accrue across every single Skyrim run you've ever had associated with that account, not just for a specific Skyrim install.

If you look at your original Skyrim install, not Tuxborn, you should be able to find a history of your achievements under Your Stuff > Achievements > View My Achievements. So you might want to cross-check that achievements history to see what achievements you can reasonably expect to get while playing Tuxborn.

At this time, we don't have a means in our load order to completely reset achievements for a brand new playthrough. If we identify a means to do so, we will consider adding that for future Tuxborn builds.

What you can expect to reset in every playthrough are the achievements associated with Legacy of the Dragonborn, since those are specific to that mod.