My games/households wont save when I have script mods

every time i put a script mod into my mods folder all my saved games disappear. i know thats the issue as i removed all my script mods and the games were saving again. the mods work in game, but just delete all my saved households. ive tested it and it isn't a specific mod, i just downloaded new ones after deleting my previous ones and it still didn't save. i don't know what to do. i unzipped all mods then moved them into the mods folder. do i need to have the zip files in the mods folder AS WELL AS the files once it was unzipped