[2.0.28] Cannot start Space Age from steam

[Zecron]

- Downloaded Space age from steam when it first came out (Worked fine)
- Disabled the mods as i wanted to play the base game.
- When trying to reactivate the Space age mods there were constant mod issues with "elevated rails" requiring "space age" and "space age" requiring "elevated rails" nothing worked,

- To fix I attempted updating mods swapping and turning off mods and even reinstalling the game had the same mod "incompatibility",
- next I attempted to delete the mods the rubbish bin icon in the mod screen in Factorio was unresponsive,
- then i deleted the mods from the mod folder in " %Appdata%/Factorio/mods" hoping it would reinstall them from steam.
- steam hasn't reinstalled them.

I did not expect the incompatibility of the mods or the fact that it didn't fix/update.

This issue has happened once unsure how to recreate.

Currently i have a working download through the Factorio site although doesn't link to steam, missing all my achievements, cant invite friends through steam, etc,

[Zecron]

Here are some screenshots of the error when starting up factorio

Example of Mod Panel

01-04-2025, 13-18-16.png (194.07 KiB) Viewed 188 times

Example of Error

01-04-2025, 13-16-17.png (35.09 KiB) Viewed 188 times

[Silari]

That message isn't saying elevated rails needs the space age mod activated (it doesn't require SA to be enabled at all), this sounds more like it's trying to run the non-SA 2.0 executable. Check in Steam in the Factorio properties under the DLC tab to make sure you have the DLC enabled. From what I understand, if that's not checked Steam installs the vanilla 2.0 executable, which doesn't have any of the SA features.

EDIT: Just tested: that's the EXACT same error I get trying to load a mod that requires Space Age features in my Factorio. So that's almost certainly you're issue.