View on GitHub

Irony Mod Manager

Advanced Mod Manager for Paradox Games

Irony Mod Manager Logo

FAQ

Home • Install • Supported Games • Documentation • FAQ • Troubleshooting • Tutorials

What load order does Irony use?

Irony uses the same load order as the Paradox Launcher v2.
Changes you make in Irony are applied directly to the game’s mod registry in a launcher-compatible format.

What happens if a mod or configured mod source is temporarily unavailable?

Irony preserves known collection membership instead of treating the unavailable source as an empty mod list. Missing members remain in Collection Mods as disabled placeholders; Apply skips them with a warning and continues with available mods.

For a filesystem, permission, or provider failure, Irony blocks unsafe changes only for the affected game. Fix the source and restart Irony, or select a valid Data / User Directory or Custom Mod Directory so Irony can revalidate it. See the Wiki’s Collection Mods guide for details.

Does drag-and-drop support multiple items?

Not yet. Multi-select drag-and-drop is planned.
Track the feature request here:
https://github.com/bcssov/IronyModManager/issues/12

I modified the collection — how do I clean up the patch mod?

You don’t need to do anything manually.

  • Rerun the Conflict Solver → Irony will clean outdated patch entries
  • Or temporarily disable/delete the patch mod inside Collection Mods
The conflict solver is missing for my game — why?

Only Stellaris has full conflict solver support.

  • HOI4 supports Analysis Only mode
  • All other supported games use merging only

See Supported Games for details.

Editing some conflicts is difficult. Any tips?

Some definitions are complex.
Configure an external merge tool in:

Options → External Editor

Then use:

Right-click → External Merge

Tools like WinMerge, KDiff or VS Code make this much easier.

Irony reports “invalid definitions”. Is this a problem?

Invalid definitions come from CWTools and usually mean malformed or unsupported syntax.

You can:

  • Inspect errors inside the Invalid section of Conflict Solver
  • Provide overrides via Custom Patches
  • Fix the mod directly

If you think Irony flagged something incorrectly, please report it.

Can I tell Irony to ignore a file?

Yes — add one of these lines on its own in the file:

# Dear Irony please fallback to simple parser

# Irony this is a placeholder file please ignore it

Or ignore specific IDs:

# Irony these are placeholder objects please ignore them: id1,id2
Irony does not detect Stellaris (or another game) on Linux.

Some distros do not set XDG_DATA_HOME.
Irony depends on it to locate Paradox game folders.

Set the variable or launch the game once to regenerate paths.

Irony freezes or shows a black window on Linux.

Possible causes:

  • Avalonia UI quirks
  • Wayland incompatibility
  • Tooltip deadlocks

Fixes:

Disable tooltips:

"Tooltips": { "Disable": true }

Or enable Wayland:

"LinuxOptions": { "DisplayServer": "wayland" }

Ensure xwayland is installed if using X11 fallback.

Irony fails to launch on macOS Catalina.

See:
https://github.com/bcssov/IronyModManager/issues/19

The macOS bundle is unsigned and unnotarized, so macOS may require its normal approval flow for downloaded unsigned software. Use the recommended .app bundle instructions on the Install page; osx-x64.zip remains available as the Terminal-based portable fallback.

I run out of RAM when exporting/merging on macOS.

macOS has a very low ulimit (256).
Workaround:

  1. Copy appSettings.json → appSettings.override.json
  2. Set "UseFileStreams": true under "OSXOptions"
  3. Run: ulimit -n 200000
  4. Launch Irony with ./IronyModManager

Repeat step 3 for each Terminal session unless made permanent.

Irony crashes unexpectedly or an update fails.

Common causes:

  • Antivirus blocks
  • Incomplete downloads
  • System restrictions

Digitally signed binaries would prevent false positives but are expensive.

On macOS, automatic installation is intentionally unavailable. Irony still checks for updates; use Open Release Page and replace the macOS build manually.

Irony shows blank, transparent, or unresponsive windows on Windows.

Rare Windows rendering failures can leave Irony windows blank, transparent, or unresponsive. Irony 1.28 improves automatic rendering recovery for this failure class, but validation on the originally affected systems is still pending.

If the problem persists, WGL remains available as a compatibility and diagnostic fallback. Copy appSettings.json to appSettings.override.json, then set:

"WindowsOptions": {
  "UseWgl": true
}

Restart Irony after changing the setting. Leave WGL at its default unless this fallback is needed.

Irony crashes on startup on Windows.

Install Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable:

Can Irony upload mods to the Steam Workshop?

No.
Irony cannot upload or publish Workshop mods.

How can I "freeze" my game state?

Options:

  1. Merge → Compress
  2. Merge → Basic
  3. Duplicate collection → Export → Whole Collection → re-import later

This ensures all mods exist locally exactly as they were.

Irony shows only a black window under Wayland.

Fix options:

  1. Install xwayland
  2. Set "DisplayServer" to "wayland" or "auto" in appSettings.json
Is there a Wayland-ready package in my distro?

Some distros (e.g. Arch) provide irony-mod-manager-bin.
These packages are community-maintained and may not support Wayland.

Report issues to their maintainers, not Irony.