massive script lag, dragonactorscript, and TERMINATED, oh my!

[Elizinator]

ive been trying to resist coming to the forums for this for a few days, since the advice on problems like this is nearly always "post your load order", followed by nothing. but im at my wit's and skill's end. this is the last attempt to salvage my game.

so the problem goes like this:

1: dragon attacks. this can happen for any reason: regular event; boss attack from serio's; spawned in from MCM or console. doesnt matter

2: as battle progresses, script lag increases. it never CTDs, script lag merely increases until the game is quite unplayable.

3: saves made during combat show dozens to hundreds to THOUSANDS of [TERMINATED] active scripts. they are all completely empty. every field is zeroed or null, it points nowhere.

4: same saves show an identical amount of suspended stacks of dragonactorscript with the OnLoad event. they all have the same unknown variable REF, though this changes every time the error occurs.

5: using the vale of this unknown variable in-game with help or prid or anything just gives an error. so that is where my search ends.

6: dragon corpses preserve the problem. stacks accumulate when dragons are around - dead or alive.

7: entering an interior zone instantly removes all TERMINATED scripts and suspended stacks. instantly and completely. they return immediately if i go back outside where the dragon/bones reside.

 

disabling features of dragon mods in-game produces no effect. moving the script itself from folders doesnt solve it.

 

This mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/37230?tab=files has others complaining of the same issue. the author continues to insist that 1: his mod cannot be responsible, and 2: people arent actually reporting the bug, when there are a dozen forum posts and a literal bug report of it. so no help there. i HAVE used this mod, since i had the dragon stalking glitch even with the old fix from a few years ago. enabling or disabling this mod also has no effect.

 

as far as dragon mods, i have serio's and KSDO2, with compatibility patches. suspended stacks notwithstanding, all the features of those mods work just fine.

Edited June 22, 2021 by Elizinator

[Elizinator]

also, to nobody's surprise, papyrus logs are no help at all. i was hoping theyd give me a hint toward some useful refid of something i could disable, but no. no errors related to the dragon script appear.

[Trickle]

It's been a while since I had this exact same problem. First, that mod you linked the Dragon Stalk "fixed" was the culprit. My advice is to kill it with dragon fire and salt the earth afterwards.  I got rid of it, cleaned my save and the problem with papyrus stack dumps were gone. I had thousands of them when I used that mod.

 

I am now using the excellent Dragon Combat Overhaul for SE which safely removes dead dragons after a period of time you set in the MCM. It is a nice compromise, but the occasional dragon will pop up within that time frame. Default is 24 hrs. Otherwise, the original Dragon Stalker mod by sevencardz worked fine for me, but as noted by tarlazo, some of the dragons do not respawn after you kill them the first time. This never bothered me because DCO throws as many dragons at you as you want. 

Edited June 22, 2021 by Trickle

[Elizinator]

has more or less worked,

looks like the cure - all those scripts to fix dragon stalking - are worse than the disease.