Black screen and freeze or CTD on animation start

[DJShamrock]

At my wits end and can't think of anything else to do but hope anyone out there can help me with this issue.

 

During one of my playthroughs suddenly when animating in a sex scene with any actor (creature, NPC, doesn't matter) I will enter a blackscreen and then freeze, or once in a while straight CTD. THIS DOES NOT AFFECT ANYTHING THAT ISN'T THE PLAYER. I have watched NPCs and other actors animate before my eyes just fine (using Hentai Creatures to initiate animation between a creature and NPC) so whatever the problem is it is specifically related to the Player Character.

 

I have tried rerunning FNIS, I have tried futzing with just about any mod in the MCM that could be altering animations. I have cleaned Sexlab and rebuild it. I have double and quintuple checked to make sure there are no inconsistencies in FNIS or XPMSE. The fact that I have not even removed or added any mods when this suddenly began to happen is... baffling to me.

 

This run is going on about 30 hours with no changes when this started happening- I first noticed it from Pheromones when actors would spawn in and as soon as they hooked to me and initiated animation, black screen and freeze. The thing I don't understand is that there shouldn't even be a blackscreen occurring during any of this. Hentai Creatures shouldn't be doing it, and neither should Estrus or the default Sexlab 'irresistable" spell links. I just don't know anymore.

 

No load order changes have happened since it was performing before (played for about 10 hrs one day and the next day within... 30 minutes it started doing this) and no mods added or removed since then either. Someone else (on a post I replied to below this one) seemed to have the exact same issue one year ago but that thread died and I'm left wondering with no answers. Anyone have any ideas? 

[Roadrage512]

I just started having this problem. Did you ever find a solution?

[w234aew]

Started having this problem in SE, did either of you find a solution?

[coolfreaky]

it might be related to updates : the video card and also dotnet  and  VC redist .

[w234aew]

Update: I tried triggering animations via sexlab with several different methods (debug spell, Sexlab Solutions SE, PSQ SE feed), in both an interior cell and outside, tried re-running FNIS, even switching to FNIS XXL. I'm using Sexlab Utility Plus by osmelMC, but I uninstalled it and it still happened. Seems to happen after either a certain in-world time or a certain PSQ xp amount (~15000 XP), which I think might have to do with the number of animations triggered. I grabbed papyrus logs of the event, if anyone can help I'd appreciate it. 

Papyrus.1.log Papyrus.2.log Papyrus.0.log SexLabDebug.1.log SexLabDebug.2.log SexLabDebug.0.log

[coolfreaky]

it looks like it is an MCM setting ; open sexlab MCM and look at the last option rebuilt and clean see if sexlab statut is enabled .

[w234aew]

Tried "rebuild and clean", and repaired VC Redlist (I think I did that right). Did you mean sexlab status? It still didn't fix it.

[coolfreaky]

look if in the status it is disabled or enabled

 

[w234aew]

Yeah it was definitely enabled, it's not the first time/character this bug has happened with either. It could be any number of other things, I use @osmelmc's Sexlab Utility Plus, PlayerSuccubusQuest SE, and Sexlab Hormones. At first I thought it might have been SD+ trying to send me to the dream realm from that mod or another, so I uninstalled a bunch of those mods, but no dice, still happened. The actual context is that a lot of the animation priming messages fire (in command line), but once the "Animation: (Named animation, ex. Leito Missionary)" message shows in the upper left corner, the game freezes. The PSQ Status bar, Compass bar, and the animation message are still visible, but all of the rendered parts of the world (cell, characters, the lot) are replaced with a black background. Would the full load order help?

[OsmelMC]

Some Mod like "Fade To Black" do the black screen intentionally on some points of the SexLab Animation to hide the teleport transition.

 

The "SexLab Utility Plus" have similar option on the "Animation Settings" page on the SexLab MCM. Set "Fade" option as None if give you some problem.

[coolfreaky]

yes a Load Order would be cool  !  (and as i do not have a lot of experience with mods , members that do have might pop up and point on mods ) 

 

or you have a bad animation file ( converted or not ? ) or you have a mod that gives trouble .

[w234aew]

I believe I set fade to none, but the thing is it "Fades" and the game freezes, the animation message never goes away. It's not a "True" CTD as the game window stays open, but the game is clearly frozen. I've left it like that for 10mins before and nothing happens.

 

As for load order, here it is.

PluginsList.txt

[coolfreaky]

back to square 1 did you update dotnet , vc redist , video card ?   second did you update JContainer , and papyrus utilities ?

 

third did you touch skyrim.ini , skyrimPrefs.ini ?            have you emb or and bethini  ?

 

( sorry for all those questions but freezing like this is generaly an update of c++ and or video card and sometimes a bad settings of ini .)

[w234aew]

No update for my video card in a while, repairing .NET Framework and libraries didn't change the problem. IDK what the latest Jcontainers is, but I think it was up to date when I uninstalled SD+ to check a few weeks ago. I do run ENB in SE, but no BethINI tweaks, only tweaks to Skyrim/SkyrimPrefs were the essential ones for getting ENBs working.

 

EDIT: My guess? PSQ SE. Didn't happen with all those mods installed EXCEPT when I installed Hormones, Dialogues, and PSQ. Since I haven't heard any other complaints about Hormones/Dialogues of this sort, that's my guess. Also, I use MFG Fix, Actor Limit Fix, and Animation Limit Fix.

[Izark]

Ok. so I had the same problem for no reason. Tried toggling "Disable Scaling / CTD Fix" and "Undress Animation" and it is fixed.

UPD: Single person animations work fine, but to fix the issue you have to force NPC to trigger animation like ABMM or take control over NPC animation by pressing SexLab target key (N ny default on them).

[Drakkon420]

This has become a problem with me too.  It's seemingly after you hit a certain XP, any time before you hit that xp cap it works fine.  But once you hit around lvl 25-30 it tends to glitch out fully to where the only way to exit or even reset the game is a full re-log of your computer.  I run a heavy modded SE, so rebuilding characters when this happens can be a pain getting all the mods reset.  So if anyone can find a fix it would be great.  This load order might help shed some light.  

loadorder.txt

[Shadowczar]

I was having the same problem. On a whim, after trying many other solutions that wouldn't resolve this CTD or freeze (it would do one or another when an animation involving the PC was supposed to begin) I tried showracemenu in console. Changed sex to male then back again then hit done. Now animations are working again.

Update: it began happening again. showracemenu trick didn't help this time. Am trying to see what else I might have done that temporarily made things work again.

[Not a prisoner]

Following this thread. I've just run into the same issue today. Level 27 PC and everything fine before, but now my game freezes on animation start and I have to use Task Manager to close it. Nothing in my modlist has changed since the last time animations were working.

[anjenthedog]

1)  FWIW, both SL and Flower Girls have settings related to fade-to-black (used to hide transitional character setup movements).  Try turning them both off temporarily, making a new save, reloading (ideally from game boot up) 

 

2) sometimes a stall at fade-to-black is indicative of a breakdown in scripting (although you'd never know since you can't see jack and end up having to  terminate skyrim using taskmanager).  By doing step #1, you may reveal what I did at one time (accidentally), which was a t-pose issue caused by a mod conflict unrelated to SL/etc  but still screwing with the script engine or SKSE or whatever. Granted you may not,  but it might be worth a look if you're running into a brick wall.

3) With the release of SKSE64 2.0.19, if you happened to have just updated SKSE64 recently, there may be a mod in your modlist that hasn't been updated and needs to be (not all do but some afaik still do require "manual" updating) 

 

4) sometimes saves get corrupted. Bites but there it is, Sometimes you just have to step back a save or two

[Lastbdsm]

I have the same problem but mine is kinda unique.
CTD happen also when aggro,
and it happened only with MALE MC, Female isnt
Starting fresh didnt help.

Already created similar thread

[Not a prisoner]

I rewound a couple of days Skyrim time to a point where I knew anims worked, then played forwards again and all works fine now. No idea lol.

When I finally finish this epic game, the sense of achievement from completing the adventure will be nothing compared to the feeling of satisfaction from having a playthough that makes it to the end without breaking. If it ever happens.

[CABN3TD00R]

I reinstalled fnis behavior xxl, fnis creature pack, and installed fnis spells. I realized that I didn't have the NexusCareTaker version, don't know what's different but I installed it anyway. I uninstalled fnis pcea2 and ran fnis, started up the game and went to my last save. instead of it going to a black screen and freezing it CTD, the only time when that is actually good sign. So I deleted that save and went back to an earlier save and now it's working just fine for me.

(it doesn't happen at a higher level because I'm only level 6)

my guess is that it was an fnis problem.

[dtronski]

I had the same problem.  The good news is that I saved often.  The bad news is that the issue. for me at least, was caused by a bad save due to another mod.  In my case, Helgen reborn was the culprit.  Not sure how, but every time progress through the Helgen Reborn quest lines, after the rescue quest, sexlab animation will cause black screen freezes.   It never fail....So I'm leaving the Helgen quest lines alone for now.  Hopefully this bit of info help someone.

[skippyjoe]

I'm having the same issue, when i run fnis and turn the overwrite files into a mod everybody goes t pose, when I delete the overwrite files with the new meshes andscripts it runs fine but CTD on animation start. So i know its an issue with something fnis is generating i just dont know how to narrow it down.

[bugga1]

[ANSWER]

Since everyone seems to have different but the same problems, I'll give my input. After a lot of black screen then freezing, rebuilding sexlab and every other known possible answer to this problem, I've concluded, for me at least, that the problem seems to be when you enter any interior house or building in whiterun (have not tested any other cities other then riften). It seems that when entering one of these buildings that it messes with something that will cause the black screen then freeze to ctd when any sl animation starts. This wil happen no mater if you leave the building upon entering or even fast traveling away. The only fix I could figure out was to load a save before I entered the building. It almost seems to be random if the game would mess up or not since I was able to complete the first quest that required me to enter dragonsreach. It only seems to be whiterun at the moment because I'm free to do whatever I want in riften (fav city).

 

Edit

the only way I've found to fix it was to create a new save. Save cleaner might work?

Edited September 14, 2021 by xwolfyos