I deleted all my local content and everything in the Skyrim folder except for my own work and then reinstalled the game.

I open up the Creation Kit, try to look at scripts, and they are either "code not loaded" (fragments in perks) or the option to edit them (from Papyrus Manager) is greyed out.

My Scripts folder? Gone. And when I say "gone," that is exactly what I mean. It is *entirely gone*, nowhere to be found. Vanished. Poof. Good night, folks. Thanks for coming out.

Should that folder not have been reinstalled with everything else?

:sigh:

This is so tiring.

It should have been installed with the CK. Try doing a "verify local game cache" (or whatever its called) on the CK in Steam and it should detect the missing files and install them.

Yeah, verify the CK's cache.

Okay, I did a verify on the CK, and that is indeed where the problem was. Thank you!

Now I have a new problem - the CK is "currently unavailable" and the update is paused in Steam (though the download is complete). I took it offline ("this game is not ready to be played in offline mode"). I rebooted. Still can't open it. It's still showing as paused in Steam, and Resume All does nothing.

Am I supposed to be waiting a bit for this thing to finish, or is supposed to be much faster?

Just give it a little while.

Ran out of patience and just totally cleared the local files and did a reinstall of the kit.

Turned out to be faster (2 minutes or so) than reacquiring all the scripts (that took 10 minutes!)

edit: okay, all the scripts are back. Now I need to make sure I never, ever, ever again screw around with Bethesda's. Sheesh.

Ah, the wonders of Steam eh?