Every time I save a game, the save is corrupted

[-Karen-]

Hello! I know this is a great community made up of very very smart people and I would like to know if there is someone who can help me solve a very big problem.

 

I know I made a lot of mistakes installing and uninstalling mods in my game but until a few days ago they weren't a big deal (CTD very sporadically or some freezes), but a few days ago all of a sudden my saves started getting corrupted. Every time I save and try to load that game, CTD automatically. And when I say suddenly I mean, I uninstalled some relatively harmless mods, I was able to play for a couple of days normally but one day Skyrim got up on the wrong foot and it happened.

 

I have a last save that works perfectly, but from then on, every time I save the game, the new save is corrupted.

 

This shows the ReSaver tool on an example of a corrupt save:

 

 

As opposed to a "sane" save:

 

 

I use SSE Engine Fixes and have MaxStdio and SaveGameMaxSize enabled. I also have installed all (I think they are all) the mods that are responsible for avoiding this type of problem.

 

One thing I noticed is that no .skse file is created in any corrupted game - I'm not sure if that's the cause or a consequence.

 

Any help you can give me to save my game is greatly appreciated. And if you read this far, thank you very much.

[yorpers]

49 minutes ago, -Karen- said:

I know I made a lot of mistakes installing and uninstalling mods in my game but until a few days ago they weren't a big deal

 

 

49 minutes ago, -Karen- said:

uninstalled some relatively harmless mods

 

 

Start over and don't uninstall mods in the middle of a playthrough. 

[Fiend71]

Agreed.  Even a slight script change that may seen inconsequential can bork your game.

 

I've started over so many times that abandoned cell feels like home.  I could do Bleak Falls blindfolded...lol

 

Lvl 54 though - ouch.

[anjenthedog]

Reload a save from before the issue began, What happens is that once a save is corrupted, subsequent saves usually render it "completely corrupted". That is, you may be able to open a given save, even though it already has been corrupted/broken. saving that state will result in more save corruption.

 

And then address the underlying problem caused by some mod(s) you've installed recently. 

 

As for installing mods along the way. What I've read above is utter BS. I've been playing since early 2019 and have installed and uninstalled hundreds and hundreds of mods without creating a new game. (currently using about 400-450 mods, and my install record shows I've installed around 800 mods overall during the past ~3 years, and that's jsut from Nexus). Not that I haven't created a few new game vectors along the way, but overall, I'm routinely using three vectors (one male player, two female players) in which I routinely installed new mods and uninstall ones that don't work for me (either literally, or I find out they're just not what I expected)

 

The trick in doing so is being very careful when you install a new mod. If it works consistently without issues for several game weeks, it should be fine. But if you start getting weird behaviors, increased freezing, odd increases in lag, stuttering, CTDs, it's probably time to uninstall the most recent mod and jump back to a save created before it was installed. Doing this last part ensures no leftovers remain once the offending mod has been uninstalled.

 

Last word of advise. When installing new mods, do so only one at a time (or if they have a prerequisite mod(s), install those first, make sure the game is still stable, then install the desired mod and test it thoroughly before adding any further mods)

Edited August 17, 2022 by anjenthedog

[-Karen-]

4 hours ago, Fiend71 said:

Agreed.  Even a slight script change that may seen inconsequential can bork your game.

 

I've started over so many times that abandoned cell feels like home.  I could do Bleak Falls blindfolded...lol

 

Lvl 54 though - ouch.

Starting a new game is tempting, ? but besides just the idea of setting up mods is very daunting, I feel like cutting my current character's story would be like stopping watching a show in the middle. ?

[-Karen-]

4 hours ago, anjenthedog said:

Reload a save from before the issue began, What happens is that once a save is corrupted, subsequent saves usually render it "completely corrupted". That is, you may be able to open a given save, even though it already has been corrupted/broken. saving that state will result in more save corruption.

 

Last word of advise. When installing new mods, do so only one at a time (or if they have a prerequisite mod(s), install those first, make sure the game is still stable, then install the desired mod and test it thoroughly before adding any further mods)

Thank you for the advice and especially for understanding me. ?

 

I use MO2 and every time I have to uninstall some mod, I disable it first and after playing for some time, if I see that there are no errors, I remove it.
But I think that after this I will be more careful.

 

For now it seems that I found a "temporary solution" .. Using ReSaver I looked for the last save that did not have the error
"byohrelationshipadotptableorphanagesc" and I started playing and saving from there (Luckily it was only a couple of hours lost). So far I have no problems, but I'm not sure it's a definitive solution.

[yorpers]

So now that I have more free time to elaborate I thought I might as well. As the above poster mentioned there are certain times where installing and uninstalling in the middle of a playthrough is fine. That is true, however I never recommend uninstalling mods during a playthrough for many reasons. To understand that first you have to understand how a Skyrim save works to some extent.

 

Some data gets 'baked' or permanently stored.

 

The best and pretty much only resource I have found on this comes from a 2013 post in the step forums. 

 

• Papyrus script properties. These become permanently baked in from the moment the game starts and/or when a new mod with scripts is added. Script properties can only be updated by forcing them to change via an update script, like what the USKP uses for retroactive fixes.
• Objects pointed to by Papyrus properties. These can never be moved, even with scripted commands. This data is baked in from the moment the game starts and/or a new mod is added. Most attempts will simply fail silently, while others will log an error saying the objects can't be moved.
• Objects pointed to in forced reference aliases for quests. These are not supposed to become permanently persistent, but more often than not that's exactly what happens.
• Changes to any vanilla objects made via scripts. Including global variables and any other information. These changes are written as modification records in the save and can only be reversed with another script.
• Map Marker data. Specifically, if you alter a map marker, remove the name from it, then proceed to play, the map marker will permanently lose this information even after the mod is removed.
• Positions of havok enabled items in cells you've visited. Even if you move them in the CK and you haven't disturbed them yourself. This may reset itself upon the cell's next cycle, but so far all indications are that it won't.
• Positions of moveable static objects become permanent after your first encounter with them. Prior to this they will update.
• Changing ownership on a bed from nobody to a faction does not appear to update, while changing it from nobody to a specific NPC appears to work fine.
• Several fields on NPCs are known to bake in: Crime Faction, Faction memberships, Inventory items, Morality (AI Data tab), the opposite gender animations flag. These fields appear to only bake in if the NPC actually loads into memory at least once during play.
• Facegen Data for NPCs. This seems somewhat hit or miss, but more often than not, if you have encountered an NPC while playing, any changes to their facegen data that may be made later will be ignored.
• Timescale changes. You can make a one-time change to the game's timescale through an ESP, but after that, any changes to timescale must be done either via Papyrus or the console as the change is permanent in the save once made.

Removing mods in the middle of a playthrough that have made changes or interact with mods that make changes here has the potential to be problematic. 

 

Furthermore data such as load order and what mods are .esp or .esl or esp flagged esl seem to also get stored. 

 

This is the best list I have seen for stored data, but it seems to be a list of all data, not just data that is 'baked in.'

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim_Mod:Save_File_Format

 

Why does any of this mean removing mods in the middle of a playthrough is bad?

 

Because so many variables exist that can use this data is very strange ways. 

 

Even mods that should be safe to remove in the middle of a playthrough will change your load order. That shouldn't be a problem, but with so many closed source mods out there it's hard to say if even that small change in data is completely safe. If I'm not mistaken one of the main bugs in SoS where its .dll goes haywire happens after a load order change usually.

 

 

It is safe to test mods during a playthrough, most of the time. (Installing it and using it, then deciding to keep it or uninstall it. If you decide to uninstall it revert back to a save from before it was installed.) 

 

EDIT: (I don't recommend installing mods during a playthrough either unless you look at their conflicts in xedit first either)

 

 

What looks like happened to you here:

 

Is you uninstalled a mod while a script was running from that mod. There are other ways this can happen though, It could be a bad mod or conflict in general.

 

In order to actually recover your game you would need to reload a save from before you either uninstalled mods, or before you installed it at all. Then find a copy of your load order from that same time period and reload it. But even then that may not be enough, because if you have been installing and uninstalling mods the entire time there is no way of knowing when the corruption started. It could have been corrupted weeks ago and one quest state change triggered all this. That's why I suggest starting a new game and get in the habbit of not removing mods in the middle of a playthrough.

 

Even at that, your corruption may even be caused by something completely unrelated to uninstalling mods, I doubt it though. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 17, 2022 by yorpers

[-Karen-]

Quote

So now that I have more free time to elaborate I thought I might as well. As the above poster mentioned there are certain times where installing and uninstalling in the middle of a playthrough is fine. That is true, however I never recommend uninstalling mods during a playthrough for many reasons. To understand that first you have to understand how a Skyrim save works to some extent.

 

Wow! Thank you very much for the information, it is always useful to have a better perspective.

I will not hide that I made disasters thanks to my ignorance but I am too stubborn to give up without trying to fix a problem no matter how impossible it may seem ?

 

I have no idea what the problem mentioned about "byohrelationshipadotptableorphanagesc" is, but something very curious is that when I found the game affected by said problem, before making that save, I adopted Sofie, the girl from Windhelm.

 

Perhaps it has nothing to do with it, I repeat that my knowledge is very limited, but just in case I will let poor Sofie continue selling flowers.

 

Thanks for answering.