Another CTD thread

[katcus]

I decided to start using skyrim special edition for playing through the storyline again and not modding the piss out of it and making it unstable, though that has proven to be difficult.. So far I have only 30 active mods and i'm running into issues : (

 

Currently I am stuck in dragons reach. If I try to leave it will ctd on the loading screen. I have tried teleporting outside of whiterun and the same thing happens. Any advice appreciated! 

 

Current load order:

 

Spoiler

GameMode=SkyrimSE

Skyrim.esm=1
Update.esm=1
Dawnguard.esm=1
HearthFires.esm=1
Dragonborn.esm=1
Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch.esp=1
ApachiiHair.esm=1
ClimatesOfTamriel.esm=1
SOSRaceMenu.esp=1
SexLabMatchMaker.esp=1
The Great Cities - Minor Cities and Towns.esp=1
Hothtrooper44_ArmorCompilation.esp=1
The Great City of Winterhold.esp=1
TheAmazingWorldOfBikiniArmor.esp=1
jwd-follower-m-nord-ragnar-1.esp=1
[SunJeong] Skimpy Modern.esp=1
Hothtrooper44_Armor_Ecksstra.esp=1
AmazingFollowerTweaks.esp=1
SPTDiverseGuardsSkyrimSE.esp=1
Apocalypse - Magic of Skyrim.esp=1
cheat room.esp=1
DiverseDragonsCollectionSE.esp=1
ClimatesOfTamriel-Interiors-Warm.esp=1
Immersive Citizens - AI Overhaul.esp=1
Immersive Patrols II.esp=1
Northern Bathhouses.esp=1
LrsamwaysExpandedSkyrimWeaponry.esp=1
SkyUI_SE.esp=1
SMIM-SE-Merged-All.esp=1
TerrainLodRedone.esp=1
WetandCold.esp=1
 

 

[Molokkx]

Just a quick (very quick) observation here, but you got Immersive Citizens (I do, too) and you appear to have mods that modify towns. Is one of them modifying Whiterun in ANY way, shape or form? If so, know that there's specific paths used by the A.I. to circulate around, if there's new stuff added, new terrain especially, then it can cause issues (not sure if it would just plain and simple crash the game, but seeing NPCs getting stuck, floating around, etc... now that you'd see happen).

 

Also did you clean your Master files? If any of the mods you have happen to use some reference IDs that weren't cleaned and are found in the default (uncleaned) Masters then that is bound to cause some major catastrophes, such as CTDs. It can never be recommended enough to clean master files. If you didn't do that BEFORE modding (this should always be the absolutely #1 step before even attempting to mod Skyrim in any way) then I highly recommend this guide:

 

https://bethesda.net/community/topic/31060/guide-manual-cleaning-skyrim-and-skyrim-se-master-files

 

Scroll up the first post and let the images of the guide load up. In case it's not the type of guide you'd want, then there's a bunch of good ones too on YouTube (one from Gopher as well, it dates back to a couple of years and was done for Oldrim but the principle remains the same; and from others as well that are more recent and were done for Skyrim SE).

 

Also, are you using Mod Organizer 2, or Vortex? I'd highly recommend MO2 (that's just personal tastes, and bias; it's my absolute go-to third party program to mod and organize everything for Skyrim). And, before I forget (well I forgot, I'm editing this lol) did you modify your Skyrim.ini and/or your SkyrimPrefs.ini? If so, re-build them just in case, to get everything by default for a fresh start (delete... or maybe back-up the ones you got, if you did modify anything; back-up only if of course you changed a lot of things and want to keep that intact) and use the Launcher to set your settings, then launch the game, it'll automatically re-create them and set things by default.

 

And side notes: (related to modifying settings in the .INI files), just don't change the uGridstoLoad setting, at all; not worth it and has been proven more than enough over the years to be known to cause issues (usually not right away, sometimes takes dozens of hours of accumulated play to start showing up; but once it does, you're screwed and nothing will ever save your current game). The game was plain and simple built with 5x5 grids loaded in mind by the devs from day one, no point to force the game into loading more than necessary or you'll miss entire scripted events that would load up further away than normal, and so on. It will just corrupt your game data and mess up with the flow of the game, especially outdoors (just mentioning this in case, just making sure everything can be as stable as possible... at least as stable as a Bethesda game can be; that alone could be talked about for the next decade).

[katcus]

Spoiler

23 hours ago, Molokkx said:

Just a quick (very quick) observation here, but you got Immersive Citizens (I do, too) and you appear to have mods that modify towns. Is one of them modifying Whiterun in ANY way, shape or form? If so, know that there's specific paths used by the A.I. to circulate around, if there's new stuff added, new terrain especially, then it can cause issues (not sure if it would just plain and simple crash the game, but seeing NPCs getting stuck, floating around, etc... now that you'd see happen).

 

Also did you clean your Master files? If any of the mods you have happen to use some reference IDs that weren't cleaned and are found in the default (uncleaned) Masters then that is bound to cause some major catastrophes, such as CTDs. It can never be recommended enough to clean master files. If you didn't do that BEFORE modding (this should always be the absolutely #1 step before even attempting to mod Skyrim in any way) then I highly recommend this guide:

 

https://bethesda.net/community/topic/31060/guide-manual-cleaning-skyrim-and-skyrim-se-master-files

 

Scroll up the first post and let the images of the guide load up. In case it's not the type of guide you'd want, then there's a bunch of good ones too on YouTube (one from Gopher as well, it dates back to a couple of years and was done for Oldrim but the principle remains the same; and from others as well that are more recent and were done for Skyrim SE).

 

Also, are you using Mod Organizer 2, or Vortex? I'd highly recommend MO2 (that's just personal tastes, and bias; it's my absolute go-to third party program to mod and organize everything for Skyrim). And, before I forget (well I forgot, I'm editing this lol) did you modify your Skyrim.ini and/or your SkyrimPrefs.ini? If so, re-build them just in case, to get everything by default for a fresh start (delete... or maybe back-up the ones you got, if you did modify anything; back-up only if of course you changed a lot of things and want to keep that intact) and use the Launcher to set your settings, then launch the game, it'll automatically re-create them and set things by default.

 

And side notes: (related to modifying settings in the .INI files), just don't change the uGridstoLoad setting, at all; not worth it and has been proven more than enough over the years to be known to cause issues (usually not right away, sometimes takes dozens of hours of accumulated play to start showing up; but once it does, you're screwed and nothing will ever save your current game). The game was plain and simple built with 5x5 grids loaded in mind by the devs from day one, no point to force the game into loading more than necessary or you'll miss entire scripted events that would load up further away than normal, and so on. It will just corrupt your game data and mess up with the flow of the game, especially outdoors (just mentioning this in case, just making sure everything can be as stable as possible... at least as stable as a Bethesda game can be; that alone could be talked about for the next decade).

 

 

I was actually about to run sseedit, but I got too impatient and wanted to play haha. I do have a mod that modifies towns, however whiterun is not one of them. Thanks for all the other tips as well I am actually still using nmm. Haven't bothered to switch over yet, trying to spend less time modding and fixing or learning how to mod or fix something and more time actually playing haha. 

 

EDIT: So I cleaned it up, however i am having the same issue. I went to an older save outside of whiterun, however anytime I try to fast travel it instantly crashes..

 

EDIT 2: So I tried a few more things like disabling auto save, removing all my saves, starting a new game, then putting them back, but nothing seems to work. In fact, when I started a new game, the carriage was glitched out and wouldnt move. I also keep getting the notification that my skse is out of date (despite me having JUST installed it and even loot says its fine), and then loverslab is telling me my skyrim is out of date. Ive disabled loverslab since I dont intend to use it. The game was running perfectly fine until i retrieved the dragon stone and went back to whiterun..

[Molokkx]

Well you don't * have to * switch from NMM to something else... but you have to lol. I mean really, you don't. It's up to you. But Mod Organizer (the original one for Oldrim, or MO2 for SE, either one) is a much better, much more powerful tool for modding Skyrim. However, it's not exactly 'beginner-friendly', it's more for the intermediate user... but I mean everyone needs to start somewhere. I myself knew next to nothing about Mod Organizer when I first used it (for Oldrim it was) back about 3 years ago. But thanks (in very large part) to Gopher's guides (on YouTube) I had the foundations dealt with, and from there I moved on to more 'advanced' usage of the program (thanks to innumerable forum guides from plenty different users, some were stickied, some not and could only be found in forgotten corners of years-old posts here and on other forums).

 

Now, about your case, here's the thing; wanting to play Skyrim (SE or Oldrim) "stable" is an achievable thing. But it has to be done extremely gently, and slowly. This... "engine", is like a very fragile fossil that's ready to break apart into plenty little pieces and dust at the slightest wrong move (especially Oldrim, but SE as well; although SE is superior for stability in my experience so far; but don't claim victory right away, SE, too, will gladly spit on your face if you dare looking at it the wrong way for one second).

 

I'm looking at the list of mods you have and I'm thinking "There's just no way you can start and test a fresh, and stable game with more than 10 mods installed." It's mostly an exaggeration on my part, more a manner of speech... but the gist is this: Start slowly, step by step. It IS the way to go with this game, period. There's no thousand ways to cut it. There's absolutely no way that - if you do have instability (and it is your case) - you'd be able to immediately pinpoint one (or more) culprit with 5, 10, 15 mods installed, just forget about it. The process of elimination just skyrockets. Unless obviously you happen to know exactly what you did last time and your CTDs "just started" since that last change, or that last mod, etc. Then sure, it's more doable.

 

==================

 

So what I recommend are the following steps (these are suggestions, you don't "have to" do any of the following):

 

1) If you want, restart ALL over again. Yes, do that, and you'll thank me later, believe me. However, obviously, do keep your mods. I'm just saying, re-install everything from scratch, fresh and with vanilla files. Just download Skyrim SE again, period.

 

And of course uninstall your current installation first, and then go and manually check to your installation folders (steam\steamapps\common\skyrim special edition) if the Skyrim SE folder itself is still there with possible left-overs from other stuff you might have added, like ENB, or other things; whatever it could be. If the folder is still there, then the automatic uninstallation process would have missed those things, so go and manually delete them. Do the same with old saved files (or back them up, if you think you want to keep them), and more importantly, do the same with any left over / missed .INI files (Skyrim.ini, SkyrimPrefs.ini), usually located in the "Documents" folders of your main drive.

 

2) If you did that, then from this point on let's keep going (just ignore all of this and the rest if you didn't do #1): Forget about Nexus Mod Manager, and learn how to use Mod Organizer 2 for Skyrim SE.

 

Believe me, I was very 'conservative' and hesitant to do that myself. I was a fervent, loyal NMM user for a long time. But we can learn things (I know, it's crazy). I essentially had to, simply because NMM is simply not powerful, complex, and efficient enough as a tool to really, deeply modify the game with such control over what you're doing and how you, yourself, want the game to run your things like (and in which order of ESPs and resources combined, and I'm skipping a LOT more here; gist is... NMM gets crit by 9000 in one punch by MO, or MO2; it's not even funny).

 

So go check around all the guides out there, be patient. And learn, re-read, re-watch, visualize what the author(s) do themselves, or just plain and simple repeat their steps, etc. In my case the one main source of (new) knowledge came from Gopher (what a wonderful person he is, love that guy's work on his channel). Check his multiple, in-depth, well-explained guides on how to mod Skyrim via Mod Organizer, it will help a lot I'm sure (notice though: his guides in particular mostly date back to Oldrim years, however, most of what he does in those guides have to be done anyway in MO2 for Skyrim SE; about 95% of what he does there still applies today the same way; differences being you'd have to do it on your SE files and just check if the names are the same, etc). Or, of course, if not for Gopher's "aging" guides, check for newer ones that were specifically made with SE in mind (they do exist; there's a bunch, you'll see them via Google searching as usual).

 

3) Now, let's assume you're ready for MO2. Good, stick with it. At this point then, the next first major step you have to do (you HAVE to do), is to clean your Master files. Just follow the link I gave you in my previous post, this covers this point. Learn to do that. Do that (and back-up your ORIGINAL non-cleaned, vanilla Masters first, obviously; that's just good practice and 'work ethic', create separate folders to different hard drives or locations of your choice, name them; categorize them if need be, whatever; but BACKUP your original files, always. ALWAYS; just thinking out loud here).

 

4) Alright so, you can operate in MO2 now? Good. You cleaned your Master files? Good!

 

Ok, so you mostly just want to "play" Skyrim, yeah? You don't want to go too crazy on mods, yeah? Ok, and more importantly; in and of itself is quite the ambitious thing: you want a STABLE Skyrim, yeah? Well then be prepared to do everything else slowly, because believe me, it pays off like you have to idea (this comes from me having my SE game with about 30 or so mods on my current saved game that has about 35 hours of play with ZERO crashes; It. Pays. Off., there's no other way around it).

 

At this point now, with your Master files cleaned, and good understanding of MO2 usage, you're actually ready to mod.

 

Start SLOWLY, and with FEW mods. Be Patient.

 

Go with the following mods (if you do want them obviously, if not ignore the ones you know you won't use):

 

- Unofficial Patch (pretty much essential)

- SkyUI (essential, period)

- SMIM

- Immersive Citizen

 

THAT'S IT. For now.

 

Seems too few? I know. It is. Deal with it! (by the way don't read this with a serious tone; I'm having fun here and laughing silently, it's very light-hearted in my mind; take any perceived seriousness with a grain of salt).

 

Now, in your case what's nice is that you had a bug (well, a CTD) in Whiterun. It's easily accessible early on in the game. You can EASILY (but requires patience) do a good ol' classic process of elimination that way. So, start slow, with a few mods. Go to Whiterun and try to put yourself in about the same conditions you know you were when you had your CTD and see if it still CTDs, if it's reproducible / repeatable.

 

If you have 'x' number of mods installed, you go there, try your conditions and  maybe it's going to be stable. If it is stable then KEEP it that way (I.E. keep your current mods that way, and the load order untouched; at least for now), and then ADD on top of that (as long as NONE of the mods you do add on top of your installation actually required a NEW game to ensure stability; obviously, that will have to be on your part to determine, by carefully reading all the provided documentation by the mod's author).

 

If it's still stable, then keep on adding on top of that saved game with a bit more mods, maybe even just ONE at a time (unless it's a very small, light mod and you know that it specifically wouldn't mess in any way shape or form with Whiterun or whatever it is in Whiterun or A.I. or terrain that could be messed up by said small mod).

 

Eventually, you might encounter the CTD again... OR, it will simply be entirely gone even though your installation then seems to be completely identical to the one you had before. If that's the case then it's because it might have been caused by Master files previously not having been cleaned, or also because you're using a much better tool like MO2 and everything is better... well.. organized (wow, amazing pun there) and the game engine now just wants to give you a big hug in return because you helped it cross the street by providing it with a walking stick (because it does need one; 'dat poor engine... jeebus).

 

5) I'd also recommend using LOOT, not necessarily to "apply" its recommended load order changes, but at least to just observe what it recommends you to do. When you use LOOT there's two things you can do. Either just look at the "re-arranged" list of mods that the program recommends you to use, or APPLY the re-arrangement in question without questioning anything about it. Do NOT do option #2. Never, EVER blindly use LOOT like that. It might simply screw things up (Load Order-wise) than anything else.

 

BUT, you can (and you should, really) just update LOOT's latest 'Masterlist' and then see what LOOT has to say about your 'current' (unchanged) order and mods list. What LOOT does do well is to let you know if there's any one of your .ESPs that are apparently missing (potentially-missed) updates and/or patches to be used in conjunction with other 'x, y and z' mods in your list. It actually happened to me for 2 or 3 mods (I.E. I download the 'main' mod file, install, go in the game and I see weird stuff happening; go back to LOOT, check it out, then LOOT tells me "hey man, you're not cool; you forgot that this mod up there requires a patch, go download it now! NOW!" (well, not quite like that but when it's warm and red-color coded text I tend to take it like an urgency, that's a good thing too).

 

So the thing is that you don't "have" to actually apply recommended changes to the load order, but you can at least see what it has to say.

 

And, that's the same thing with Wrye Bash.

 

==================

 

Now, ALL of the above is NOT an "obligation", as I said for a start. It's up to you. You CAN stay with Nexus Mod Manager. But I myself haven't been using it for Skyrim at all since maybe 4 years by now. I DO use it right now, however, but only for a VERY slightly modified near-vanilla Fallout 4 game, with something like 5 or 6 mods. For that sort of mods setup then yeah NMM is more than enough (but I still cleaned FO4's Master files anyway). The reason why I mention this is because if you do need more help to resolve your CTD issues while staying with NMM then I probably won't be the best guy around here to be able to help you with it. But of course I can (and I have) keep pointing at the basics that would have to be applied regardless of which tool you're using to organize your stuff.