How to corrupt a savegame

[Passerby]

Mine's not really corrupted to the extent that other people's are (ie unplayable), but a couple mods don't seem to be working as intended with the only important difference between the saves where they work and the saves where they don't being time passed.

 

So...what corrupts a save game? From some of the other posts script heavy things tend to do it, but why? Even back in Oblivion, installing some mods would occasionally rename random things into that language (doors, spells, etc)...is that also something that corrupts a game?

[laz0r]

It's true that script heavy mods corrupt save games, they usually do so through interactions with other scripts that are running. If you have a script that is running affecting the same identity as another script it's going to cause issues. The largest cause of save game corruption is removing a mod that is heavy in scripts, because they stay embedded in save games. 

[Vancien]

^ As stated above. I had tons of issues due to this in the past. I recently cleanly installed Skyrim and I was able to recover saves and restore them without issues. I switched to Mod Organizer which I highly recommend now as it helps prevent issues like this. It does not directly install mods to the Skyrim folder, so in the event you have something go wrong you can easily rectify the problem and manage it accordingly. It's a little more complex than NMM but worth the extra time for a cleaner, safer Skyrim. 

 

If you have the time and resources, I suggest doing as I did. You won't regret the switch. 

 

 

[miketheratguy]

I used to use mods like Random Encounters and Extra Encounters together, both of which made my game amazingly exciting and active. Now I can't seem to get the former to work at all and the latter might have given my new install its first crash, all possibly because I failed to be careful about baking my saves. Yay, fresh install and mod detective time. That's always fun.

[pinky6225]

Mine's not really corrupted to the extent that other people's are (ie unplayable), but a couple mods don't seem to be working as intended with the only important difference between the saves where they work and the saves where they don't being time passed.

 

So...what corrupts a save game? From some of the other posts script heavy things tend to do it, but why? Even back in Oblivion, installing some mods would occasionally rename random things into that language (doors, spells, etc)...is that also something that corrupts a game?

 

Installing and then uninstalling mods mid save is the most common cause since data from the mods gets into your saves so when you try run it then it needs to ignore loads of missing stuff as well as process the stuff going on.

[Veladarius]

Mods that change or remove items used as properties in scripts (vanilla or another mod) are a big one. This can cause scripts to fail and quests to stop or not start at all and its effects may not be seen in game for some time. I have seen this happen in my game, starting out it was flawless but as time wore on I saw more and more problems until it gets to the point of that game no longer being playable. I ended up removing a number of mods that I used quite a bit because of that.

[gvman3670]

If you MUST remove a scripted mod you can generally avoid the save baking by going back to a save point prior to having that mod. Of course, if it was installed at the start of the game you're fucked. But if it was added along the way you can just go back to a point prior to installing it.

[Passerby]

Good to know...so really the biggest cause is just junk data leading to savegame bloating, from the sound of it. When you're USING a scripted mod, it's not junk because it's actively being used by a mod, but once it's uninstalled anything that mod had going on is now junk, to say nothing of the issues created in whatever the mod was actively modifying in the game. How much do uninstallers built into a mod help with that?

 

Is it safe to say ALL mods have a certain amount of junk data, insofar as the way the creation kit packs bsa's is slightly unoptimized?

I guess what I'm wondering now is how vanilla components can randomly get switched over to other languages when installing an unrelated mod. Like why my Detect Life spell is called "détection des vivants," or why a mod in Oblivion renamed all my doors to the japanese word for door.

 

And as a few people mentioned already one of the reasons I'm asking is just because I'm trying to figure out when to switch to MO...that is, whether I should just wait for my inevitable new game, or whether I should try to migrate all the mods I have over to it asap.

[Vancien]

Good to know...so really the biggest cause is just junk data leading to savegame bloating, from the sound of it. When you're USING a scripted mod, it's not junk because it's actively being used by a mod, but once it's uninstalled anything that mod had going on is now junk, to say nothing of the issues created in whatever the mod was actively modifying in the game. How much do uninstallers built into a mod help with that?

 

Is it safe to say ALL mods have a certain amount of junk data, insofar as the way the creation kit packs bsa's is slightly unoptimized?

I guess what I'm wondering now is how vanilla components can randomly get switched over to other languages when installing an unrelated mod. Like why my Detect Life spell is called "détection des vivants," or why a mod in Oblivion renamed all my doors to the japanese word for door.

 

And as a few people mentioned already one of the reasons I'm asking is just because I'm trying to figure out when to switch to MO...that is, whether I should just wait for my inevitable new game, or whether I should try to migrate all the mods I have over to it asap.

 

If you are making the switch to MO, start a new. You can likely recover your game if you take some adequate steps to prevent issues. Strip your Skyrim of all mods you have loaded currently. Load your save, even if you are using  custom race or whatever, change your character to a normal race temporarily and save. I'd also suggest stripping any gear and being totally naked. Then save that as a new save game and backup the save.

 

If that does not work, as in you load in and your character is all screwed up and can't go into race menu or change the race. Load your game with mods loaded, strip yourself down and change to a vanilla race. Do not change your SEX though. You could screw your perks and progress up, I made that mistake once.  

 

Steam may hold record for you but always a good idea to have a backup. This is how I recovered my save after having all kinds of issues in Skyrim and corrupted saves where every time I entered anywhere my game crashed and most recent save would not load. I had to load a previous save then the most recent to get it to work. 

 

Once you have a "theoretical minimal save" I won't call it clean as it really isn't, I'd say uninstall Skyrim cleanly. But you may want to make a list of essential mods you must have for your new game. I purged a lot of older mods, not really supported anymore that I had been using. This will only cause you heartache in the future if you continue to use them.

 

Use CCleaner to uninstall Skyrim and also reboot to ensure you get rid of everything and check your hard drive as well for trace files and folders. When I did it, I also uninstalled Steam Client. Then I installed everything again cleanly, made the switch to MO and started from scratch. 

 

I hope this helps and you are able to get your Skyrim working properly. 

 

There are some resources for MO here and elsewhere I highly recommend reading. 

 

http://forum.step-project.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=92

 

http://wiki.step-project.com/STEP:2.2.8

 

http://wiki.step-project.com/Guide:Mod_Organizer

 

http://www.loverslab.com/topic/20492-mod-organizer/

[Passerby]

That sounds several steps more intensive a purge than I'd probably do, but it wouldn't be a bad thing to do anyway even if my save's still working decently. So I might just have to do that anyway. After installing and looking through MO a bit it doesn't actually seem all that difficult to get into, and if there's any way I can actually have two different batches of mods running separately for two different savegames I'm all over it. Which from the look of it isn't completely unreasonable.

 

Also, I didn't realize skyrim itself was such a big cause of dirty edits. Do the unofficial patches address any of those, or just tie up the more noticeable quest issues and whatnot? I was never incredibly clear on the role of them outside of fixing some of the more gamebreaking bugs.

[Vancien]

That sounds several steps more intensive a purge than I'd probably do, but it wouldn't be a bad thing to do anyway even if my save's still working decently. So I might just have to do that anyway. After installing and looking through MO a bit it doesn't actually seem all that difficult to get into, and if there's any way I can actually have two different batches of mods running separately for two different savegames I'm all over it. Which from the look of it isn't completely unreasonable.

 

Also, I didn't realize skyrim itself was such a big cause of dirty edits. Do the unofficial patches address any of those, or just tie up the more noticeable quest issues and whatnot? I was never incredibly clear on the role of them outside of fixing some of the more gamebreaking bugs.

 

You are correct that MO allows multiple profiles and separate save games. Recently, Gvman has been doing some preliminary testing with it and had successes thus far. I only currently use one profile in MO but intend to utilize that feature in the future. 

 

Unofficial patches do not resolve dirty edits in the Official Patches. They simply resolve a lot of issues the patches actually did not rectify. However, you can and it is advised to clean the Official patches in TES5Edit but do not ever clean the Unofficial patches. Those dirty edits are intentional. I cleaned the patches upon my clean install. 

 

There is a process you need to follow in order to clean the patches. You can find the guide here: TES5EDIT GUIDE

You can also watch the videos, which I still recommend you do after reading. 

 

I'll help you in any way I can, just private message me rather than post here so I don't miss it. 

 

Best, 

Van

[gvman3670]

After installing and looking through MO a bit it doesn't actually seem all that difficult to get into, and if there's any way I can actually have two different batches of mods running separately for two different savegames I'm all over it. Which from the look of it isn't completely unreasonable.

Yup, MO is awesome like that. I've recently started a new game with a new MO profile. I've found that it's quite simple and painless. All installed mods will show in the left pane when you start a new profile, but they won't be activated. Simply activate the mods you want with that profile, check that the .esm and .esp files are checked in the right pane, make sure you check .bsa files, and run BOSS and FNIS through the MO launcher. Also be sure to check the option for "local game saves" in the profile management part so the saves don't get sent to documents/my games/Skyrim. And that's it. It takes just a few minutes to set up a new profile and game. Really, really easy to do.

 

And I think that the patches are just bug fixes. They don't remove any dirty edits Bethesda left for us.