BeamNG Mods Not Showing Up? Every Fix, in Order

BeamNG’s official documentation lists three reasons a mod doesn’t show up: it’s in the wrong place, it was packed wrong, or it’s outdated or broken. Below are the checks in the order they usually fix the problem. Do them one at a time and restart the game after each fix.

1. The mod is in the wrong folder

Check: Open the BeamNG launcher, choose Manage User Folder, then Open in Explorer. Go into current, then mods. Is your zip there?

Fix: If not, move it there. The full path on a recent install is:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\BeamNG\BeamNG.drive\current\mods

The usual wrong places are:

• The game’s install folder, for example under steamapps\common. The game does not read mods from there, and Steam can delete files in it.
• An old Documents\BeamNG.drive folder from an older game version.
• A copy of Documents synced by OneDrive, which is not the folder the game is using.

If you’re not sure which folder is real, trust the launcher’s Open in Explorer button. More detail is in where is the BeamNG mods folder.

2. The zip was extracted

Check: In the mods folder, is your mod a .zip file, or a normal folder full of files?

Fix: BeamNG mods are meant to stay zipped. You do not need to extract them, and an extracted folder dropped into mods often won’t load. Delete the extracted folder and put the original .zip back.

Also watch for a zip inside a zip. Some downloads wrap the real mod in a second archive, or in a folder with a readme. Open the zip and look at the top level. For a vehicle you should see folders like vehicles; for a map, levels. If all you see is another .zip, take that inner zip out and put it in mods instead.

3. The mod is disabled in the Mod Manager

Check: In the game, open the Mods Manager from the main menu. Find your mod in the list.

Fix: If it shows as disabled, enable it. Disabled mods stay in the folder but are not loaded, so they won’t appear in any selector.

Remember where each kind of mod shows up once it is loaded:

• Vehicles and vehicle configurations: the vehicle selector.
• Parts: the vehicle configuration menu.
• Liveries: vehicle configuration, under Paint Design.
• Maps: the level selector.
• Scenarios: the scenario selector.

A part mod won’t add a new car, so if you are looking in the vehicle list for a set of wheels, check the configuration menu instead.

4. The mod is outdated

Check: Look at when the mod was last updated, on the Repository page or wherever you downloaded it. Compare it with the date of the last major game update.

Fix: Old mods can break after game updates. Look for a newer version of the mod, or a maintained fork by another author. If there isn’t one, the mod may simply not work on your game version. The official docs warn that old mods may be outdated or broken and can cause problems when enabled, so disable it rather than leaving it in.

5. Map mods: check the folder structure

Check: Open the map’s zip. The top level should contain a levels folder, and inside it a folder named after the map, like levels/<map name>/.

Fix: If the zip has an extra folder wrapped around levels, or the map files sit at the top level with no levels folder at all, the game won’t find the map. Download it again from the original source first, since the problem may be a bad re-upload. If it’s still wrong, tell the author: the docs list bad packing as one of the main causes.

6. Clear the cache

Check: You have done everything above and the mod still won’t appear, or the Mods Manager shows stale information.

Fix: The game keeps a cache to speed up loading, in the temp folder of your user folder. A stale cache can hide changes to your mods.

1. Close the game completely.
2. In the launcher, look for the option to clear the cache and run it.
3. If you prefer to do it by hand, open your user folder and delete the cache in current\temp.
4. If it still doesn’t appear, close the game and delete mods\db.json; the game rebuilds it on next start.
5. Start the game. The first load will be slower while it rebuilds.

7. Use safe mode to find a conflicting mod

If some mods appear but others don’t, or the game behaves oddly with mods on, two mods may be fighting each other. The official guidance is to run no more than about 20 to 30 mods at once for this reason.

1. Start the game in safe mode from the launcher, which runs it without your mods.
2. If the problem is gone, a mod is the cause.
3. Start normally, disable half your mods in the Mods Manager, and restart.
4. If the problem goes away, the culprit is in the half you disabled. If not, it’s in the other half.
5. Keep halving until you find the single mod responsible.

This takes a few restarts, but it’s far faster than disabling mods one at a time.

8. It’s only missing on BeamMP

BeamMP servers handle mods differently. Server mods are downloaded by the BeamMP launcher, not taken from your own mods folder, so a mod you installed yourself will not appear on a server that doesn’t run it. If a server’s mods won’t download, see BeamMP mods not downloading.

Still stuck?

Ask the mod’s author, or post in the mod’s thread on the official forum. Other players who use the mod will often know the fix. Include your game version and say which of the steps above you have tried.