the error message (below) does not mention Bob's enemies, but by disabling/enabling trial and error I found that everything works if I disable bob's enemies.
all my many other mods work with everything enabled and there's no error message. only when I enable bob's enemies the error appears.
since I don't script or program, I don't know if it is proper to post this here, but there seems to be incompatibility somewhere with pypostprocessing and bob's enemies. maybe the fix is easy and the info helps, so I'm posting it here

I loooove the ultra hard biters in combination with the impossibly expansive Py mods -- base expansion is a nightmare basically, but a good one. I don't want to play without bob's enemies

failed to load mods: pypostprocessing/prototypes/functions/auto_tech.lua:150:

ERROR: dependency loop detected

stack traceback:

[C]: in function 'error'
pypostprocessing/prototypes/functions/auto_tech.lua:150: in function 'run'
pypostprocessing/data-final-fixes:144: in main chunk

mods to be disabled:

pypostprocessing (0.1.0)

mods I use:
AfraidOfTheDark
alien-biomes
alien-biomes-hr-terrain
BigBags
bobenemies
bobequipment
boblibrary
bobvehicleequipment
bobwarfare
Bottleneck
Clockwork
even-distribution
FARL
flib
FNEI
helmod
LogisticTrainNetwork
manual-inventory-sort
py-quick-start
pycoalprocessing
pycoalprocessinggraphics
pypostprocessing
pyfusionenergy
pyfusionenergygraphics
pyhightech
pyhightechgraphics
pyindustry
pyrawores
pyraworesgraphics
reverse-factory
rso-mod
Squeak Through
stdlib
themightygugi_alwaysday

dependency loop, that's an issue with one mod wanting another to load first, but then that other mod wants the first one to load first.

As far as I knew, Bob's mods, especicially enemies, should be the bottom of the pile, As far as I was aware, Enemies only depends on my Library.

thank you for the reply!!!

how do I tell the mods in what order to load?

The mods themselves determine that, if you want to change it, you'd need to extract the mod from the .zip file into a folder, and then edit the info.json file's dependancies line.

thank you very much for the answers!

it seemed mods with more dependencies load later. so I tried to simply add some other I already run as dependencies - copying that part to exclude spelling errors and syntax errors from existing info files.

but now the mod will not even show up--- I really don't wan't to bother you, since it seems to be a lot more complicated than I thought (I've spent an hour now and I got nowhere), but just in case it's an easy fix, what else can I write in there -- for example -- that would make it show up and load later?

With so many mods, it's going to be pretty complex.

pypostprocessing is written in the error message above, so I'd start by reading that and see what dependancies it lists... then load them to remove things.

though, It's not just a list of things that it wants to load first, there's also negative dependancies that mean it won't load if the listed mod is present.
https://wiki.factorio.com/Tutorial:Mod_structure#info.json

the ones with a question mark is optional, which is an "If it exists, let it load first", so those are probably the ones causing your problems.

Also keep in mind that load order can be important for a mod to function. Even within my own mods, some of them depend on others, to force them to load in a certain order. if one intended to load first doesn't, then you could end up with missing items, or impossible recipes.

I'm working with the Py devs to get this fixed. Until then, disabling these Bob's Enemies settings should allow it to work:
- Enable coloured alien artifacts
- Enable small alien artifacts

https://imgur.com/a/9hYFvEH

thank you so much!!!

I tried after Bob's last reply to add optional or mandatory dependencies via trial and error (I usually get somewhere at some point) but in this case- after quite some time of getting nowhere, I feel like there's such a lack of knowledge on my side that I'd need to do a real deep dive into the mod structure and maybe learn to do it myself...

I play factorio to decompress ;) this is just a bit too much atm ;)

so I am really grateful that you're helping out!!

Talking with people, I was wrong about the error. Apparently, Py uses custom error messages, and his custom error about a technology prerequisites loop uses a message similar to the vanilla message about mod dependency loop.

I mean... can you blame me? They used the name of a different thing, so not knowing Py uses custom messages, you assume it's refering to the Vanilla thing using that name.

lol no problem :D

I have picked up enough over the years through osmosis that I kinda got what "dependency loop" means.
and I read line 150 and line 144 from the files and got the feeling that there was something else going on. but I couldn't even put it into words.

I felt that all I could do anyway was a bit trial and error and if that didn't work out, wait till someone competent takes a look at it.

so all's fine. and I can see how pretty much everybody who hears "dependency loop" comes to a similar conclusion :D

Did disabling these settings allow it to work for you?

• Enable coloured alien artifacts
• Enable small alien artifacts

https://imgur.com/a/9hYFvEH

yes. it would run. I've decided to instead use the un-updated mods until it is fixed (sunk cost fallacy at play cause looting those damn small artifacts took so much time ;) )

but it runs. no errors. with all mods enabled

Tested with the latest versions of Bob's mods and Py. All seems to be working fine now :-)