How Do You Read The Papyrus.0.log To Diagnose A CTD

[JayeConcord]

I added a few mods a while ago, checked they were working, saved the game and exited. As I said this was a while ago (2-4 weeks). Today, I went to play the game again, only I am getting a CTD no matter what save I try to load. I was told to read the logs in "My Documents\My Games\Skyrim Special Edition\Logs\Script", mainly Papyrus.0.log. However, to me at least, it's just a bunch of garbled mess.

 

I was wondering if someone could tell me how I am supposed to be reading or maybe take a look and tell me which mod(s) the CTD is caused by. Thanks in advance ?

Papyrus.0.log

[Psalam]

6 minutes ago, JayeConcord said:

I added a few mods a while ago, checked they were working, saved the game and exited. As I said this was a while ago (2-4 weeks). Today, I went to play the game again, only I am getting a CTD no matter what save I try to load. I was told to read the logs in "My Documents\My Games\Skyrim Special Edition\Logs\Script", mainly Papyrus.0.log. However, to me at least, it's just a bunch of garbled mess.

 

I was wondering if someone could tell me how I am supposed to be reading or maybe take a look and tell me which mod(s) the CTD is caused by. Thanks in advance ?

Papyrus.0.log 232.92 kB · 0 downloads

I'll take a look in a minute but don't get your hopes up. The Papyrus logs give lots of information BUT they are rarely useful in diagnosing a CTD (for technical reasons). You'd probably be better served by posting your load order and relevant changes to your load order (I know you said that weren't any but sometimes the memory plays tricks on us.

[JayeConcord]

Here's my load order. I use Vortex and LOOT to automatically sort my plugins for me. I downloaded a few mods today and wanted to try them out, hence why I was going to play again. Once I noticed the CTD, I disabled all recent mods and went to where I was. Still no luck.

loadorder.txt

[Roggvir]

Unfortunately, as Psalam points out, these Papyrus logs are just Papyrus logs, not "crash logs", and i have yet to see a single exmple where a Papyrus log would point to what is causing a crash.
Whatever goes on in Papyrus VM, and whatever gets printed into Papyrus logs, is usually unrelated to CTDs, more often than not.

So i would leave the Papyrus logs for the last, as that is like doing fishing without a lure, and i'd start looking at the common causes of CTD in SSE.

 

 

First thing is to check any newly added SKSE plugins, meaning checking bug/post sections for any mention of a problem, and consider if that could apply to you, and looking for solutions.
Or if you can simply disable the mod that adds the plugin, just do so and see if the CTD goes away.
But from my experience, problems caused by matured SKSE plugins are rather rare (except maybe for HDT, which is a bit special case), and i think i only had an issue once due to using wrong INI settings for some plugin.

But if making sure is as easy as simpl disabling the mod, then that seems like the first reasonable thing to try.

 

 

Then i would check the textures, added/replaced by the newly added mods.

For example, here is a very nice summary regarding how textures can cause CTDs: https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/pz6hka/the_curse_of_skyrim_se_and_fallout_4_malformed/.
I very rarely get CTDs in my game, but almost every time i do, the cause is some bad texture (that may be just me though, YMMV), so the first thing i would do, is to check any textures in those mods you recently added (do not forget to check inside BA2 archives).
The simplest way to check, may be to just remove ALL textures added by those mods - nothing should happen if a texture is missing, apart from the resulting untextured mesh showing pink in game, so if you remove those textures and the CTD goes away, you can be reasonably sure it was caused by some of those texture(s).
(one thing to be aware of - if you have a mod that works with overlays using NiOverride/Skee, then while removing textures may seem to fix the problem, it could just be because the mod is no longer doing what it was doing previously, because it can't find the textures, and the CTD wasn't caused by a bad texture, but by some bug in how the mod does its thing - so such mods should be taken into consideration when troubleshooting this way and treated separately).

 

 

Then i would check the newly added mod's meshes.

Usually, a corrupted mesh just fails to load, but sometimes they can cause a CTD too - especially headparts (hairs, head meshes, eyes, etc.), but it could be any other kind of mesh.
So, i would first look at any faceGen heads in the newly added mods (again, do not forget to check inside BA2 archives).
IF the mods are supplying faceGen heads for any vanilla NPCs, the simplest check should be to just remove these faceGen head meshes, so the game would fall back to using the vanilla meshes - if the CTD goes away, it is very likely the cause lies in those head meshes (or headparts they use), or textures used by the heads (but that should be already ruled out using the texture check above, except for tints - if you remove newly added tints of correct required size, causing the game to load whatever it has of wrong saize, you could actually introduce a new CTD - see below).
 

Speaking of head meshes - if i recall correctly, a CTD could be also caused by heads using tint textures (including things like lips, maybe scars, etc.) of incorrect size (ie. using 512 instead of 1K, or 2K, depending on how the game is configured via some INI settings) - in such case the ause is not a corrupted/bad texture, but simply a texture too big, ro something like that.
Unfortunately, i do not remember the details, but google or somebody else may fill in the blanks.

 

If there are head meshes for NPCs added by the mod(s), then you cannot simply check by removing them, instead you would have to check them one by one in NifSkope, but starting with any headpart meshes added or replaced by any of those mods.

 

The simplest way to check all meshes, could be to create a custom mod, containing all the newly added mod(s) meshes, processed by Cathedral Assets Optimizer or Nif Optimizer (don't forget they require changing some setting when dealing with headparts), and then placing that mod in your load order AFTER those newly added mods to ensure the game will load these "fixed" meshes instead.

If the CTD goes away, you can be reasonably sure it was caused by some of those meshes - to determine which ones are the culprits, i would split the custom mod into several mods, each having only part fo the meshes, then loading them all to verify the CTD is still gone, and then starting to deactivating them one by one, until the CTD returns - then you'll know whateer causes it is in that custom mod you just deactivated adn you can continue narrowing it down more in a similar way.

 

 

If the above gets you nowhere, then i would start looking into plugins load order (making sure the masters in every plugins header is sorted correctly, and that your load order fits that order), and then scripts.

When it comes to scripts, maybe you could get more out of .NET Script Framework.

 

 

Anyway, looking at your Papyrus log...

OMG, removing mods mid-playthrough much? what are all those missing scripts? all those properties that can't be bound, etc.?
THAT is not normal, that is seriously bugged mods, or seriously screwed up installation, or seriously screwed up game saves (proly due to removing mods mid-play willy-nilly).

 

With this kind of level of screwed up save game, i think it would be a waste of time trying to hunt down what is the causing a CTD.
It may just be that your game was so screwed up, that whatever you added, was just that proverbial last drop and the game just can't cope with the mess anymore.

And if your Papyrus logs looked like that since the beginning? well, then you need to get things in order before you even start to play.

[JayeConcord]

I'm not really a fan of removing mods mid-playthrough. I thought the missing properties was something to do with  Real Estate. I tend to add mods, as that's much safer and easier to diagnose. I had removed all mods added after the point of the save, but still no luck. I did manage to finally get one save to load around 25-50% of the time.

 

I'm honestly starting to think that one of my mods is slowly corrupting my save files, well I hope it's just one. As for the Papyrus logs, I was trying to find out how to diagnose a CTD and came across an old Reddit post saying to enable the logs for help figuring out the issue.

 

If I get the time, I'd love to find out the mod(s) responsible for the issue and try and either find a fix, or bite the bullet by removing the mods and starting a new playthrough. Unfortunately, I have 541 mods to go through, 226 active plugins and 315 light plugins. Don't really have a lot of spare time to be honest, but maybe I can get some time off work at some point and try to sort out the buggy mess I have created.

[Roggvir]

15 hours ago, JayeConcord said:

I'm not really a fan of removing mods mid-playthrough. I thought the missing properties was something to do with  Real Estate. I tend to add mods, as that's much safer and easier to diagnose. I had removed all mods added after the point of the save, but still no luck. I did manage to finally get one save to load around 25-50% of the time.

The missing properties usually happen when undisciplined mod makers release an update to their mod, where they removed or renamed a property on one of their scripts.
Or when undisciplined mod users ignore a mod documentation telling them to start a new game if they update certain mod to certain version.

My point is...
when i see a lot of those messages, to me it is a clear indication that the game is in a serious bad shape:

- if it is the mod maker's fault, then those mods probably contain a lot more rotten stuff than just that.

- if it is the user's fault, then it is very likely the user also screwed up lot more things than just a few mod updates.

So, i would cut your loses, start a new game, and see if the log will get peppered by as many messages about missing stuff

- if not, then thats great, throw away the old saves and keep playing, or continue whatever you are doing, from this point.

- if yes, then i would take a really serious look at the mods those messages are related to, and made some hard decisions (probably throwing those mods out of my game - which can really hurt, some may not have better equivalents, in which case you may want to keep them in anyway, but you will probably run into issues at some point again).

 

 

 

15 hours ago, JayeConcord said:

As for the Papyrus logs, I was trying to find out how to diagnose a CTD and came across an old Reddit post saying to enable the logs for help figuring out the issue.

It won't hurt, and it CAN help, so i didn't mean NOT to use it, but don't spend too much time analyzing it.

If the Papryus log can directly point to an issue, it will be usually if the CTD is caused in some process you see being logged about last or very near the end.

 

For example, let's say the last lines in the log are related to FNIS AA getting ready to switch to some alternate animation group - you go take a look at the animations it is trying to use, and maybe you find out one of them is corrupted, and if you were that lucky to get this VERY RARE combination of CTD and its directly related contents at the end of the log, it can help you find the cause real quick.
But if that doesn't help you narrow the issue down, then the only thing the log is good for, is to just look at how messed up the scripts are in general.
Look at how many errors are happening and where, and see if you can disable those mod(s) (only if you know it won't actually cause more problems).
That is all the logs are good for (when troubleshooting a CTD).

 

Apart from the first example, which can get your issue resolved quick, the second one can take ages of trial and error and it can be very tricky to not acutally cause more problems (which can also have unintended side effects, fake-fixing the error, as you break something else which causes some processes to change or not to run - then you think "AHA! its this mod!", so you remove it from your game, start playing a new, and after a while you run into the same issue and you don't understand why).

So, by all means, take a quick look at the logs first, but if it doesn't get you anywhere quick, then leave it, and check the "common causes" (as i mentioned in my first post), because THAT can find the problem much much quicker than anything else you can do with Papyrus logs.
And if doing the "common causes" check didn't help, then at least it was relatively fast, and now you know you can rule out several causes while trying something else.

 

 

 

15 hours ago, JayeConcord said:

If I get the time, I'd love to find out the mod(s) responsible for the issue and try and either find a fix, or bite the bullet by removing the mods and starting a new playthrough. Unfortunately, I have 541 mods to go through, 226 active plugins and 315 light plugins. Don't really have a lot of spare time to be honest, but maybe I can get some time off work at some point and try to sort out the buggy mess I have created.

Well, there are three basic passions when it comes to these games:
- playing
- creating mods
- troubleshooting your mod installation
Each can take as much time as any other, and became the only thing you get the time for, that your choice

And i have to say one thing that may not be to nice to hear...

The fact that the game can nowadays load several hundreds of plugins, doesn't mean it is something people should make it do.
The game is now 11 years old, and always was a buggy mess even without mods, and while some mods and SKSE and crash fixes and whatever else made huge improvements and fixed a lot of bugs, at the core it is still the same grandpa of a game who can wheel around in his rusty wheel chair pretty fast when he feels like it, but don't make him climb the stairs.

I think, people who use these amounts of mods should stop and ask themselves if they really need all of them, or all of them at the same time, in the same playthrough?

I know, there is always somebody claiming they run a game with 249 normal plugins, 781 light plugins, and 5694 mods in total, but there is a big difference between

Quote

"i can eventually start the game, if i keep trying at least 8 times, and then i play for an hour, sometimes two, until it crashes"

and

Quote

"game takes 3 seconds to start, i don't remember my last crash, and my current save is a continuation of a playthrough started 3 years ago".

I prefer to be in the second category with my 117 normal plugins, 79 light plugins, 156 mods total.
But i know everybody likes different things, so maybe you really do need all your mods, in which case i am jsut glad i am not you ?

 

 

I am sorry i cannot be more helpfull, apart from these smartass advices, but when i saw your log, i really think it is a waste of time trying to make that setup work and if you do make it work, i would be ver ysurprised if it wouldn't start crashing again after no more than a dozen hours of playing.

I think you should first focus on a new game for which you try to find cleaner/better versions/equivalents of the mods that spew those 'missing' errors in the log.

This is a bit of a pet peevee of mine, about the errors, in that i HATE when i see any kind of error in my Papyrus log.
My rule is simple - if there is an error, the thing is broken.
And i know, some errors can be innocent.

Like when Wet and Cold is using GetFormFromFile() to check for existence of some other mods, resulting in Papyrus throwing errors when those other mods are not installed.

It won't break anything, but that is not how i work, professionally or otherwise, my code does NOT throw errors or warnings or notices, or anything like that, unless there is a REAL error that needs to get attention.
And of course i do realize, that the only way to avoid errors in these cases, is to use some SKSE functions, and i get that there is no need to force the SKSE dependancy on users just to avoid few innocent errors.

Still, i do make private patches for all these things, so i get no errors or unnecessary messages in the log - makes it also much easier when you actually need to look for something in the log, if you don't have dozens of bogus errors to wade through.

 

My point being...

try to put together a game, where at the very start, and until up to ~30 minutes of playing, the Papyrus log remains as clean as it can be (there will always be some unavoidable crap, but try to minimize it).
It won't save you from problems, but it will help you get a much more solid base to build on, and maybe it will even save you from at least a few issues.

[pinky6225]

Assuming your on skyrim SE (not AE) then downloading https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/21294

 

Is worth it as the .NetscriptFramework has a crash log which is generally much more useful for working out why a CTD happened