Trying to track down a reoccuring CTD

[slvsaris]

I have been trying to figure this one out for a few months now.  At one point the game seemed fine.  The game would at least not disappear.  Used to be that when it crashed it stopped responding and left a log in the overwrite folder of MO2.  Now it just goes away.  I have a suspicion that maybe a skse plugin might be causing this.  It does not seem to happen while staying to interiors (as far as I remember anyway), however, if I walk around in the exterior cells long enough it CTDs.  Really, I think the CTD just kinda appears to be random when in exterior cells.

 

Here is my game setup:

https://modwat.ch/u/slvsaris

 

Attached is one of the latest crash dumps.

 

Here are my system specs:

 

Operating System
    Windows 7 Professional 64-bit SP1
CPU
    Intel Core i7 950 @ 3.07GHz    66 °C
    Bloomfield 45nm Technology
RAM
    24.0GB Triple-Channel DDR3 @ 534MHz (8-8-8-20)
Motherboard
    ASUSTeK Computer INC. P6X58D PREMIUM (LGA1366)
Graphics
    LG QHD (1920x1080@120Hz)
    8192MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (PNY)
Game Storage
    931GB Crucial CT1000MX500SSD1 ATA Device (SATA (SSD))

 

 

EDIT: Additional information.

 

Not a long term save, the crash log is from a newly started save.

 

Using the memory management from Crash Fixes.

 

Setup has been through BethINI and LOOT.  Conflict resolution patch, and has a few custom merged mod groups.

 

Edit 2:

 

Added my last Papyrus log just for fun.
 

 

 

crash_2021_10_16_16_08_1.log

Papyrus.0.log

[donttouchmethere]

1 hour ago, slvsaris said:

Really, I think the CTD just kinda appears to be random when in exterior cells.

Maybe messed up skyrim.ini settings? (ugrids, viewrange, grass settings...) => BethINI ftw!

How do you manage RAM/VRAM for Skyrim? I see you followed the STEP guide?

 

1 hour ago, slvsaris said:

I have a suspicion that maybe a skse plugin might be causing this.

hard to see if only the LO is posted

 

Random CTD in exterior cells:

Can also happen if:

• courier tries to find you but something prevents him to do his job (maybe leave interior cell and after changing to exterior cell wait one hour)
• a dragon should have spawned but failed to do so
• a dragon got shot down but never got killed and now is laying around somewhere and prevents other dragons to spawn
• a quest NPC should have spawned, but never did
• broken creature spawns (maybe creatures that only spawn in higher lvls, so they weren't an issue before)
• POP bounty hunters try to spawn (in case you have a bounty on you)
• Sisterhood of Dibella spawned a sister that gets attacked
• DCL follower?
• Pet Collar => a follower is stuck in an unfinished SL scene and tries to teleport back to the last place it had some fun with an NPC
• something stuck with daymoyl?
• SexLabDefeat is stuck and needs cleaning? NPC on NPC actions are active? (deactivate any NPC-NPC action and check if that helps)

 

Or:

• you brutally changed your LO sequence by adding removing mods (adding esm is especially deadly)
• save game needs to be cleaned with Fallrimtools (also check for suspended stacks)
• SKSE Co save bloat, use the NetImmerse Override Cleaner
• Dawnguard questline running?

[Shadowbroker3495]

7 hours ago, slvsaris said:

if I walk around in the exterior cells long enough it CTDs

Most likely memory issues. Modded Skyrim is using a lot of system memory. Your mod build is fairly small (about 200 plugins) but sooner or later there is no more free memory. Windows will try to free memory by pushing data to harddisk/SSD pagefile but that pagefile has a max size (usually the size of the amount of system memory).

 

Usually people have 16 GB memory but some of the memory is used for GPU. Some of the memory is used by Windows cache system. When you walk around in exterior cells a lot of data are loaded into memory and cache eats a lot of that memory. Windows handles size of cache automatically but periodically system can get very low on free system memory.

 

If you experience stuttering in framerate it is a typical sign of running out of free memory (writing to pagefile is slow thus CPU is too busy to be feeding data to GPU fast enough)

 

Random CTD's can also be caused by script engine overload, i.e. too many script heavy mods running at the same time.

 

The difference is that memory CTD's usually happen when you are moving. Script engine CTD's can happen even when not moving, i.e. standing still in a crowded area where some mods have a lot of NPC's to scan.

 

[slvsaris]

12 hours ago, donttouchmethere said:

Maybe messed up skyrim.ini settings? (ugrids, viewrange, grass settings...) => BethINI ftw!

How do you manage RAM/VRAM for Skyrim? I see you followed the STEP guide?

 

hard to see if only the LO is posted

 

Random CTD in exterior cells:

Can also happen if:

• courier tries to find you but something prevents him to do his job (maybe leave interior cell and after changing to exterior cell wait one hour)
• a dragon should have spawned but failed to do so
• a dragon got shot down but never got killed and now is laying around somewhere and prevents other dragons to spawn
• a quest NPC should have spawned, but never did
• broken creature spawns (maybe creatures that only spawn in higher lvls, so they weren't an issue before)
• POP bounty hunters try to spawn (in case you have a bounty on you)
• Sisterhood of Dibella spawned a sister that gets attacked
• DCL follower?
• Pet Collar => a follower is stuck in an unfinished SL scene and tries to teleport back to the last place it had some fun with an NPC
• something stuck with daymoyl?
• SexLabDefeat is stuck and needs cleaning? NPC on NPC actions are active? (deactivate any NPC-NPC action and check if that helps)

 

Or:

• you brutally changed your LO sequence by adding removing mods (adding esm is especially deadly)
• save game needs to be cleaned with Fallrimtools (also check for suspended stacks)
• SKSE Co save bloat, use the NetImmerse Override Cleaner
• Dawnguard questline running?

 

That's a Modwatch link for MO2.  Modlist and INIs are also included.

 

Have been using BethINI for years

 

Using the memory management from Crash Fixes.  Also using enboost (no enb installed)

 

I originally started with the STEP guide years ago, the remnants still exist in the list.  Someday I will recheck STEP and see what has changed and may apply the changes.

 

• courier tries to find you but something prevents him to do his job (maybe leave interior cell and after changing to exterior cell wait one hour)
• a dragon should have spawned but failed to do so
• a dragon got shot down but never got killed and now is laying around somewhere and prevents other dragons to spawn
• a quest NPC should have spawned, but never did
• broken creature spawns (maybe creatures that only spawn in higher lvls, so they weren't an issue before)
• POP bounty hunters try to spawn (in case you have a bounty on you)
• Sisterhood of Dibella spawned a sister that gets attacked
• DCL follower?
• Pet Collar => a follower is stuck in an unfinished SL scene and tries to teleport back to the last place it had some fun with an NPC
• something stuck with daymoyl?
• SexLabDefeat is stuck and needs cleaning? NPC on NPC actions are active? (deactivate any NPC-NPC action and check if that helps)

Have never experienced issues like these before, that I noticed anyway.  Not to say that some of these are not happening.  I suppose the papyrus log might tell me that.  This is a new playthrough, things haven't really picked up yet.  Also, I tend to play in god mode unless I feel like getting defeated, though sometimes Defeats knockdown scenario still triggers.

 

No followers, Started the game with ASLAL at an inn and went over to Elvira's (Playing around with the Elvira Pick shop mod)

 

• you brutally changed your LO sequence by adding removing mods (adding esm is especially deadly)
• save game needs to be cleaned with Fallrimtools (also check for suspended stacks)
• SKSE Co save bloat, use the NetImmerse Override Cleaner
• Dawnguard questline running?

New playthrough, so these are not really an issue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[slvsaris]

7 hours ago, Shadowbroker3495 said:

Most likely memory issues. Modded Skyrim is using a lot of system memory. Your mod build is fairly small (about 200 plugins) but sooner or later there is no more free memory. Windows will try to free memory by pushing data to harddisk/SSD pagefile but that pagefile has a max size (usually the size of the amount of system memory).

 

Usually people have 16 GB memory but some of the memory is used for GPU. Some of the memory is used by Windows cache system. When you walk around in exterior cells a lot of data are loaded into memory and cache eats a lot of that memory. Windows handles size of cache automatically but periodically system can get very low on free system memory.

 

If you experience stuttering in framerate it is a typical sign of running out of free memory (writing to pagefile is slow thus CPU is too busy to be feeding data to GPU fast enough)

 

Random CTD's can also be caused by script engine overload, i.e. too many script heavy mods running at the same time.

 

The difference is that memory CTD's usually happen when you are moving. Script engine CTD's can happen even when not moving, i.e. standing still in a crowded area where some mods have a lot of NPC's to scan.

 

 

Not saying it is not possible, but not sure this one is memory issues.  I have plenty of GPU and system memory.  Using Crash Fixes to manage game memory.  Also have enboost installed.  Have never seen the system memory max out when playing the game.  I suppose I can monitor the GPU memory to see if I am getting hit there.

 

Using an ssd for the game.

 

Honestly, I noticed the crash months ago on another playthrough.  Like I said, it seemed to have started out of the blue.  I remember installing another optimisation skse plugin, but not sure which one, and not if it was close to the time I started seeing the ctd.  At the time I thought it was a particular mod, but the problem went away for a bit.  When it came back I decided to rework the mod list a bit and start a new playthrough.

 

 

 

 

 

[donttouchmethere]

37 minutes ago, slvsaris said:

That's a Modwatch link for MO2.  Modlist and INIs are also included.

AH! Sorry, me blind! That's a rather well done Modwatch thingy ?

Need to remember that for future modwatch visits ?

[Shadowbroker3495]

24 minutes ago, slvsaris said:

I have plenty of GPU and system memory

I agree. Even though your hardware is rather old, playing with 24 GB system memory  and 8 GB video ram in 1080p resolution should give you no problems. Though if using 4K textures everywhere (body, landscape etc) could be a challenge even with 8 GB video ram but you would be able to tell due to low framerate.

 

Speaking of framerate. I can see that you have 120 hz monitor but you should not go above 60 fps in Skyrim. Very old graphics engine and some internal timings get messed up if running higher than 60 fps.

 

Only other potential reason for random CTD's i can think of would be mods creating dynamic events, like enemy encounters.

 

SMSkyrim - Encounters.esp
OBIS Redone.esp
 

Deviously Cursed Loot can be rather script heavy, depending on what options you have enabled. But if you CTD in the middle of nowhere with very few NPCs near player then that mod should not be a problem.

 

[slvsaris]

3 hours ago, Shadowbroker3495 said:

I agree. Even though your hardware is rather old, playing with 24 GB system memory  and 8 GB video ram in 1080p resolution should give you no problems. Though if using 4K textures everywhere (body, landscape etc) could be a challenge even with 8 GB video ram but you would be able to tell due to low framerate.

 

Speaking of framerate. I can see that you have 120 hz monitor but you should not go above 60 fps in Skyrim. Very old graphics engine and some internal timings get messed up if running higher than 60 fps.

 

Only other potential reason for random CTD's i can think of would be mods creating dynamic events, like enemy encounters.

 

SMSkyrim - Encounters.esp
OBIS Redone.esp
 

Deviously Cursed Loot can be rather script heavy, depending on what options you have enabled. But if you CTD in the middle of nowhere with very few NPCs near player then that mod should not be a problem.

 

Also forgot to reply to the 200 mod comment.  I have a few merge sets in there.

 

Yeah, most of the time there are no npcs around when it crashes, though it crashed most every time when looking over Whiterun from atop the steps to Dragon's Reach.

 

Yes, locked my FPS to 60 using NVidia Inspector long ago

 

[slvsaris]

4 hours ago, donttouchmethere said:

AH! Sorry, me blind! That's a rather well done Modwatch thingy ?

Need to remember that for future modwatch visits ?

Yeah, ModWatch is a pretty handy tool when sharing a Skyrim setup.  It is able to get more information from MO2 than the other mod managers.  I am sure that will get remedied at some point in the future.

[donttouchmethere]

9 minutes ago, slvsaris said:

Yeah, ModWatch is a pretty handy tool when sharing a Skyrim setup.  It is able to get more information from MO2 than the other mod managers.  I am sure that will get remedied at some point in the future.

I'm usually annoyed to change to another page to see your LO and can't comment on added mods right away, but the way you set the modwatch page up changed my mind.

[Grey Cloud]

15 hours ago, Shadowbroker3495 said:

Modded Skyrim is using a lot of system memory

No it is not. It can only use 3.5GB.

 

15 hours ago, Shadowbroker3495 said:

Windows will try to free memory by pushing data to harddisk/SSD pagefile but that pagefile has a max size (usually the size of the amount of system memory).

Absolute nonsense.

 

15 hours ago, Shadowbroker3495 said:

Usually people have 16 GB memory but some of the memory is used for GPU.

The OP has 24GB of RAM. On my planet 24 is greater than 16.

 

15 hours ago, Shadowbroker3495 said:

Some of the memory is used by Windows cache system

And what 'Windows cache system' is this?

 

15 hours ago, Shadowbroker3495 said:

When you walk around in exterior cells a lot of data are loaded into memory and cache eats a lot of that memory. Windows handles size of cache automatically but periodically system can get very low on free system memory.

 

If you experience stuttering in framerate it is a typical sign of running out of free memory (writing to pagefile is slow thus CPU is too busy to be feeding data to GPU fast enough)

 

Random CTD's can also be caused by script engine overload, i.e. too many script heavy mods running at the same time.

 

The difference is that memory CTD's usually happen when you are moving. Script engine CTD's can happen even when not moving, i.e. standing still in a crowded area where some mods have a lot of NPC's to scan.

All of this is too ridiculous to bother commenting on.

 

Try checking your facts before posting rubbish.

 

@slvsaris listen to @donttouchmethere

As a general rule, random CTD while you are out and about in Skyrim are generally bad mesh type deals. e.g. a bad plant or creature. You may not notice the plant or see the creature so you don't join the dots.

[slvsaris]

On 10/18/2021 at 4:52 PM, Grey Cloud said:

No it is not. It can only use 3.5GB.

 

Absolute nonsense.

 

The OP has 24GB of RAM. On my planet 24 is greater than 16.

 

And what 'Windows cache system' is this?

 

All of this is too ridiculous to bother commenting on.

 

Try checking your facts before posting rubbish.

 

@slvsaris listen to @donttouchmethere

As a general rule, random CTD while you are out and about in Skyrim are generally bad mesh type deals. e.g. a bad plant or creature. You may not notice the plant or see the creature so you don't join the dots.

Gonna run nifscan and see if I find anything.  Hopefully I do and the problem goes away!

[slvsaris]

On 10/18/2021 at 4:52 PM, Grey Cloud said:

No it is not. It can only use 3.5GB.

 

Absolute nonsense.

 

The OP has 24GB of RAM. On my planet 24 is greater than 16.

 

And what 'Windows cache system' is this?

 

All of this is too ridiculous to bother commenting on.

 

Try checking your facts before posting rubbish.

 

@slvsaris listen to @donttouchmethere

As a general rule, random CTD while you are out and about in Skyrim are generally bad mesh type deals. e.g. a bad plant or creature. You may not notice the plant or see the creature so you don't join the dots.

 

So, I did the thing.  I wrote a wrapper around Nifscan to make it easier to run and started checking meshes.  Checked the whole lot first, but that was a mistake.  there had to be hundreds of thousands of errors in all those meshes.  Plus i was checking meshes of mods I did not have enabled.  So I started going backwards from the last mods I installed.  Fixed the errors that the page said caused random crashes.  Got to thinking about what meshes would be around me when in an exterior cell.  I decided to check More Nasty Critters, and found some of those mesh errors that cause random ctds.  I jumped in the game.   I was sure I had more to fix, but I just wanted to play a bit.  I was expecting it to crash as it had done before.  It has been a week, and (cross my fingers, toes and everything else)  I have been able to play until I get tired of playing.  t first I was just fastraveling around, but then decided to risk it and walk around in the exterior cells.  So far so good.  I am going to have to mention these errors on the mod page.

 

I knew about bad meshes randomly crashing the game, but I thought all the mods I had been using were ok.  Guess not!

 

 

[Grey Cloud]

3 hours ago, slvsaris said:

I have been able to play until I get tired of playing.

NIcely done

 

3 hours ago, slvsaris said:

More Nasty Critters,

Just out of interest, what version of MNC do you use?

 

 

 

[slvsaris]

12 hours ago, Grey Cloud said:

NIcely done

 

Just out of interest, what version of MNC do you use?

 

 

 

 

More Nasty Critters v 12.6A

The SLAL edition

[Grey Cloud]

31 minutes ago, slvsaris said:

More Nasty Critters v 12.6A

The SLAL edition

I'm on 12.5B I think. Never had any problems with meshes but maybe something new in 12.6 isn't right. Certainly be worth asking about on the MNC support thread.

[slvsaris]

7 hours ago, Grey Cloud said:

I'm on 12.5B I think. Never had any problems with meshes but maybe something new in 12.6 isn't right. Certainly be worth asking about on the MNC support thread.

My crashes started happening months ago.  I know I have updated MNC a few times since.  I will bring up the errors to them just in case.  They should be fixed even if they are not what was causing my crashes. 

 

I did get the game to freeze tonight, but that was my fault.  I was trying to kill Waylen in Markarth with the console before he killed whatshername.  I caught him right as he killed her and the game got confused lol.