Follows vanish after/during combat

[Macross.]

The Problem:

When accompanied by a follower combat seems to break something. After the second instance of combat (combat music starts, all enemies are killed, combat music ends, new enemy encountered and combat music starts again) my follower will literally vanish into thin air. I specify because I know it is a common problem for them to just get distracted and run off. This is not the case, I can stare right at them and their model just ceases to exist.

 

Fast traveling, waiting, and sleeping all fail to return them. Using console commands to move the player to their them will drop me at their last visible location, but they will not be there and can not be mouse selected in the console commands window. Using player.placeatme will only work with the baseID, not the refID. Selecting the npc ahead of the bug and using enable/disable after also does not seem to help.

 

So far I have encountered this with all the followers I have used: Lydia, Farkas (can't do the companions quest because he vanishes before letting me out of the trap room), and Recorder (only installed on the one play through).

 

I have done multiple clean installs using slightly different mods, several of which had no 'follower specific' mods involved, and encountered this error each time.

 

I generally don't bother with followers, but as this impacts even temporary quest associated ones, it is making large parts of the game unplayable.

 

I am mostly  posting to see if anyone has ever encountered something similar and where I might start to look for the problem, since everything I can find seems to be targeted at a misplaced follower, and not the game forgetting they even exist.

[Andy14]

I do not know the problem, never heard of it.

For me it almost sounds like the follower is disabled.

Just test in the console enable (with id).

[Macross.]

That was my assumption as well. Unfortunately that was not successful. The odd part is that something is still there because I can move the player to the last location via console and I can update that location to somewhere new by placing the npc (or whatever is left of it) at my current location; move player will then use this new location. But beyond that I can't seem to 'touch' it with any other actions that I can think of.

 

I have currently done yet another clean install, and am switching from NMM to MO in the hope that it will give me a bit more flexibility with installation so that I can try to identify the problem.

[Andy14]

2 hours ago, Synake said:

The odd part is that something is still there because I can move the player to the last location via console and I can update that location to somewhere new by placing the npc (or whatever is left of it) at my current location; move player will then use this new location. But beyond that I can't seem to 'touch' it with any other actions that I can think of.

That's what disable does.

I hope your clean install works.

[GenioMaestro]

Some times i have a similar problem, with followers that apear and disapear, and are here because i can ear it say things, but the game not draw it. Normaly i carry from 5 to 10 followers, 15 in my last match. I know that my problem is caused by out of memory, sure video memory because i only have 2 g and always use wet function with moded followers like giada, sassy, beastess... 

I isolated my problem to ENBost, because if i remove my enb the problem disappear, no more vanished followers, but i have others problems more critic, like freeze, CTD, crasfix saying no memory...

 

If you are ussing some heavy mods, maybe you have a similar problem.

Try disabling your ENB, or rename your enblocal.ini for use default config. Maybe you have some misconfigured in ENB.

[Macross.]

3 hours ago, Andy14 said:

That's what disable does.

I hope your clean install works.

I was unaware that disable left any tangible remains, thanks for the correction. It does sound more like that is what is happening than what Genio describes. Just not quite sure why I am unable to then re-enable the follower.

 

I'm currently operating on the suspicion that there is some sort of conflict with the VioLens kill move mod because followers run fine indefinitely until they are involved in combat, and it is the only "combat" mod I have outside weapon and spell adders (and whatever tweaks sexlab may implement).

 

1 hour ago, GenioMaestro said:

Some times i have a similar problem, with followers that apear and disapear, and are here because i can ear it say things, but the game not draw it. Normaly i carry from 5 to 10 followers, 15 in my last match. I know that my problem is caused by out of memory, sure video memory because i only have 2 g and always use wet function with moded followers like giada, sassy, beastess... 

I isolated my problem to ENBost, because if i remove my enb the problem disappear, no more vanished followers, but i have others problems more critic, like freeze, CTD, crasfix saying no memory...

 

If you are ussing some heavy mods, maybe you have a similar problem.

Try disabling your ENB, or rename your enblocal.ini for use default config. Maybe you have some misconfigured in ENB.

It may be related, but I think my issue is slightly different. There is no interaction at all: no talking (the ai seems to hang for a bit before vanishing, finishes whatever dialogue may have been playing then stands still until it blips out of existence) and no apparent collisions (I can walk right through where they should be standing without any issues), and no interaction UI prompts are ever seen.

 

Additionally I typically don't use ENBs and as such first experienced the bug without any sort of ENB anywhere on my system. On my latest attempt I did install ENB in an attempt to fix an unrelated (I think) CTD issue. As such I can confirm that it occurs with and without ENB.

 

Finally, it may still be a memory issue (I know HDT can mess things up, and I have a fairly in-depth implementation on all actors; but no hair, that is too buggy even for me) but I'm running a graphics card with 8 gigs Vram, and have a further 32 gigs of regular memory; I also don't seem to have any other graphic issues other than the occasional stutter when a high density location loads in.

 

 

Thank you both for the help. I'm currently finishing transferring everything into MO from NMM and trying to learn the different priority system. I will try implementing the things I am most suspicious about and try to rule out causes.

 

 

I should also note, I am not positive it is a followers only problem because as noted it only seems to happen after the npc has been involved in two fights, and I haven't had an instance of a non-follower being in more than one fight (mostly because I don't bother to follow random friendly patrols around, I'll give that a test too if I can get the issue to occur again).

[GenioMaestro]

With that machine,of course, you not need ENBost.. you can use any normal enb for have better graphics, you have enougth grafical power...

 

But never forget that skyrim is a 32 bits program, and for that have some limitations not related to computer capacity.

 

35 minutes ago, Synake said:

I'm currently operating on the suspicion that there is some sort of conflict with the VioLens kill move mod because followers run fine indefinitely until they are involved in combat, and it is the only "combat" mod I have outside weapon and spell adders (and whatever tweaks sexlab may implement).

 

It may be related, but I think my issue is slightly different. There is no interaction at all: no talking (the ai seems to hang for a bit before vanishing, finishes whatever dialogue may have been playing then stands still until it blips out of existence) and no apparent collisions (I can walk right through where they should be standing without any issues), and no interaction UI prompts are ever seen.

In my test, the problem is that the follower is not 3dLoaded, appeat that the game un-load it for any problem(sure memory in my case), then not have collisions or posible dialog because is a requisite for that. Appear the same problem but for diferent cause.

 

If you have a mod problem, maybe your log can say it or say what is the problematic mod. And your mod list can help.

[Macross.]

16 minutes ago, GenioMaestro said:

With that machine,of course, you not need ENBost.. you can use any normal enb for have better graphics, you have enougth grafical power...

 

But never forget that skyrim is a 32 bits program, and for that have some limitations not related to computer capacity.

Agreed, that is why I started using ENBoost and the crash fixes compilation on nexus to squeeze the most out of skyrim's limited architecture. Also, sorry if that came off as bragging, that wasn't my intention; I just wanted to prove that my rig could handle anything skyrim can.

 

20 minutes ago, GenioMaestro said:

In my test, the problem is that the follower is not 3dLoaded, appeat that the game un-load it for any problem(sure memory in my case), then not have collisions or posible dialog because is a requisite for that. Appear the same problem but for diferent cause.

 

If you have a mod problem, maybe your log can say it or say what is the problematic mod. And your mod list can help.

I guess I misunderstood your previous post, it sounded like you were describing the "invisible follower bug" I have seen elsewhere, which isn't what I have (as far as I can tell).

 

Unfortunately, I wasn't logging during most of the occurrences (everyone seems to suggest keeping logging off during general use) I'll see if I can find the one log I did intentionally take, but as far as I could tell it didn't notice anything amiss, at least it didn't throw any errors.

 

I'm still working on adding everything, so my mod list isn't complete to where it was when I first started noticing the issue, I'll update when I finish.

[Macross.]

Well, the mods I was considering the most likely candidates for the issue don't seem to be causing it (at least on their own). Honestly I'm quite hesitant to try the other 100 mods one at a time since the process takes several minutes for each test. I'm going to try a full install and cross my fingers that it was just some bug with installing via NMM.

 

If the problem shows up with everything running, or if someone else with the same issue happens upon this and wants it, I'll post my load order to see if that provides any insight.

[Andy14]

Please not only the loadorder, but also papyrus.log.

[yatol]

6 hours ago, Synake said:

Well, the mods I was considering the most likely candidates for the issue don't seem to be causing it (at least on their own). Honestly I'm quite hesitant to try the other 100 mods one at a time since the process takes several minutes for each test. I'm going to try a full install and cross my fingers that it was just some bug with installing via NMM.

and before breaking more stuff, why not coc qasmoke, placeatme a follower, some bandit, and check what happen?

reinstalling skyrim again and again will do nothing if the problem is in the save

and if you create more conflicts between your load order and the save... that's more problems

 

some had problems with followers during sieges, you leave town, follower spawn near you, then leave

you go back to town, follower spawn near you, then leave

that's because follower isn't faction cwo, so that npc get the package run_to_your_house, that wasn't removed later, so the npc keep running to his house everytime he spawn near you

if you have a mod that edit that package, for the npcs to no longer run around to maybe get killed, but spawn directly at their house, it can be that

 

sofiainventory it's a npc in cell sofiacell or something, you never see that npc (unless you coc to that cell)

if that npc isn't allied to faction player, and a mod turn him hostile to you for some reason, your follower may teleport to that cell to kill that npc

after riften siege, riften guards had troubles against the requiem invisible goat(essential npc, they can't kill it, but they keep chasing it)

 

and relying on luck to find ou whatever the problem... useless

 

 

go pick a follower, click on him in console, to not have to search his id on a site

once npc disappear, prid id, enable, and if the npc got a disable, why does a mod disable that npc?

if nothing, the command to teleport to that npc, and if you fall to your death because no ground where you end up, tcl, you have the cell name if you save there to find where that cell is coming from

you can go to follower town church to check if your follower wasn't buried there, it's another way to make them disappear

and if you find nothing messing around, the only thing left is indeed to remove mods

one by one? remove half your load order, if problem is still here, it is in the other half, so you remove half of that, then half of... and you find the mod in a few tests

 

[Grey Cloud]

Are we talking only the vanilla followers?

[Macross.]

Thanks for all the feedback and suggestions, working on getting the requested info and trying the proposed tests. Real life has other plans though so it may be a bit before I can get back to focusing on this.

3 hours ago, Andy14 said:

Please not only the loadorder, but also papyrus.log.

Will do if/when I can get it to happen again.

 

2 hours ago, yatol said:

and before breaking more stuff, why not coc qasmoke, placeatme a follower, some bandit, and check what happen?

reinstalling skyrim again and again will do nothing if the problem is in the save

and if you create more conflicts between your load order and the save... that's more problems

 

go pick a follower, click on him in console, to not have to search his id on a site

once npc disappear, prid id, enable, and if the npc got a disable, why does a mod disable that npc?

if nothing, the command to teleport to that npc, and if you fall to your death because no ground where you end up, tcl, you have the cell name if you save there to find where that cell is coming from

you can go to follower town church to check if your follower wasn't buried there, it's another way to make them disappear

and if you find nothing messing around, the only thing left is indeed to remove mods

one by one? remove half your load order, if problem is still here, it is in the other half, so you remove half of that, then half of... and you find the mod in a few tests

 

I have been starting a new game each time to avoid the possibility that it is a save file issue, thus why it is a slow testing process. To expand on what I posted earlier, I have on more than one occasion done a fresh install (of all mods, I just used steam to verify my base install) then started a brand new character, played it up to the point where I got a follower then noticed the issue. This has happened with several different mod sets (obviously a good amount of overlap, and thus why I had some thoughts on the culprits since I had a shorter load order when I first encountered it).

 

Also as stated above, using the command to teleport to npc just moves me to where the npc last was (usually just a few feet away since I try it after noticing my follower has vanished from behind me). There is no changing of cells (unless I just crossed the edge of a world cell). I don't have any follower overhauls in use (one instance was using a standalone follower from a mod, but made no changes to vanilla follower ai that I know of), and I can't see any recorded instances of some other mod intentionally using disable on my npc, thus my general confusion.

 

Thanks for the load order suggestion, I'm still in the NMM mindset where inter-dependencies between mods makes large changes to installations a nightmare. I had never considered applying Achilles and the Hare logic to this sort of thing, thanks.

 

32 minutes ago, Grey Cloud said:

Are we talking only the vanilla followers?

So far I have encountered it with three different NPCs; on my first load order it happened to Lydia shortly after recruiting her due to a vampire attack when leaving breezeholm (but I didn't realize what was going on at the time), then to Farkas during the first major Companions questline to retrieve the fragment of that axe. That is when I first realized the significance of the problem as he vanished just before the scripted locked room ambush and thus couldn't get me out of the trap. I tried reloading the save before he vanished, and had the error occur repeatably in nearly the same place every time (in the middle of the fight with the first batch of draugr). It has been a few years since I played/modded skyrim so I just assumed I had messed something up during the process, wrote off save as lost and decided to do a fresh install/new character while paying more careful attention to my modding, unfortunately I also didn't bother to hold on to any of the admittedly limited logs.

 

I took advantage of this to add some more mods and played for a while without issues but took a different path so never ran into any followers so I don't know if the bug would have occurred. After  while I ran into an issue with some less stable mods causing my saves to corrupt and general other crash problems.

 

So I again decided to start over, with a clean install, a pruned mod set, and this time I started using ENBoost and Crash Fixes for improved stability. After a little while I joined up with Recorder (the nexus follower) as I had decided to add a custom follower mod this time (it had been a few days so I wasn't thinking about the glitch in question or I might not have bothered). I spent maybe 20-30 minutes doing non-combat activities in and around Riverwood without any problems, then started towards Whiterun and she vanished after the second pack of wolves. That is when I played around a bit to see if I could fix/find the problem through console commands but was still too dumb to save any logs (I'll be sure to do so in the future).

 

In summary, I have experienced the bug with a generic vanilla housecarl follower (Lydia), a temporary quest follower (Farkas), and a mod added custom follower (Recorder).

 

 

I'm now starting from scratch again using Mod Organizer so that I can have more flexibility in enabled mods, but that has its own learning curve that is slowing me down a bit (just spent an hour trying to fix an issue with a previously fully functional FNIS throwing an ERROR 76 that finally magically fixed itself after the 3rd reinstall).

[GenioMaestro]

9 hours ago, Synake said:

In summary, I have experienced the bug with a generic vanilla housecarl follower (Lydia), a temporary quest follower (Farkas), and a mod added custom follower (Recorder).

Thanks for your detailled explanation and all yours good tests, but i think you have a mod problem and can't help you without a complete mod list, left and rigth side in MO, and a complete papyrus log.

 

For example, i not see any reference to LOOT and can be a simple problem of load order. Same for WireBash, if you make a bad bashpach you can have problems. Or maybe you a are ussing any of the big remakes of the game like SkyRe or Requiem that make a bit lot of changes in the game. All is speculation until you give us more info.

[Macross.]

21 hours ago, GenioMaestro said:

Thanks for your detailled explanation and all yours good tests, but i think you have a mod problem and can't help you without a complete mod list, left and rigth side in MO, and a complete papyrus log.

 

For example, i not see any reference to LOOT and can be a simple problem of load order. Same for WireBash, if you make a bad bashpach you can have problems. Or maybe you a are ussing any of the big remakes of the game like SkyRe or Requiem that make a bit lot of changes in the game. All is speculation until you give us more info.

Well, I've got a room piled high with corpses and one very confused Lydia, but for the life of me I can't get the issue to happen again. I did my best to recreate the initial mod load order from the first play through that it occurred in, and even threw in a few of the other mods I plan to actually use; no problems at all.

 

I had never bothered to use Loot or WryeBash since I typically didn't do any extreme modding, so the first time through, neither were used. After I started having bugs (and using more mods) I used both. So the first time I saw the error, neither were in use, the last time I saw it, I had used both (I did a decent amount of reading on WryeBash so I hope I didn't screw it up, but even if I did, I know the problem occurred with out it in use too).

 

I didn't bother with WryeBash in this round of testing, but I did Loot sort, and manually recheck the load order.

 

Left side of MO (only those used while testing so no crazy house mods or anything, but at least all the mods I had installed when I first noticed the problem) I hope this is what everything you want to see.

Spoiler

#Mod_Priority,#Mod_Name
"0000","DLC: HearthFires"
"0001","DLC: Dragonborn"
"0002","DLC: Dawnguard"
"0003","DLC: HighResTexturePack01"
"0004","DLC: HighResTexturePack02"
"0005","DLC: HighResTexturePack03"
"0007","SkyUI"
"0008","RaceMenu"
"0009","Wearable Lanterns"
"0010","ShowRaceMenu Precache Killer"
"0011","Unofficial Skyrim Legendary Edition Patch"
"0012","HDT Physics Extensions"
"0013","HDT HighHeels System"
"0014","Fores New Idles in Skyrim - FNIS"
"0015","UIExtensions"
"0016","PapyrusUtil - Modders Scripting Utility Functions"
"0017","Fuz Ro D-oh - Silent Voice"
"0020","Calientes Beautiful Bodies Edition -CBBE-"
"0021","BodySlide and Outfit Studio"
"0022","Immersive Weapons"
"0025","ABT - Arrows and Bolts Tweaks"
"0026","Apocalypse - Magic of Skyrim"
"0027","Closer Quivers and Longer Arrows"
"0028","Pure Waters"
"0029","Static Mesh Improvement Mod"
"0030","Enhanced Lights and FX"
"0031","Skyrim - Enhanced Camera"
"0032","EZ2C Dialogue Menu - configurable - better navigation and control"
"0033","SKSE - Register Custom Animation Events v02"
"0034","SexLabFramework v162 FULL"
"0035","SexLab Tools v3.0"
"0036","SexLabAroused V28b"
"0037","ZazAnimationPackV7"
"0038","Zaz DoggyStyle Amation Fix (Zaz Animation Pack V.8.0)"
"0039","MoreNastyCritters v11 1G"
"0040","HentaiCreatures MNCv11 1D"
"0041","Creature Framework 1.1.0-pre2"
"0042","JContainers"
"0043","SCL"
"0044","DietBasedButt20"
"0045","FillHerUp-v2.00"
"0046","FillHerUp 2 Beta NIO release 1.12(1)"
"0047","SexLab Inflation Framework"
"0048","SLAnimLoader"
"0049","HornyCreaturesofSkyrim V1 04"
"0050","SexLabMatchMaker"
"0055","Better Jumping"
"0057","Alternate Start - Live Another Life"
"0058","WeightMorphs"
"0059","SOS"
"0060","SOS Horse Penis 0.6a(1)"
"0061","SOS Female Schlongifier (No Schlong Addon by Erundil)(1)"
"0062","SOS - B3lisario UNP Addon v0.9"
"0063","SOS schlong for females BodySlide 2.1"
"0064","VioLens - A Killmove Mod"
"0065","dc-untamed-v124(1)"
"0066","dc-untamed-stfu-spriggan"
"0067","dc-untamed-stfu-wolf"
"0069","RS Children Overhaul"
"0070","RSChildren Update -"
"0071","RSChildren USLEEP Patch - 170618 Fixed"
"0088","FloppySOS"
"0094","HD theeth for orsimers"
"0095","Hallgarth's Additional (Vanilla) Hair"
"0096","Skyrim - Glowing Eyes v4"
"0097","The Eyes Of Beauty"
"0098","Increased Carry Weight from Stamina"
"0100","Ethereal Elven Overhaul"
"0101","Sexlab"
"0102","Revised Khajiit and Argonian Textures"
"0103","SoS Textures Patch CBBE"
"0110","btasqan Hawt HDT Physics 3.4.1.037"
"0118","Remodeled Armor for CBBE Bodyslide HDT"
"0142","SexLab Inflation Framework Patches"
"0143","XP32 Maximum Skeleton Extended"
"0144","FNIS_GENS"
"0145","Bodyslide_Gens"
"0146","SKSE_play_logs"

 

Load Order from Right side

Spoiler

# This file was automatically generated by Mod Organizer.
Skyrim.esm
Update.esm
Dawnguard.esm
HearthFires.esm
Dragonborn.esm
Unofficial Skyrim Legendary Edition Patch.esp
ZaZAnimationPack.esm
SexLab.esm
SexLabAroused.esm
Schlongs of Skyrim - Core.esm
CreatureFramework.esm
RSkyrimChildren.esm
hdtHighHeel.esm
HighResTexturePack01.esp
HighResTexturePack02.esp
HighResTexturePack03.esp
SkyUI.esp
RaceMenu.esp
RaceMenuPlugin.esp
UIExtensions.esp
RaceMenuMorphsCBBE.esp
SOSRaceMenu.esp
XPMSE.esp
SexLabTools.esp
SOS - VectorPlexus Muscular Addon.esp
FNIS.esp
MoreNastyCritters.esp
HentaiCreatures.esp
SLAnimLoader.esp
SexLabMatchMaker.esp
SOS - B3lisario UNP Addon.esp
EnhancedLightsandFX.esp
ELFX - Exteriors.esp
ELFXEnhancer.esp
Alternate Start - Live Another Life.esp
FNISspells.esp
HornyCreatures.esp
Remodeled Armor - Vanilla Replacer - Dawnguard.esp
Remodeled Armor - Vanilla Replacer - Dragonborn.esp
Remodeled Armor - Vanilla Replacer.esp
Purewaters.esp
ELFX - Weathers.esp
SMIM-Merged-All.esp
ABT - Faster Arrows Improved +100%.esp
ABT - Faster Bolts Improved +100%.esp
ABT - Increased Bolts Damage (Vanilla) +50%.esp
ethereal_elven_overhaul.esp
Immersive Weapons.esp
Schlongs of Skyrim.esp
ABT - Increased Progressive Damage (Vanilla) +50%.esp
ABT - Recover +25% Arrows and Bolts.esp
sr_FillHerUp.esp
sr_FillThemUp.esp
Apocalypse - The Spell Package.esp
WeightMorphs.esp
SCL.esp
DietBasedButt.esp
SexLab Inflation Framework.esp
SOS Female Schlongifier (No Schlong Addon by Erundil).esp
SOS - ERF Equipable Horse Penis.esp
SOS - ERF Horse Penis Addon.esp
VioLens.esp
dc-untamed-000.esp
dc-untamed-100-stfu-spriggan.esp
dc-untamed-100-stfu-wolf.esp
FloppySOS.esp
HallgarthAdditionalHair.esp
Glowing Vampire Eyes.esp
Glowing Eyes.esp
The Eyes Of Beauty - Elves Edition.esp
TheEyesOfBeauty.esp
StaminaCarryWeight_25.esp
RSChildren.esp
RSChildren Patch - USLEEP.esp
Chesko_WearableLantern.esp

 

I didn't bother to include a papyrus log since nothing odd happened.

 

Thank you all for the suggestions and help, but for now I'm going to write it off as me doing something stupid with installations, or NMM being odd. I'm going to do a full install of all the mods and start a new game. If it happens to occur after that, I'll get a papyrus log and see if that provides any more information. But for now, thanks again, and sorry this is currently no more supported than your garden variety ghost story.

[GenioMaestro]

Well.. the problem has been solved as you say, and appear a mod problem, imo, of course. Maybe a bad order or a collision. Thinking a bit more, it can be a problem in skeleton or animations or HDT, because sometimes my PC totally disapear by incorrect HDT equip and simply remove and re-equip make it visible again. But never happend me in followers because my follower not have HDT equip, only HDT body.

 

Good luck and fun in your Skyrim games.