[SOLVED] Safely starting a new (initially) script heavy game

[leakim]

2 hours ago, onen said:

I use AE with 600+ mods and no startup issues so I'll share what i do starting a new game assuming alternate start is used.  This may not be perfect but it works for me.

1) Wait for the mod init spam to finish

2) MCM->SexLab Install,  close MCM and wait for it to finish installing.

3) MCM->Sexlab->Animation Settings check allow creature animations.  Should be done before registering animations if you use creature animations.

4) MCM->SL Anim Loader->General Options click enable all.  click register animations and wait till it finishes.

5) Save game and exit.

6) Start Skyrim and Load saved game.  Wait for any mod init spam to finish.  Some mods may register their MCM's at this time as well.  Mods like Estrus Chaurus check for animations at this point so it's important to register the animations before your first save.

7) Spend 2+ hours setting up all the MCM's.  Make sure you don't have more than 125 MCM's, that's the limit.  I've experimented with the mod that increases the MCM limit with unstable results so i don't use it.  Also I only open 1 MCM, set it up, then close the menu back to game.  Rinse and repeat.  I had MCM's get corrupted in the past if i open to many in a row without closing the menu.

 

 

It's like a science.

 

Anyway. Never experienced MCMs corrupting, although I have experienced odd behaviour, that I was not a problem in legendary edition, for example:

• Being basically unable to open the Sexlab tab of Zaz after registering animations with SLAL (possible to make it work again by unregistering all animations ^^). So you must register Zaz animations and decide if you want "Override animations" on or off before registering SLAL  (I guess the menu actually works, but it just gets linearly slower with how many animations you have).

 

But anyway, as I said previously the problems are baked in before the "MCM message spam" is complete, so this will not do for the mods I have. Perhaps you may have more mods than me, but I may have more mods with heavy script initialization. 

 

It does make me wonder if it is just one (or few) bad mods that is causing all the issues. Then again, I do not believe I've installed anything that is completely out there.

 

You talk a lot about how you set it up, and that's fine. But let me ask you this then: How do you "verify" that "everything" is working?

 

Frankly, when I start a new game (without intializing scripts in batches) mostly anybody would be fooled into thinking that everything just works. It's the little things that does not work you notice when you start actually playing the game that gets you.

Edited July 22, 2022 by leakim

[smilyface]

I never had slowdowns with SE like you described and all mods usually work right after starting. I also combine mods together and install some of them manually which in theory cuts down on the work the mod-manager has to do. I use random alternate start and when I start a new game I make my character and everything then you are spawned in an empty room where all your mods initialize. After that I set my MCM settings for every mod and then just proceed (no restart or anything) into the game. Never had any issues with the game or mods not working correctly and I use about the same amount of mods as you but way less sexlab stuff.

 

Just looking through your modlist I have no idea what three quarters of your sexlab mods do (I only use very few extensions for it) but it seems like you downloaded almost everything there is for sexlab. I would go through all of these mods first and figure out what you actually need. I mean some of these mods are doing pretty much the same thing as others you have installed (multiple prostitution mods, eager npcs, sexlab approach,...). All these mods use scripts which could slow down each other or have other compatibility issues with each other.

Edited July 22, 2022 by smilyface

[onen]

10 hours ago, leakim said:

It's the little things that does not work you notice when you start actually playing the game that gets you.

Exactly.

I have a habit of playing to around level 10 or 20 then starting again so I can fix the problems I encountered playing and update/add/remove mods i didn't want to change in a saved game.

Doing this for several years with the same basic load order results in a decently stable game.

Also unless your trying to debug a problem, turn off all the logging in every MCM that has the option to, especially sexlab debug mode.

[leakim]

2 hours ago, smilyface said:

I never had slowdowns with SE like you described and all mods usually work right after starting. I also combine mods together and install some of them manually which in theory cuts down on the work the mod-manager has to do. I use random alternate start and when I start a new game I make my character and everything then you are spawned in an empty room where all your mods initialize. After that I set my MCM settings for every mod and then just proceed (no restart or anything) into the game. Never had any issues with the game or mods not working correctly and I use about the same amount of mods as you but way less sexlab stuff.

 

Just looking through your modlist I have no idea what three quarters of your sexlab mods do (I only use very few extensions for it) but it seems like you downloaded almost everything there is for sexlab. I would go through all of these mods first and figure out what you actually need. I mean some of these mods are doing pretty much the same thing as others you have installed (multiple prostitution mods, eager npcs, sexlab approach,...). All these mods use scripts which could slow down each other or have other compatibility issues with each other.

 

You're quite mistaken in my knowledge about my own mod setup. I know exactly what every mod on my list does and if it did not do something I wanted it would not be on the list. I may not use every feature from every mod, but every mod has a purpose. It has taken a very long time to compile it down to this list.

 

The setup essentially is all based around Sexlab Survival (+ the full package of Baka Factory mods) to make the game incredibly misogynostic. The other mod helps adds flavor to this theme. I only really use one of the prostitution mods. The other is required for the dance feature of Sexlab Survival.

 

The most "unpolished" part of the mod list are the gameplay elements. I actually want to include either SkySA or ADXP | MCO to the list, but have not done so because it conflicts with various sexlab mod features. So the "combat mods" are basically whatever I could find that would not conflict with sexlab. So it is mostly combo/animation mods.

[yorpers]

12 hours ago, leakim said:

Being basically unable to open the Sexlab tab of Zaz after registering animations with SLAL (possible to make it work again by unregistering all animations ^^). So you must register Zaz animations and decide if you want "Override animations" on or off before registering SLAL  (I guess the menu actually works, but it just gets linearly slower with how many animations you have).

For this specific problem you probably just aren't waiting long enough. It takes its sweet time to load that tab with all the anims registered; a real life 4-6 minutes for me. 

 

12 hours ago, leakim said:

It does make me wonder if it is just one (or few) bad mods that is causing all the issues.

Almost certainly your problem is 2 or 3 mods, maybe even a single mod, that are causing most of the issues you are having. 

 

Here is a good resource to help better understand why I have always thought that.

 

 

[leakim]

A small update on my load order. Found out that apparently ConsoleUtilSSE has a habit of causing load game CTDs after playing for a while (many hours!), which is crazily frustrating. Had to remove it from my load order along with Poser Hotkey Plus (which needed it). Doing so, however, completely fixed all problems.

 

Anyone knows if there is a fix for this available somewhere? Apparently it has been fixed in the AE version of the plugin, but the author straight up will not support the SE version what-so-ever.

 

Check this link: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/24858?tab=bugs

 

Apparently even removed some comments discussing how to resolve by building the plugin yourself (I know this because my comment was removed ^_^). Jebus.

[Fotogen]

I have ConsoleUtilSSE installed since forever. And I have no CTDs on load.

 

I do not have Poser Hotkey Plus.

 

Important: I do not have a single mod that does a lot of things when game loads. I check it. For every mod I have, I checked if it does something on game load. If it does, I check what it does. If it looks funky, I try to fix it. If I can't, I remove that mod. Its as simple as that.

Example: for followers I use EFF. Because NFF, when I tried it, did all sort of stuff on game load. Doing lots of things on game load is in general a bad idea.

 

 

[leakim]

3 hours ago, Fotogen said:

I have ConsoleUtilSSE installed since forever. And I have no CTDs on load.

 

I do not have Poser Hotkey Plus.

 

Important: I do not have a single mod that does a lot of things when game loads. I check it. For every mod I have, I checked if it does something on game load. If it does, I check what it does. If it looks funky, I try to fix it. If I can't, I remove that mod. Its as simple as that.

Example: for followers I use EFF. Because NFF, when I tried it, did all sort of stuff on game load. Doing lots of things on game load is in general a bad idea.

 

 

 

Well, while I am not saying ConsoleUtilSSE is definitely responsible, I would say this:

• Removing that mod alone fixes the problem entirely (do not actually need to remove Poser Hotkey Plus to test that, although Poser+ will warn me about the missing dependency)
• The only mod with a dependency on ConsoleUtilSSE I had in my load order was Poser Hotkey Plus.
• The top frame of the callstack in the crash log is always ConsoleUtilSSE.
• There is an issue on ConsoleUtilSSE for Skyrim SE (not AE!) that discusses the problem. Well there was. Most of the discussion has been removed, probably because the author does not want to support outdated Skyrim.
• The problem does not manifest itself until you've played a single playthough for a long time. It can manifest itself both as cell-load problems and when you load a saved game.

The problem, however, was transient in nature, in that it would not happen every time you were trying to load the same save. For some saves it might happen 9 out of 10 times, while for others it might never happen. Obviously, this means it depends on what other content is being loaded, and therefore also on what other mods might be installed. It could very well be because I do have (many?) mods that does something on load, triggering the issue in ConsoleUtilSSE.

[yorpers]

8 minutes ago, leakim said:

Well, while I am not saying ConsoleUtilSSE is definitely responsible, I would say this:

• Removing that mod alone fixes the problem entirely (do not actually need to remove Poser Hotkey Plus to test that, although Poser+ will warn me about the missing dependency)
• The only mod with a dependency on ConsoleUtilSSE I had in my load order was Poser Hotkey Plus.
• The top frame of the callstack in the crash log is always ConsoleUtilSSE.
• There is an issue on ConsoleUtilSSE for Skyrim SE (not AE!) that discusses the problem. Well there was. Most of the discussion has been removed, probably because the author does not want to support outdated Skyrim.
• The problem does not manifest itself until you've played a single playthough for a long time. It can manifest itself both as cell-load problems and when you load a saved game.

The problem, however, was transient in nature, in that it would not happen every time you were trying to load the same save. For some saves it might happen 9 out of 10 times, while for others it might never happen. Obviously, this means it depends on what other content is being loaded, and therefore also on what other mods might be installed. It could very well be because I do have (many?) mods that does something on load, triggering the issue in ConsoleUtilSSE.

I generally don't like to speculate without any circumstantial evidence. In this case however, It makes me wonder if you have some mods that change the actual functionality of console commands or if that is even possible. I am like fotogen in that I have never had a problem with consoleutilSSE and I have used it for probably close to 2000 hours now without a single crash that I can link back to it. Not anecdotally or with net script framework logs, in my own playthroughs, ranging from 20 hours to 300+. I use both poser hotkeys plus and proteus. I have had isolated issues with poser hotkeys plus, but that mod itself seems to be broken(as I mentioned in one of my earlier posts). 

[Fotogen]

1 hour ago, yorpers said:

, It makes me wonder if you have some mods that change the actual functionality of console commands

Some SKSE mods add new console commands. I would not be surprised if there is a conflict or load order issue.

 

It is a mod. And just as there are conflict with .esps, there could also be problems with .dll stuff. But I don't know if SKSE has a way to change .dll "load order"

 

Edit: my point is, that we are all  not wrong, but it could be SKSE plugin conflict. Its a mod and we know mods can conflict with each other.

Edited July 23, 2022 by Fotogen

[bnub345]

On 7/20/2022 at 12:50 AM, Dervecna said:

Hello everybody.

 

First of all, I'd like to thanks Leakim for the idea of doing a "rolling" start. I'm gonna try it right now because I'm currently trapped into moding hell.

And I do believe my issue is related to what Gameplayer said about wanting this and that and overloading my game.

 

I'm currently trying to run a mod setup with 2481 mods and 2088 plugins. I know this sound crazy, but the foundations for my LO was a very good and stable wabbajack install (Aldrnari) that I'm using for gameplay/graphics base with some extra sexlab mods. And I probably need to better sort what mods I actually need. 

 

So far, I was being able to start a new game and test it for an hour no problems, until 2 days ago. I'll try to resume what happened 2 days ago and I was hoping if someone can give me a hand to figure out my issue.

 

2 days ago, I added the last bunch of mods I wanted. Before doing it, the game was "playable". Not the most stable thing (It had some CTD after an hour or so playing and some sexlabs that took forever to start) but at least I was able to start it. When I added more mods, it gave me CTD on launch and after I removed some of them I got CTD after closing racemenu while the mods were starting.

I deleted some mods (all installed trought MO2) and got it back to the point where I can at least test the game again. But now I can't add any mod. Anything I try to add and I get back to the CTD after racemenu. I know it's not the new mod faults because I've tried with lots of different mods that people report to use without any problem, including the Elephant's Script Latency Tester.

 

Can anyone help me figure out what's happening?

 

 

 

Skyrim has a limit on the number of open file handles it can use at once. It's 512 for vanilla, and 2048 with engine fixes. If you go over this number you get CTDs and save corruption, etc. So if you go over 2048 plugins, by which I mean esm + esp +esl, you get problems. This includes plugins that are in the data folder but not activated. Delete or merge mods and you should be ok. Although I would be pretty concerned about that number of mods overloading the papyrus engine and causing script issues. 

[leakim]

Luckily, at least for me, ConsoleUtilSSE or Poser Hotkey Plus were not super crucial for me. Primarily used Poser as a debug tool in the past to get out of "stuck" animations caused by badly behaving mods. But I have not had this type of issue in a long time (probably removed the badly behaving mods) and I have other ways of getting of such situations thanks to the Sexlab Survival debug menu (that menu is really a teasure!).

 

Anyway, I will probably make an attempt to seeing if I can nail down which mod(s) are causing my startup issues. I do currently believe that it is probably just one mod. So I made a list of mods that are either not that ppular or somehow suspicious (in my eyes) that are in my load order. My list of suspicious currently include:

• Animation overload? (FNIS: 19000, Nemesis: ~37000, I think (I know Nemsis counts are not accurate animations counts if FNIS is also installed))
• YPS Fashion + Monoman Tweak (probably my biggest suspect, but probably also my favorite mod)
• Bathing in Skyrim + Monoman Tweak
• Immersive Wenches
• iNeed
• Campfire/Frostfall/Tentapalooza
• Spank That Ass
• Sexlab Cum Overlays
• Sexlab Tools
• Sexlab Sexual Fame
• Skooma Whore
• Hydra Slavegirls
• Wet Function Redux
• Skyrim Utility Mod
• Devious Devices Equip
• Radiant Prostitution
• TDF
• Sexlab Eager NPCs
• Dripping when Aroused
• Estrus Chaurus+
• Troubles of Heroine
• Public Heroine
• Apopros2
• Fade Tattoos
• Rape Tattoos
• Milk Mod Economy / Milk Addict
• The Lact Tat
• Pama Prison Alternative
• Conditional Expressions Extended
• EVG Idles
• EVG Animation Variance
• Animated Armory

 

Anyone thinks some mods does not belong on this list of suspiciousness? Or maybe someone things I've excluded something from the list that should be in it? Because this is gonna be quite a task to test.

 

Things I have explicitly excluded from the list due to past experience:

• Anything only for SE, as I experienced the same type of issues in LE.
• All Baka Factory mods as I experienced these issues before starting to use those.
• Sexlab Survival/SLSO as this is my primary test vehicle to test if something is borked shortly after mod load in a new game.

[bnub345]

3 minutes ago, leakim said:

Campfire/Frostfall/Tentapalooza

 

Campfire uses a papyrusUtil plugin that is 4 years old, I would delete that to make sure it doesn't overwrite. And make sure you use the updated frostfall, the chesko version for SE is buggy. 

[leakim]

Just now, bnub345 said:

 

Campfire uses a papyrusUtil plugin that is 4 years old, I would delete that to make sure it doesn't overwrite. And make sure you use the updated frostfall, the chesko version for SE is buggy. 

 

I am very aware of all of those issues. The papyrus Util that comes with it has been deleted and I am using the "unofficial" fixed version from nexus, as I did have problems getting the official version working.

 

A general note:

• I am highly suspicious of mods that replaces DLL files from SKSE mods, and generally delete those files. And if those files are required I generally delete the mod instead.

[mort65]

Too many script-heavy mods cause Stack dumping which fucks up the game. If you have this line in the papyrus log you need to reduce the number of scripted mods in your load order:

Suspended stack count is over our warning threshold, dumping stacks:

Edited July 24, 2022 by mort65

[leakim]

5 hours ago, mort65 said:

Too many script-heavy mods cause Stack dumping which fucks up the game. If you have this line in the papyrus log you need to reduce the number of scripted mods in your load order:

Suspended stack count is over our warning threshold, dumping stacks:

 

Yes! I was not aware of this until just to day, where I have been googling/looking for a way to debug my issues.

 

This does seem to happen to me (in some situations). I need to test some more, but I have now made a tool which monitors the papyrus logs and warns me if this occurs, and also prints out the functions that were called as part of the dumped stack traces. And boy-o-boy is [Blush when Aroused] a MASSIVE sinner.

 

Turning off NPC blushes seems to fix the problem though. Never noticed there was an option for that before. Such an option should never have been on-by-default.

 

Anyway, I am gonna continue debugging.

[yorpers]

5 hours ago, mort65 said:

Too many script-heavy mods cause Stack dumping which fucks up the game. If you have this line in the papyrus log you need to reduce the number of scripted mods in your load order:

Here is how stack dumps actually work. They are a normal game function and cause no problems whatsoever. However, they can pinpoint specific mods that are not working correctly.

 

 

[leakim]

14 minutes ago, yorpers said:

Here is how stack dumps actually work. They are a normal game function and cause no problems whatsoever. However, they can pinpoint specific mods that are not working correctly.

 

 

 

I am pretty sure they can be a problem.

 

Currently I am testing a problem I have in Sexy Bandit Captives. Basically the mod starts a scene and when I enter this scene I start getting these stack dumps. 

 

Sometimes the scene succeed and sometimes it gets stuck. However, every single time it gets stuck I can see that an SBC script has been dumped, where as when it succeed such an entry is not present.

 

But I did notice that in this scene I seem to continuously get these dumps. Perhaps the scripts are simply queued for execution but never get their chance, and sometimes, during early on in the scene the right script gets to execute, where as when it fails it does not.

 

EDIT: I do recognize now, that this is not in conflict with what this article or you said, given that I am getting continuous stack dumps in this scene. ^_^

Edited July 24, 2022 by leakim

[yorpers]

9 minutes ago, leakim said:

I am pretty sure they can be a problem.

 

Currently I am testing a problem I have in Sexy Bandit Captives. Basically the mod starts a scene and when I enter this scene I start getting these stack dumps. 

 

Sometimes the scene succeed and sometimes it gets stuck. However, every single time it gets stuck I can see that an SBC script has been dumped, where as when it succeed such an entry is not present.

 

But I did notice that in this scene I seem to continuously get these dumps. Perhaps the scripts are simply queued for execution but never get their chance, and sometimes, during early on in the scene the right script gets to execute, where as when it fails it does not.

Or that mod is just a WIP that has a few bad lines of code in it still. Sounds like the scripts have a tendency to loop.

 

EDIT: that sounds like something you should definitely bring to the mod authors attention to see if they can replicate it.

Edited July 24, 2022 by yorpers

[yorpers]

On 7/23/2022 at 12:00 PM, leakim said:

Anyone thinks some mods does not belong on this list of suspiciousness? Or maybe someone things I've excluded something from the list that should be in it? Because this is gonna be quite a task to test.

Some of these mods I use with no problem for thousands of hours, such as apropos2. I doubt dripping while aroused is causing issues either, but I use it without the npc cloaking turned on. SLEN has always worked well for me too, but I haven't used it for as long as the other mods. INEED should be alright as well, I just wish it was disabled from the start.

 

A note on frostfall:

Using this in conjunction with wet/cold has, for me, caused the game to randomly freeze.

 

 

This is probably unfair to the mods and authors, but here are the mods on my shit list:

 

any version of defeat: throws out orphan scripts 

skybirds....Where do I even begin... continuous stack dumps, game freezing, general instability

YPS: general game instability

cutting room floor: I still use it. compatibility nightmare, pathing ctd, quest function ctd

interesting npc: I still use it. same problems as cutting room floor

sexy bandit captives: I don't use it. same problems as cutting room floor

any mod that adds a lot of npc's like populated skyrim or death consumes all: general stability issues 

 

EDIT: It really is unfair to call this a shit list even. They jsut either don't work well in my own modding environment or have to many compatibility patches that would need to be made to make them forth the effort for me personally.

 

 

Edited July 24, 2022 by yorpers

[leakim]

1 hour ago, yorpers said:

Or that mod is just a WIP that has a few bad lines of code in it still. Sounds like the scripts have a tendency to loop.

 

EDIT: that sounds like something you should definitely bring to the mod authors attention to see if they can replicate it.

 

I did play the same mod, in a very similar general mod setup in LE, and there I did not have any issues. Although I will add that I did not go through that scripted scene more than once and I could theoretically have been lucky.

[Monoman1]

Reassuring to see like 5 of my mods made the suspicious list

[leakim]

5 hours ago, Monoman1 said:

Reassuring to see like 5 of my mods made the suspicious list

 

Hah! I wouldn't even be playing this game if it weren't for your mods.

 

Since you're here let me ask you this: Have you ever had the problem in Sexlab Survival that when opening the "Tongues" menu in SLS that all the 16(?) tongues weren't available for selection?

 

This sometimes happens to me when starting a new game, and the only fix is to start over, so I have made it a rule to always open up the debug menu to check that specifically. Specifically the tongues that a missing are always the ones with the lowest indices, so for example tongue 1 ~ 13 may be missing and only 14, 15 and 16 available.

 

Then again, as you might have read, this is not the only non-deterministic behaviour I am experiencing when starting a new game up.

[Monoman1]

45 minutes ago, leakim said:

Have you ever had the problem in Sexlab Survival that when opening the "Tongues" menu in SLS that all the 16(?) tongues weren't available for selection?

You mean the list is empty? Nope.

 

But building the array of tongues is a part of the script start up for the all in one menu and if you're having stack dumps on creating a new game then....

 

You can probably restart quest _SLS_AllInOneKeyQuest safely enough. Though if it failed to start cleanly then I question what else failed to initialize...

[leakim]

I can see that in ReSaver that there's only 2 (two) entries for suspended stacks in relation to stack dumps.

 

Does this mean that if you have more than 2 unprocessed stack dumps and then save, that the suspended scripts of the third dump won't be run?

 

Anybody knows something about this?