CTD in Ultimate College of Winterhold

[johnhamm]

I am getting a consistent crash in the UCOW Hall of the Elements that I am not sure of the cause of. It doesn't happen instantly or on a save, just some time after entering, usually within a minute. I suspect Lux is the problem because it consistently shows up in the crash log, but I'm not sure how to verify that. I might have installed UCOW incorrectly causing this but I checked that already. Could anyone help me out? DHLP_Redux is also mentioned near the top, Deviously Helpless Redux, but that has been installed for a while with no issue.

 

Crash Log: https://pastebin.com/HuKCDGwC

[traison]

For some reason the callstack wasn't unwound correctly, or it has been removed. Determining which parts of the stack is relevant isn't really possible now.

 

The crash occured because it tried to dereference RCX which at the time of the crash was 0x0. You have a null pointer somewhere.

 

Your issue might be in form id 0xfe185d65 "WD Cloak Apply" added by "DHLP_Redux.esp". Cast by form id 0xfe01e818 "Lentilus Batiatus" from "OCW_ICNs_OE_FEPatch.esp" in form id 0x0001380e "Hall of the Elements", last modified by "Lux - UCOW patch.esp".

 

Either remove DHLP_Redux and start a new game, or inspect the cloak and all associated records for null pointers.

[johnhamm]

3 hours ago, traison said:

For some reason the callstack wasn't unwound correctly, or it has been removed. Determining which parts of the stack is relevant isn't really possible now.

 

The crash occured because it tried to dereference RCX which at the time of the crash was 0x0. You have a null pointer somewhere.

 

Your issue might be in form id 0xfe185d65 "WD Cloak Apply" added by "DHLP_Redux.esp". Cast by form id 0xfe01e818 "Lentilus Batiatus" from "OCW_ICNs_OE_FEPatch.esp" in form id 0x0001380e "Hall of the Elements", last modified by "Lux - UCOW patch.esp".

 

Either remove DHLP_Redux and start a new game, or inspect the cloak and all associated records for null pointers.

 

Are null pointers shown in SSedit? How would I identify them?

[traison]

I would look for fields that haven't been assigned, or fields that can't be resolved. Cloaks cast spells, spells have magic effects, magic effects can have scripts - if a script property is not set, that would count as a potential null pointer.

[Schizoomer]

Did you manage to solve this? I have the exact same issue  

[traison]

2 hours ago, Schizoomer said:

Did you manage to solve this? I have the exact same issue  

 

Exact same issue in what regard? Crashing in the college, or the exact same callstack (which btw is missing). May want to post your crash log.

[Schizoomer]

16 hours ago, traison said:

 

Exact same issue in what regard? Crashing in the college, or the exact same callstack (which btw is missing). May want to post your crash log.

My crash logs seem to indicate the same problem with the same form id (WD Cloak Apply), going off of what the skyrim crash decoder says. It seems like a crash is triggered whenever an NPC tries to cast some spell that does nothing inside the Hall of Elements while practicing with the targets. It's like they do the animation but there are no spell effects or anything and then the game just crashes.

Here's my crash log.

crash-2025-04-12-19-49-46.log

[traison]

That indeed looks like the same problem, and I would still approach this by inspecting the spells and characters in xEdit.

[Schizoomer]

8 hours ago, traison said:

That indeed looks like the same problem, and I would still approach this by inspecting the spells and characters in xEdit.

I don't know how to do that ;_; I tried taking a look at the records in SSEEdit like you suggested but they might as well be in chinese, idk what I'm looking for or even what I'm looking at
I'm considering either just living with it or disabling DHLP until I'm done with the college, but it's really annoying

[traison]

I wouldn't know what to look for either. What I would do is find a spell with similiar functionality and compare the 2 field-by-field. If the spell that's having issues is a cloak, then the first thing that comes to mind is the Fire Cloak spell from the vanilla game.

[Schizoomer]

22 minutes ago, traison said:

I wouldn't know what to look for either. What I would do is find a spell with similiar functionality and compare the 2 field-by-field. If the spell that's having issues is a cloak, then the first thing that comes to mind is the Fire Cloak spell from the vanilla game.

That sounds easy enough, and when I find what's missing what do I do?

[Schizoomer]

47 minutes ago, Schizoomer said:

That sounds easy enough, and when I find what's missing what do I do?

Actually nvm I still don't know what I'm looking at
 

I've observed in game that both Lentilus and J'zargo cast the spell that causes the game to crash, so I tried looking for spells that reference them both, and I also compared the flame cloak spell and the WD cloak apply spell, but I don't really know what I'm doing. I don't even know what a null pointer is, like I tried looking it up on Google but I don't get it

[traison]

1 hour ago, Schizoomer said:

and when I find what's missing what do I do?

 

Improvise.

 

24 minutes ago, Schizoomer said:

I don't even know what a null pointer is

 

In this case: something the game expected to be instantiated or assigned, but wasn't.

• A spell with no inventory graphic assigned to it.
• A script with a property that hasn't been assigned and its value gets passed to a function that doesn't check for invalid input. This may not be evident in xEdit, if the value was reassigned during runtime. ReSaver might be able to reveal this.
• A cloak spell with no spell for it to cast on its targets.
• A sword with attack sound.
• A record with a refrence that can't be resolved because of a missing dependency or modder error.

Will all of these crash the game? Probably not. Is that a list of all the things that can crash the game? Absolutely not. This is why I'd use an example from the vanilla game that I know does not have the same issue. If swinging a sword crashes the game, and comparing it to a vanilla working sword reveals that the problematic one has no sound assigned to it: add a sound to it.

 

With all the fields leftover from previous games like Oblivion and Morrowind and the lack of any kind of documentation pretty much only leaves one option: compare it to something that's working. The CK isn't going to point these things out for you either. xEdit I find is much faster for work like this.

Edited April 14, 2025 by traison

[Schizoomer]

2 hours ago, traison said:

 

Improvise.

 

 

In this case: something the game expected to be instantiated or assigned, but wasn't.

• A spell with no inventory graphic assigned to it.
• A script with a property that hasn't been assigned and its value gets passed to a function that doesn't check for invalid input. This may not be evident in xEdit, if the value was reassigned during runtime. ReSaver might be able to reveal this.
• A cloak spell with no spell for it to cast on its targets.
• A sword with attack sound.
• A record with a refrence that can't be resolved because of a missing dependency or modder error.

Will all of these crash the game? Probably not. Is that a list of all the things that can crash the game? Absolutely not. This is why I'd use an example from the vanilla game that I know does not have the same issue. If swinging a sword crashes the game, and comparing it to a vanilla working sword reveals that the problematic one has no sound assigned to it: add a sound to it.

 

With all the fields leftover from previous games like Oblivion and Morrowind and the lack of any kind of documentation pretty much only leaves one option: compare it to something that's working. The CK isn't going to point these things out for you either. xEdit I find is much faster for work like this.

I had another look at it, but this is all completely above my abilities. I can't tell what's wrong with that magic effect, hell, it might not even be a problem with the effect at all, I think it might be a problem with the NPC's behaviors. I don't understand why they're casting that spell in that situation in the first place.

 

Or maybe it's a problem with both mods? I just don't know. Anyways, even if I was able to find the null pointer, I wouldn't know how to solve it, so it's completely pointless.

I think I'm just going to avoid visiting the hall of elements while there's NPCs practicing in it and hope that this issue doesn't cause me any more problems.

I really appreciate your help though, thank you very much!

Edited April 14, 2025 by Schizoomer
Added in more details

[traison]

31 minutes ago, Schizoomer said:

it might not even be a problem with the effect at all... I think it might be a problem with the NPC's behaviors.

 

True. In some sense, every single aspect of the game was in some form involved in casting that spell: All NPCs in the cell heard it being cast, or had to determine whether they heard it or not; and may have had to access some property of it to determine what their current AI package will do about it.

 

That's the thing though, the crash log will tell you exactly which object the problem is in. It doesn't lie. But only a debugger and sometimes weeks of work can determine how and why it got there. Usually its not worth pursuing this.

 

I realize you meant something else when you said its a problem with NPC behavior: they shouldn't even be casting this spell is what you're saying. As far as I know, NPCs do not cast spells they do not have. So another way around this problem would be to disable the component that's giving them this spell, whether its something like SPID, a leveled list or modified NPC_ records.

[johnhamm]

On 4/13/2025 at 5:29 PM, Schizoomer said:

Did you manage to solve this? I have the exact same issue  

 

It was a while ago and I might've messed with my mods or something, but I don't think that fixed it. When I have had issues similar or identical to this in the past that don't have a clear cause, I usually just leave the area for a while and it clears itself up. If you can't make it to the door without crashing just coc somewhere as soon as you load in.