this is about an error message that i got for another mod, but only when using specific combinations of mods, especially in connection with this mod. I already reported this on the other mod's page, but since it also involves this mod somehow, here is a copy of what i wrote there:

on starting factorio, i got this error :

Failed to load mods: dirtybarrels/data.lua:1: ...Factory/Factorio/0.16.51/data/core/lualib/dataloader.lua:16: attempt to index local 'e' (a number value)

several more tests showed that in combination with most mods, dirtybarrels starts fine, but some combinations abort with the above error in core/lualib/dataloader, eg having vanilla factorio plus only two mods: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/dirtybarrels and https://mods.factorio.com/mod/AsphaltRoads

is this a bug in factorio itself to have bad code ?
is this a bug in factorio itself to not catch this with an exception?
or does factorio not catch an illegal call on purpose to more clearly show that there is a problem and where it might originate?
and why does it not happen together with most other mods but with Asphalt Roads?

ps: i recently could avoid a similar error by renaming the directory of factorio so that it no longer had a number (0.16.51) in its path, but didn't try that yet for this error, and it also would only be a temporary fix for testing and not usable in the long run.