Game & save crashes within a specific area

[kevintheradioguy]

Now, this is somewhat new to me. I am experiencing constant crashes within a specific area (not an instance location! specifically a certain outdoor area - roughly a circle with a diameter that starts a bit south of Narzulbur - right outside the stronghold walls; and ends somewhat north of Stony Creek Cave) in the game. Shortly after walking into it, perhaps a minute in, the game crashes, and if I made a save within this area it crashes on the load.

 

At first I thought that might have been some very heavy random encounter (many SL mods, such as Defeat, work weirdly in mass battles, and Cutting Room Floor I have often creates large battles on the random encounter points), so I just left, played for a little bit, for then to return. The problem, however, stayed. I did it again - walk away, take my time, return - and it happened again. I have circled around the area, trying to determine where - quite literally - the problem lies, and it seems this is this area (downloaded a screencap from the web - in case you have questions why there are markers in it when the game crashes constantly):

 

 

What I tried to do:

- uninstalling some mods that influence wildlife behaviour;

- managing the load order (although I am sure I am still far from perfect in it);

- cleaning the save using SaveTool;

- bluntly avoiding the region in case it's a random encounter problem;

- installing ENB and anti-crash/freezing mods;

- looking for other areas in game with the same problem and not finding any thus far.

 

What I didn't try to do, though I should have:

- deactivating every mod and try to load in hopes it'll work, because look at how many are there!

 

What absolutely influences this area:

- Atlas Map Markers;

- Cutting Room Floor (the only reason I'm even there is because of its quest for finding it's chief ladyfriend in that area added by the mod);

- Unofficial LE Patch;

- Immersive Creatures that are plenty in this area (and maybe Aroused Creatures as an extension);

- Texture/mesh replacers which sometimes, but not often, glitch and won't load the textures, but that's hardly a reason - yet, worth a mention.

 

Before I get to the only thing I didn't try, I'd really appreciate if any of the local experts could take a look and if not pinpoint the exact problem (which I think is nearly impossible on its own), then at least narrow down the possible problematic mods so I don't go through every single one in an attempt to fix it. Here is the papyrus log during the crash while entering the area, this one is the papyrus log during the crash on load, and here is the load order, which I most certainly fucked up in a few instances, of course, as you often do.

 

Thank you to anyone taking their time to go through this!

 

edit: fixed the words

[Psalam]

Spoiler

10 hours ago, kevintheradioguy said:

Now, this is somewhat new to me. I am experiencing constant crashes within a specific area (not an instance location! specifically a certain outdoor area - roughly a circle with a diameter that starts a bit south of Narzulbur - right outside the stronghold walls; and ends somewhat north of Stony Creek Cave) in the game. Shortly after walking into it, perhaps a minute in, the game crashes, and if I made a save within this area it crashes on the load.

 

At first I thought that might have been some very heavy random encounter (many SL mods, such as Defeat, work weirdly in mass battles, and Cutting Room Floor I have often creates large battles on the random encounter points), so I just left, played for a little bit, for then to return. The problem, however, stayed. I did it again - walk away, take my time, return - and it happened again. I have circled around the area, trying to determine where - quite literally - the problem lies, and it seems this is this area (downloaded a screencap from the web - in case you have questions why there are markers in it when the game crashes constantly):

 

 

What I tried to do:

- uninstalling some mods that influence wildlife behaviour;

- managing the load order (although I am sure I am still far from perfect in it);

- cleaning the save using SaveTool;

- bluntly avoiding the region in case it's a random encounter problem;

- installing ENB and anti-crash/freezing mods;

- looking for other areas in game with the same problem and not finding any thus far.

 

What I didn't try to do, though I should have:

- deactivating every mod and try to load in hopes it'll work, because look at how many are there!

 

What absolutely influences this area:

- Atlas Map Markers;

- Cutting Room Floor (the only reason I'm even there is because of its quest for finding it's chief ladyfriend in that area added by the mod);

- Unofficial LE Patch;

- Immersive Creatures that are plenty in this area (and maybe Aroused Creatures as an extension);

- Texture/mesh replacers which sometimes, but not often, glitch and won't load the textures, but that's hardly a reason - yet, worth a mention.

 

Before I get to the only thing I didn't try, I'd really appreciate if any of the local experts could take a look and if not pinpoint the exact problem (which I think is nearly impossible on its own), then at least narrow down the possible problematic mods so I don't go through every single one in an attempt to fix it. Here is the papyrus log during the crash while entering the area, this one is the papyrus log during the crash on load, and here is the load order, which I most certainly fucked up in a few instances, of course, as you often do.

 

Thank you to anyone taking their time to go through this!

 

edit: fixed the words

 

 

I claim no special expertise but I would be happy to look at your material BUT I only look at files that are posted directly onto the site (that is, files I don't need to open they are already open and preferably in spoilers). I mean no offense but this is a matter of basic computer security. So as to be clear, this means that I won't open files on a third party site either (no matter how secure you feel that they might be). My experience is that most other people who check these threads feel the same way.

[GenioMaestro]

If your CTD is always is the same location normally is caused by a mod making bad things.

 

First, make a test in a NEW GAME for discard a problem in the savegame.

You have Alternate Start, get the house in Riften or Windhelm and run fast to the problematic location.

If you NOT have the problem the CTD is caused by the savegame.

If your game make CTD is a problem in a mod.

 

If the problemis in a mod, normaly is related to mods that change the specif location, for excample, a city overhaul or a mod that add npc to that location, but can be ANY other mod that alter ilumination, climatology, terrain, vegetation. Can be an unupdated mod or a collision with another mod, a faulting compatibily patch or a load order problem.

The only real way for locate it is disable mods and make test until locate the problem. Disable half of yours mods, start a NEW GAME and run fast to the location. If you get CTD disable more mods. If you not get CTD add mods in group 5-10 until locate the offending mod.

 

If the problem is in the savegame, try clean it with ReSaver. If the problem persist, is a corrupted savegame. Try load a OLD savegame from 1 week ago, or 2 if need, and look if you have the problem. 

[Grey Cloud]

You could also try doing a 'coc' to somewhere within the problem area and see if can exit the area.

[kevintheradioguy]

8 hours ago, Psalam said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

I claim no special expertise but I would be happy to look at your material BUT I only look at files that are posted directly onto the site (that is, files I don't need to open they are already open and preferably in spoilers). I mean no offense but this is a matter of basic computer security. So as to be clear, this means that I won't open files on a third party site either (no matter how secure you feel that they might be). My experience is that most other people who check these threads feel the same way.

They are posted on this site. Those are attatchments to the post, mate ?

(save for links to nexus mods, but they are fairly known and don't really need viewing)

 

4 hours ago, GenioMaestro said:

If your CTD is always is the same location normally is caused by a mod making bad things.

 

First, make a test in a NEW GAME for discard a problem in the savegame.

You have Alternate Start, get the house in Riften or Windhelm and run fast to the problematic location.

If you NOT have the problem the CTD is caused by the savegame.

If your game make CTD is a problem in a mod.

 

If the problemis in a mod, normaly is related to mods that change the specif location, for excample, a city overhaul or a mod that add npc to that location, but can be ANY other mod that alter ilumination, climatology, terrain, vegetation. Can be an unupdated mod or a collision with another mod, a faulting compatibily patch or a load order problem.

The only real way for locate it is disable mods and make test until locate the problem. Disable half of yours mods, start a NEW GAME and run fast to the location. If you get CTD disable more mods. If you not get CTD add mods in group 5-10 until locate the offending mod.

 

If the problem is in the savegame, try clean it with ReSaver. If the problem persist, is a corrupted savegame. Try load a OLD savegame from 1 week ago, or 2 if need, and look if you have the problem. 

Thanks, mate, I'll try that out. My current theory is that it's Cutting Room Floor or Atlas Map Markers, since remeshes or retextures are not exclusive to that location, and should've crashed the game in many more outdoor locations, but they don't. I'm pretty far into the story, and most of the areas were visited by now.

 

4 hours ago, Grey Cloud said:

You could also try doing a 'coc' to somewhere within the problem area and see if can exit the area.

Did that for a few caves in the area. It crashes after a few seconds, unfortunately.

[Grey Cloud]

8 minutes ago, kevintheradioguy said:

Cutting Room Floor or Atlas Map Markers

I meant to say in my previous post that Cutting Room Floor is the only one of those mods you mentioned which I don't use. I actually use these two Atlas mods:

Atlas Map Markers - Legendary Update-74045-2-0 and Atlas Map Markers v1-7 Complete-14976-1-7.

 

[kevintheradioguy]

7 hours ago, GenioMaestro said:

 

First, make a test in a NEW GAME for discard a problem in the savegame.

You have Alternate Start, get the house in Riften or Windhelm and run fast to the problematic location.

If you NOT have the problem the CTD is caused by the savegame.

If your game make CTD is a problem in a mod.

Okay, so, thanks to you, I could determine that, indeed, this is a problem of a save file. Perhaps, reliant on a quest taken.

That being said, I tried ReSave, which looks much more comfortable of a cleaning tool than SaveTool I used - than you for that... but it didn't help. However, what I did not do, was removing non-existent form instances, as I am not sure how to prevent mods breaking in doing so, and the manuals I've read thus far don't seem to explain how to, and merely warn that this might be the case.

 

Honestly, never could've taken the hold of Bethesda's scripting ?

[GenioMaestro]

Some times the savegame stored bad things. Is a big file, can have 15mb of info, and normally the game manage it perfectly, but sometimes... puf...

 

As i said, you can try load a OLD savegame and look if not have the problem stored. The cleaners not repair damaged savegames. When a savegame go corrupt you must discard it.

 

One of the golden rules of Skyrim say: If your game make strange things and not works as expected NEVER save the game. Load it and try again. Is better repeat a mision than the entire game.

[kevintheradioguy]

18 minutes ago, GenioMaestro said:

 If your game make strange things and not works as expected NEVER save the game. Load it and try again. Is better repeat a mision than the entire game.

I'm afraid this is the same thing for me at this point. It's one of the earliest places I visited XD That's why I'm trying to find the exact problem and see if I can fix it.

Ah, well, thanks for the help!

[kevintheradioguy]

That being said, thanks to the cheats, I just narrowed the area more. It seems to be tied with a few map markers in the area. More specifically - the two caves in it. It seems whenever I approach to a distance the map marker should activate whether them, or something that is near it and whose LOS/aggro-radius I trigger, it creashes.

[GenioMaestro]

22 minutes ago, kevintheradioguy said:

I'm afraid this is the same thing for me at this point. It's one of the earliest places I visited XD That's why I'm trying to find the exact problem and see if I can fix it.

Ah, well, thanks for the help!

Let's see if I clarify it ... You mean it's happening again ???

That is, you have started a new game, you have visited the area and there is no CTD.

But, you save the game, you read it and you have CTD ???

If this happens to you is a problem in a mod. It happened to me with Maid II Deception. In the missions of the tower of the magic, there are some centurions who are recharged with sprigrans. If one of the sprigans fails the recharge causes a failure in the save and when I read it, makes me CTD ALWAYS.

 

If what you ask is WHY it has happened to you, then I have already told you. It can be a bug in a mod that stores something bad or a random and punctual failure when the game is stored.

[GenioMaestro]

5 minutes ago, kevintheradioguy said:

That being said, thanks to the cheats, I just narrowed the area more. It seems to be tied with a few map markers in the area. More specifically - the two caves in it. It seems whenever I approach to a distance the map marker should activate whether them, or something that is near it and whose LOS/aggro-radius I trigger, it creashes.

That seems a problem in the Atlas Map Marker, as Grey Cloud said.

And similar to the problem that i had.

Try remove Atlas Map Marker and test again. 

[Grey Cloud]

9 minutes ago, kevintheradioguy said:

It seems whenever I approach to a distance the map marker

If you mean the Atlas mapmarker then have you tried changing the distance in the MCM?

Post the name of the two caves and I'll visit them tomorrow. Give me a starting location and the route you take. Or we can swap Atlas MCM settings.

[kevintheradioguy]

2 minutes ago, GenioMaestro said:

Let's see if I clarify it ... You mean it's happening again ???

No, I think I worded that weirdly. I absolutely agree that restarting a mission is better than restarting the whole game, and just tried to say that this bug was encountered so early in the game that even if loading an earlier save - prior the buggy mission - was possible, it would be like restarting the entire game anyway.

As in, this bug appeared when I was on such low levels, that reverting saves is basically the same as starting the new game on its own. That mission was around the first dozen(?) I took, and then encountered the bug, decided it was just behavioural crash* based on past experience, and decided to go through faction quests instead. Levelled up 30 levels, and decided to retry. Which is a real pity, indeed.

 

Concerning the crash, I made a random character, coc-ed to the nearest location to that buggy circle, travelled into and around it, and it was all fine. So, yeah, that's a problem of a specific character with a specific save, that has no save games prior to encountering that bug (unless we speak the very beginning in Alternate Start prison, which is repeating the entire game).

 

*as in, sometimes within large battles added by Immersive Creatures and Cutting Room Floor, where around twenty Imperal Soldiers fight around twenty Stormcloak soldiers, and some SL mods try to kick in, things might crash. I don't really mind it, as it's absolutely my own fault that they try to start a dozen scenes at the same time, and he game cannot process this.

[kevintheradioguy]

24 minutes ago, Grey Cloud said:

If you mean the Atlas mapmarker then have you tried changing the distance in the MCM?

Post the name of the two caves and I'll visit them tomorrow. Give me a starting location and the route you take. Or we can swap Atlas MCM settings.

I am not saying it's 100% Atlas's fault, as one of the crashes is near a vanilla cave... but roughly it's like this:

 

I start at Narzulbur, get out of the gates, walk around the fence to my left, and go down the rocky slope. I see a greyed out icon of Cragswallow Slope appear, and think "cool, a cave - I want to fuck it up", and around the shaded area, when the icon is about to light up, the crash appears.

Another variant is a start at Eastmarch Imperal Camp, and walk North of it, around the slopes, in the direction to Mzulft. There is some new atlas marker there, and again, before it can light up, the game crashes (once more - shaded area on the bottom).

Originally, I was looking for a camp that is roughly where the blue circle is, and Cutting Room's Floor NPC, Uglarz is. As it turned out, when I just cocked to her ID, the camp can be visited and works with no crashes.

I am going to test with no AMM right now, however, I did reinstall it in an attempt to get rid of the bug to no avail.

 

edit: yeah, looks like it reproduces

[GenioMaestro]

5 minutes ago, kevintheradioguy said:

I am not saying it's 100% Atlas's fault, as one of the crashes is near a vanilla cave... but roughly it's like this:

 

I start at Narzulbur, get out of the gates, walk around the fence to my left, and go down the rocky slope. I see a greyed out icon of Cragswallow Slope appear, and think "cool, a cave - I want to fuck it up", and around the shaded area, when the icon is about to light up, the crash appears.

This happend in a NEW GAME???

17 minutes ago, kevintheradioguy said:

Concerning the crash, I made a random character, coc-ed to the nearest location to that buggy circle, travelled into and around it, and it was all fine. So, yeah, that's a problem of a specific character with a specific save, that has no save games prior to encountering that bug (unless we speak the very beginning in Alternate Start prison, which is repeating the entire game).

I understand all works good in a new game...

 

Maybe you are triying recover your damaged savegame???

Then, you NEED ReSaver.... I explain... If you have a problem similar to mine, bad data stored in the savegame caused by a problem in a mod, when you disable/remove the mod the STORED data are in the savegame and probably the game make CTD when load/use it.

You must disable/remove the mod, open the game, load your savegame AND SAVE IT AGAIN.

Then, clean the NEW save with ReSaver and load the cleaned save.

[kevintheradioguy]

50 minutes ago, GenioMaestro said:

This happend in a NEW GAME???

No, this is what happens in an old one, when I encountered the problem. New one was fine thus far.

 

52 minutes ago, GenioMaestro said:

If you have a problem similar to mine, bad data stored in the savegame caused by a problem in a mod, when you disable/remove the mod the STORED data are in the savegame and probably the game make CTD when load/use it.

For that I need to determine what mod specifically crashes the game. I have around eighty of them, and disabling one after the other and doing this all over again is... well, not impossible per se, but sure as hell time-consuming af. As well as then restoring the settings among the mods that cannot export and then import data to make it faster. So, I'm trying to determine which mod is to blame, and go from there...

Thus far AMM is the biggest suspect, which honestly surprises me to end, as... how? (but then again, I tried scripting with CK only once, saw how it was done there, and noped the fuck out, so maybe AMM makes perfect sense)

[GenioMaestro]

8 minutes ago, kevintheradioguy said:

...

For that i write my previous message.... but appear you not understand...

 

The ONLY way for know what is the problematic mod is disable mods, open the game, save it, clean the new save, load the cleaned save and try enter the location. Of course, this is time consuming but is the only way.

 

Next, i say: disable mods, open the game, save it, clean the new save, load the cleaned save

Because only disable the mod is not enougth.

When you disable/remove a mod the game not load the mod and theorically not load the stored data related to disabled mods. But that is in theory. Really the bad information remain stored in the savegame and, if you not clean the save, the game can load that bad info and give you the same CTD. 

The only way for be sure the bad info is removed is CLEAN THE SAVEGAME each time you change the mods.

[Grey Cloud]

I didn't mean it was AMM. I've used that without problems for over a year.

Anyway as luck would have it, I was on the main road just south of Morthal with my 34 followers so I parked them up and fast travelled to Kynsegrove on my own.

Ran up the hill from there to the dragon mound then E to Narzulbur and on to Cragwallow. No problems anywhere.

I should add that at Cragwallow there was 3 wolves attacking something, the Daedra worshipper was taking on a troll(?) with spells and a sabrecat wondered in.

 

I've just exited Cragwallow and am going to try the area to the W of the road before heading down to the Eastmarch Imperial Camp.

 

Do you use SMIM?

[Khajiirah]

Did you make sure that your Skyrim/SKSE has enugh Memory?

 

I had crashes at the same location, also near riverwood and also common crashes without any reason.

 

The Problem was my Allowcated Memory was full, or something like that, i took a look at "MemoryBlogsLog" also at "GamerPoets" Youtube Video for this.

 

Since this the CTD and crashes all where gone, and i did play skyrim with like 1500 Mods, (Most merged).

 

Also i did use XPMSE Skeleton and i used the "Randomized NPC Styles" option.

 

This made my Savegames script heavy, i had savegames with 50 or 120 MB!

 

After reinstalling XPMSE without the "Randomized NPC Styles" options, it was much better, also loading savegames was faster and for sure, less HDD space was used.

 

Hope it helps anyhow,

Greetings,

- Khajii.

[Grey Cloud]

Part two.

Left Cragwallow and ran* to and around the eastern side of the sulphur marsh without problems. Ran down the road towards Riften and called in a couple of places I'd missed when I was in the area previously. Can't for the life of me find the Imperial Camp and the uesp.wiki map isn't working for some reason. I've basically run down the eastern side of the map following the mountains and looped around behind Riften and am now at Snow-Shod Farm.

* I generally run everywhere in my game.

 

I encountered all sorts of SIC creatures from foxes to Ancient Glass Golems and saw off some OBIS bandits but never had any problems.

 

Just had a look at your plug-in list and a couple of things which pop out. First you are using an old version of MNC, you should update to the latest SLAL version. And the one which I thought might be relevant until I realised I am using it myself: Vivid Landscapes. Doh! Only been using it for a few weeks but I've been all around the map in this game without problems. Not overly impressed with the visual but no problems as such.

 

Had a look at my AMM MCM settings and it's mostly default with some things disabled.

[Psalam]

My preferred method of getting to the Imperial Camp is to start at the entrance of Stony Creek Cave and go up the slope to the right (north). It's a difficult and slightly rambling climb but it's the most direct method of which I am aware.

[Grey Cloud]

3 hours ago, Psalam said:

entrance of Stony Creek Cave and go up the slope to the right (north).

Ah yes. SCC is where I fought the 3 bandits who were guarding the outside. One came at me down the path, archer stayed by the door and one disappeared though his red dot was still on the radar. So after I killed the archer I hopped down the cliffside looking for him rather than returning to the main path. Didn't find him and carried on. Now this has just made me remember something I mentioned in a post in another thread about people getting stuck inside the mesh. Hmmn.

 

EDIT: Just checked and I was trying Tamriel Reloaded when I was getting bandits stuck in meshes.

 

EDIT 2: SCC is nowhere near where I fought the bandits and the reason I couldn't find the camp was because I was looking far too far south. I think it was Fallowstone Cave with the bandits.

[kevintheradioguy]

21 hours ago, GenioMaestro said:

The ONLY way for know what is the problematic mod is disable mods, open the game, save it, clean the new save, load the cleaned save and try enter the location. Of course, this is time consuming but is the only way.

So in the end it comes down to what I wanted to narrow a few: cleaning the entire 80 mods. Oh boy. I laugh nervously by the mere thought of it ?

 

9 hours ago, Grey Cloud said:

Do you use SMIM?

Absolutely. I have attached the mod list to the initial message, if that helps.

 

9 hours ago, Khajiirah said:

Did you make sure that your Skyrim/SKSE has enugh Memory?

Yes, it does. Much more than it should have, as the matter of fact, just in case. Thank you for the tip tho.

 

 

New version is that it has something to do with orc strongholds, as after this extensive testing after the tread start, I experience CPDs usually when I enter/leave a stronghold. The place where the cave should've been highlighted is also where most of the stronghold dwellers should be cut from the cell, and the area below is where AI overhaul should send them for hunting. It tipped me after I accidentally travelled to another stronghold, mixing up their names, and crashed, and now it's repeatable with both strongholds.

[yatol]

45 minutes ago, kevintheradioguy said:

So in the end it comes down to what I wanted to narrow a few: cleaning the entire 80 mods. Oh boy. I laugh nervously by the mere thought of it ?

 

forget that bullshit...

 

search mzult in google, coc there from main menu, and if you ctd, it's easy to fix

just reload the game with half the load order, coc there again, and repeat until ctd disappear, then enable back half of what was disabled

then either you get rid of that esp, either you fix whatever problem it is (2 mod that add something to the same place that edit the same navmesh and you need a patch, a mod that give a custom armor that suck to a npc, something that is always done so easy to find)

 

if you no longer ctd, the ctd was put in your save, and you are in deep shit

there's the id of the problem in the crash dump nobody try to understand, just type that in tesedit and that's what you have to fix (if that can be fixed, since you can't edit your save in tesedit)