[0.5.1] Factorio hangs on initial loading screen - SOLUTION

[SilverWarior]

Hi!
A few days ago I downloaded Factorio ver. 0.5.1 and istalled the game. But I couldn't play it as the game always hanged at inital loading screen.

Today I figured out why?
Before updating from 0.5.0 to 0.5.1 I first uninstaled 0.5.0 and then manually removed Factorio folder which remaind due to scenario pack being instaled within it.
So when I instaled Factorio 0.5.1 and tried to start it the game hanged on initial loading screen.
When I checked the factiorio executable with the use of Process Explorer during this hang it seemed that it keeps reading some part of the memory over and over again (infinite loop).
Today I figured out that this is due the fact that file "mood-list.json" whish is located under "C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Factorio\Mods" still contained the reference to scenario pack. And becouse there were no longer any scenario pack files on my computer since I deleted them Factorio couldn't load this mood and therefore hanged on initial loading screen.

So I suggest athleast implementing some safety feature which would skip loading of any mood if it is no longer capable of finding it for some reason.

But the best solution would be to actually load all ingame content just prior starting or loading the game and not on application start. Thisway you avoid such scenarios altogether not to mention get rid of the need to restart factorio everytime when some mood gets enabled or disabled.
If you are concerned that such approach would increase load time between different gameplay you can always implement it in the way that ending current gameplay doesn't unload all that resources so starting another gameplay would be just like it is now. Of course reloading of theese resources would be required on enabling or disabling of currently active moods.

EDIT: Just now I tried to reproduce this by manually deleting 0.5.1 scenario pack but the game no longer hangs instead it detects that files for scenario pack no longer exists and therefore it removes the reference to scenario pack.
So Now I'm realy confused why it was causing hangs before but not any more.

[slpwnd]

Mods that are not present shoudl be handled automatically on load. Exactly the way you describe it in the "Edit".