I need to whine a bit

[halieslade]

If you're using MO your Skyrim folder should be under 10gig. So you have a dirty, dirty Skyrim install. The whole point of Mod Organizer is to keep that Skyrim folder clean. It doesn't add anything to that folder at all.

 

I would strongly suggest reinstalling Skyrim and using only Mod Organizer for adding your mods. Do not add anything to the Skyrim/data folder that doesn't absolutely require being in there (almost nothing does, though).

 

This is probably the source of your issues. The left over "junk" in your Skyrim folder.

 

I have a big "Downloads" folder and a "Snapshots" folder under /Skyrim that make up most of that 54GB.  The game itself is much smaller.

 

I'm a packrat.  I save all the mods I've downloaded in case I ever need to reinstall them.  But of course, now that I'm actually working on a reinstall I'm going to go looking for updated versions.  I blame it all on "So much space, I save everything"

[gvman3670]

Yeah, I don't do automatic download and installs, even though MO can do that just like NMM does it. I save all the good stuff and have even downloaded stuff I am not using but figured would disappear just so I could share it if necessary. So I know the packrat mod mentality.

 

Just do a reinstall of Skyrim, be sure to double check that MO is recognizing it in it's location and try to not add stuff to the Skyrim folder. That alone will help in the future.

 

Another key feature of MO is its profile feature. This allows you to create "test" profiles, as many as you like actually, where you can install mods, play around with them and find out if they break stuff. If they don't then go ahead and add them to your playthrough profiles. And another cool part is that there are no actual overwrites at all so uninstalling mods from MO doesn't leave "holes" or tidbits that don't belong.

[halieslade]

Yeah, I don't do automatic download and installs, even though MO can do that just like NMM does it. I save all the good stuff and have even downloaded stuff I am not using but figured would disappear just so I could share it if necessary. So I know the packrat mod mentality.

 

Just do a reinstall of Skyrim, be sure to double check that MO is recognizing it in it's location and try to not add stuff to the Skyrim folder. That alone will help in the future.

 

Another key feature of MO is its profile feature. This allows you to create "test" profiles, as many as you like actually, where you can install mods, play around with them and find out if they break stuff. If they don't then go ahead and add them to your playthrough profiles. And another cool part is that there are no actual overwrites at all so uninstalling mods from MO doesn't leave "holes" or tidbits that don't belong.

 

I've been waiting for Steam to finish redownloading the game for almost 3 hours, now.  I launched via MO but forgot about the profiles option.  I need to do that as I slowly begin adding more mods.

 

Twiddling my thumbs.  Not an exciting day.  I feel the urge to kill bandits!

[halieslade]

I had to take a break to watch some TV tonight and decompress.  It's been a stressful day with a lot of false starts and do-overs and I'm still not sure I did this right.

 

As of right now, my rebuild of Skyrim is about 25% done.  I told Steam to "Delete Local Content" after being unable to get the game to work by selectively deleting texture, mesh and data folders.  Then came the long wait while I had Steam re-install.  Then figure out which mods went back first, like XPMS skeleton, 7Base textures, FNIS, ZAZ animations,  SGHairPack, and RaceMenu.

 

Still haven't been able to start a new game - Skyrim gets to the loading screen after "New" and hangs up there for the longest time, still playing music.  When I CTRL-ALT-DEL to look at Windows Task Manager, it says that Skyrim is "running", which is better than "Not Responding", right?

 

So I took a leap and reloaded a save from my last abortive run through the wildnerness as a naked noob.

 

What do you think is missing? Skeleton or texture?  It's like she was captured and beheaded by bandits!

 

 

 

 

[gvman3670]

Not sure what's missing, but if you hover over that game save in MO's right pane it will tell you what mods are missing.

 

Remember, with MO it doesn't matter what order you install the mods. Just organize them in the left pane afterwards to get the virtual overwrites you want or need.

[halieslade]

Not sure what's missing, but if you hover over that game save in MO's right pane it will tell you what mods are missing.

 

Remember, with MO it doesn't matter what order you install the mods. Just organize them in the left pane afterwards to get the virtual overwrites you want or need.

 

That's a great tip, but unfortunately the list of missing .esm and .esp is huge because I cleaned out all of my mods and I'm not done reinstalling.

 

I suspect that little bug has something to do with XPSM, but I can't test my conclusion now because the game is back to crashing

[3Dmember]

@carlgc:  Skyrim was originally released in Nov. 2011.  http://en.wikipedia....rolls_V:_Skyrim.  I wasn't doing the detail math and should have said 4 (rounding up) instead of 5, but since I've also been an avid Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion player i think I deserve a break for not being pedantically accurate in a passing comment.

 

I was just razzling you haha. No offense meant. I know exactly when skyrim released which was roughly 3 years and 2 months ago well i guess now 3years 3months ;-p. November is at the end of a year ;-p. Basically what I was trying to say is that Skyrim as far as TES titles go is still relatively young. Since it's also far more complex to previous TES iterations(I also started playing TES from the beginning Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion(I wish they would remake the first two elderscrolls - that would be sexy - I'm not saying graphics are supremely important, hell I can stomach 2D games like SNES and like titles, I just can't stomach another daggerfall playthrough on some archaic 3D engine. Morrowind is fine because of the overhaul + my own custom graphic additions). Anyways back to Skyrim. Skyrim is not a very well optimized game as you might have guessed. Bethesda keeps making games and keeps making engines, normally this would be fine. However with how complex TES games are compared to like every other sandbox rpg i've played(TES actually incorporates a story and lots of lore - most others don't have either) the problem is that when they try to do the impossible like this either one area of development fails or both equally. In Bethesda's case the engine ends up poorly optimized and limited(Skyrim graphics were quite dated compared to other titles of the same year). The end result is a game that has a shit engine. Yes I said it. The skyrim engine is shit and not just the skyrim engine. Every game engine they have ever made or leased has been terrible. Yes they offer free range modding(bravo pat yourself on the back - it's truly cool). However that doesn't make up for the severe limitations of the engine and the fact that it takes a completely rebuilt from the ground up ENB of the highest sophistication and 200+ mods to make skyrim look like modern games(when infact skyrim is supposed to be a modern game). Not to mention you need 200+ mods to finish the game(they always release the game like 60% complete). I'm not knocking on TES games, they are amazing however bethesda is always trying to do the impossible. No other game set out to do what TES games do and for good reason. If you did it would take 10 years to make a game(most mmo's take 5-8 years to make). Lets look at what TES does.... epic story, long campaign, several large story campaigns, thousands of side quests, thousands of encounters, dozens of monsters, hundreds of NPCs, a game world thats more detailed and larger than the biggest mmo's, 1st person and 3rd person combat animations, the list goes on.... See my point. Bascially only MMO's try to do this. This is why they should focus there programmers on making the game and not making a game engine and then having everyone learn how to use a new set of tools every 3 years.

 

If they started building TES games on the UDK way back when they were developing morrowind using the UDK would be like second nature to them now.

For example lets look at the unreal engine 3/4. If they had built skyrim on that engine. Do you know what we would have?

 

1) A stable game

2) A game that is capable of running cells 20 times larger with nary a performance hit

3) More advanced particle effects, physics, better scripting and AI without severe and stupid limitations.

4) Superior graphics(imagine what an ENB would do for a skyrim build on the UDK3....like omg it would be insane)

5) No problem loading bloated saves(will just take longer to load)

6) Superior character models(more complex meshes/ skeletons)

7) Superior Animations(more controls etc)

8) The entire map of skyrim minus all interiors would be loaded simultaneously without consistent transition loading(microstutter) (you really notice this on higher end PCs running at max graphics with a high framerate when running fast)

9) Better view distance w/o stupid unstable crap(like running crazy land 15 cells that screw up quest triggers etc)

 

I'm not saying the Unreal Engines are the best(well they kind of are) it's just the Unreal Engine is made for developers(it's what epic games does best). They make a set of tools that really outshine other game engines allowing developers to focus purely on making the game instead of making a game engine and focusing on the staff learning how to use a new engine every 3 years like bethesda has done. First it was the XnGine then it was the Gamebyro, then it was a more advanced Gamebyro with speedtree and havok, now it's the creation kit. Next it will be who the fuck knows what lol. Just some new shit engine that they have to figure out all over again(most likely a creation kit extremely modified - which will be unstable haha). Development will suffer because of it. You would be blown away at how many AAA titles are released on the Unreal Engine. You would be further blown away to know that not one of those games released has ever used the Unreal Engine to it's full potential(like not even close). There have been some tech demo's that sort of did but not really. The reason is because most of those games made using it were developed primarily for console release(which means graphics get dumbed down ALOT). Yes it would cost bethesda money to develop using Unreal Engine(25% of there profit) but the players and most importantly the modders would have an easier time of things as the UDK is fully disclosed and has everything it does and how to do it posted online. I would say that the RED engine, frostbite engine, crytek engine, darnia(which is basically a crytek engine), etc are all awesome(which they are) problem is they don't offer the same set of tools that UDK does.

 

I think the only game I have seen that really shows you what the Unreal Engine is capable of is a stupid little game called bulletstorm that was built for console but if you use a Ultra PC ini which you can find on the internet some people have tweaked it to crazy lengths. It shows you that the Unreal Engine is comparable to Crytek 3 engine in quality and bulletstorm was developed using the last Unreal Engine 3 UDK not even Unreal Engine 4 which has been available for awhile now.

 

Anyways your problem is most likely save bloat. You said 11-16k. that's not a normal size btw. I have saves where i've literally got 1000+ hours with 200+ mods and they aren't that big in size. 11-16k means you have one or two mods that are massively scripted causing save game bloat. You can still play those saves however( I do all the time - most of my Sexlab saves are bloated like that). All you have to do is everytime you load up quickly start a new game(i suggest alternative start mod) and then load your save immediately once you're in game(if you have a decent machine this takes seconds). You should have no problem. This is something most of us here in LL do with skyrim because of alot of the heavily scripted(but really awesome) mods available to play cause this to happen(Sexlab Aroused, Dangerous Nights and pregnancy mods.... i'm looking at you ^'-'^).

[3Dmember]

If that doesn't work then most likely your current setup is messed up, it happens. Start from scratch in Mod Organizer and clean your saves there are a few good save cleaners Be sure you use a good one that is endorsed. I used one once long ago and it completely messed up my saves(lucky I made backups).

[halieslade]

Carl, I appreciate your feedback.  I really do.  So please don't think that I'm looking for reasons to discount it.  I'm not   I especially agree with your analysis of Skyrim as a game.  Bethesda has always done this - I get the feeling that they're not a particularly large or well-funded outfit, but their designers are imaginative and creative, perhaps more so than many other shops.  I worked a bit in the game design industry (not actually designing, I've never been a good enough coder to even come close to that stuff), and I remember more than one instance when the design/testing groups were screaming for more time but the money was running out and the company had to get a product on sale and start generating revenue before they went belly up.  It's a conflict and about every game company has it, including shops like Blizzard.

 

 

Anyways your problem is most likely save bloat. You said 11-16k. that's not a normal size btw. I have saves where i've literally got 1000+ hours with 200+ mods and they aren't that big in size. 11-16k means you have one or two mods that are massively scripted causing save game bloat. You can still play those saves however( I do all the time - most of my Sexlab saves are bloated like that). All you have to do is everytime you load up quickly start a new game(i suggest alternative start mod) and then load your save immediately once you're in game(if you have a decent machine this takes seconds). You should have no problem. This is something most of us here in LL do with skyrim because of alot of the heavily scripted(but really awesome) mods available to play cause this to happen(Sexlab Aroused, Dangerous Nights and pregnancy mods.... i'm looking at you ^'-'^).

 

The full range of my saves (I have some I've kept since a year ago) goes from 8k up to 16k, and when I read up on save bloat it was talking about 40k+ as bloated.  But I have to agree that I had some dirty mods running.  My goal this time is to run with as few mods as possible (except for SexLab, which is the main reason I restarted Skyrim after months off).  Why I would ever need 3 custom crossbow mods, for example, is beyond me.  I will be restarting without any, this time.

 

As I tinkered with my setup last night, it suddenly dawned on me (facepalm, headslap, duh) that the saves I was trying to reload were made with a Temptress build.  And I've ditched the Temptress mod after someone mentioned how outdated it was.  That might also explain the missing head in the pic I posted!

 

So, now my goal is to get skyrim to just start a new game.  All of my saves are either too old/dirty or, like this, using an outdated mod.  I need to get the game to start new, then be able to save it, quit, reload the save and have it work.  If I could do that, I would be the happiest gamer chick in the universe.

 

I can get it to load the logo.  I can get to the opening menu.  I can click "Load" and see a list of my saved games.  But when I click on "New", it sits there playing the music forever and ever without actually ever starting up.   Windows Program manager claims that the game is "running" rather than "not responding", so there's that.  I don't know how much patience I should have before I give up and delete Skyrim completely, start all over rebuilding it (god I don't want to do that!).  Maybe I should just click "New", walk off and do something else for 15 or 20 minutes.  I dunno.

 

Anyway, thanks for talking to me.  I kept waking up last night obsessing over what I was doing wrong and it's costing me sleep.  No game is worth that

 

 

 

[gvman3670]

MO does make the game take longer to load/start if you have a lot of mods installed. But only on a fresh start most times, meaning if you shut the game and the computer down it will take a while again.

 

I get these long starts. I often hit control/alt/delete then "cancel" and it loads right up. Probably a limitation of my equipment in my case.

[halieslade]

MO does make the game take longer to load/start if you have a lot of mods installed. But only on a fresh start most times, meaning if you shut the game and the computer down it will take a while again.

 

I get these long starts. I often hit control/alt/delete then "cancel" and it loads right up. Probably a limitation of my equipment in my case.

 

I was thinking that very thing.  But twice I started "New" and walked away for 30-40 minutes and it was still cranking when I came back.

 

So I'm down to my last resort.  Where before I had only had Steam "Delete Local Content" and then re-install, this time I'm taking no chances.  I wiped out my folders and moved my saved downloads over to desktop, then told steam to delete what's left and re-install.  My list of mods to reinstall is extremely short.  I want a flawlessly running game before I start putting SexLab back into play.  Then it will only be those SL mods that worked for me for the entire past week.  Lessons learned.  The positive side of this is that it should fix my long-running problem of invisible body parts on some leather armors.

 

If this doesn't work, I have no more answers.  But I'm one of those ever hopeful kinds of people.  On paper, this ought to fix whatever was wrong with maybe some little script or bad texture/mesh in my previous build.  All of that is now gone and I'm rolling a last-ditch save with my back against the wall

[halieslade]

Final update:  Apparently, when Steam says "Delete local content", they're not being 100% accurate.  After it failed the first time, by manually deleting the entire Data folder and then getting Steam to delete local content, I was finally able to get a working copy of the base game going!

 

Now it's time to carefully and patiently add my top priority mods back in, one at a time.  There really is hope on the horizon!

 

[lordofpie7000]

Your story of pain and suffering...it reminds me of the 40+ hours i've put into modding skyrim this install around.

 

Rule of thumb; Never trust steam, it doesn't do things right. At least not for me.

 

I'm currently in the same phase as you slowly rebuilding my mod list and running tests for CTDs and incompatabilities before I even bother to start playing seriously. No matter how mad you get, when it all finally comes together and works beautifully you will know it was worth it.

[RitualClarity]

 

Yeah, I don't do automatic download and installs, even though MO can do that just like NMM does it. I save all the good stuff and have even downloaded stuff I am not using but figured would disappear just so I could share it if necessary. So I know the packrat mod mentality.

 

Just do a reinstall of Skyrim, be sure to double check that MO is recognizing it in it's location and try to not add stuff to the Skyrim folder. That alone will help in the future.

 

Another key feature of MO is its profile feature. This allows you to create "test" profiles, as many as you like actually, where you can install mods, play around with them and find out if they break stuff. If they don't then go ahead and add them to your playthrough profiles. And another cool part is that there are no actual overwrites at all so uninstalling mods from MO doesn't leave "holes" or tidbits that don't belong.

 

I've been waiting for Steam to finish redownloading the game for almost 3 hours, now.  I launched via MO but forgot about the profiles option.  I need to do that as I slowly begin adding more mods.

 

Twiddling my thumbs.  Not an exciting day.  I feel the urge to kill bandits!

 

With MO. install some of the most basic requried mods and start a profile for your bandit killer. You can add mods to it later just try to not remove mods. Kill some bandits get that out of your system go back and download and install some mods. select and kill some more bandits. rinse and repeat. Done. Create a few more profiles and play different starts etc. Later create special profiles for special mods you have installed and keep going from there. Unlike NMM or other managers with MO you have more of an "evolution" of mod content than a project of getting them all installed just right. I have been adding and adding etc and I have50 gigs of content to use in my Skyim folder (where MO is also installed ). When I return to installing some more mods it will likely go above 75gigs. I seen some tasty mods and heard about some others that I might want to give a run. I plan on keeping my level 30 wizzard nice and safe with the mods he is already using (maxing out at over 150 mods installed and will get some issues if I continue) Yea MO.. I can create a completly different profile with completely different mods ..

[halieslade]

My new install was feeling stable enough, and successfully saved/reloaded several times so I went ahead and made a character, then started a run to Whiterun.

 

Killed a bandit, saved, tried to loot.  Crashed.  Reloaded, tried to loot.  Crashed again.  Three times.

 

Googling this, it seems to have been a common issue going back to 2012.  Some of the speculation relates it to SkyUI perhaps, and/or the scripts running it. 

 

So I've double checked my NVIDIA drivers, my SkyUI installation, SKSE version and anything else MO says might possibly be an issue.  After everything I've been through (and never having had the loot bug in the last 3 years of playing), I just don't know if I can do this any more.  Too many emotional ups and downs and I'll be moving on with Dragon Age Inquisition or something. 

[gvman3670]

Check your skeleton in the left pane and be sure that it isn't being overwritten at all. Crashes while disrobing are generally skeleton related. Could be an SoS issue if it's males you're looting when it crashes. Have you got HDT PE installed yet?

[halieslade]

Check your skeleton in the left pane and be sure that it isn't being overwritten at all. Crashes while disrobing are generally skeleton related. Could be an SoS issue if it's males you're looting when it crashes. Have you got HDT PE installed yet?

 

I just installed XMSE this morning.  I need to recheck and make sure I grabbed the HDT version.  Thanks, good point.

 

My one experiment was with a female bandit, so SOS shouldn't have been a problem.  But now that you mention it, I should go ahead and get it installed since I've started with SexLab Framework but no further on SL stuff.

[RitualClarity]

I had a problem when I looted a bandit as well.

 

It was because of a missing requirement (body, armor, skeleton etc) Skyrim was the only game that happened to with me in all the time I played games. It had nothing to do with SKSE or anything else. Installed the Skeleton etc and problem solved. It was a pain in the ass to figure out where I went wrong

[gvman3670]

If the skeleton is being overwritten simply drag and drop it lower in the left pane list or drag the offending overwriter and drop it above the skeleton.

[RitualClarity]

Yep. It might be something as simple as moving some conflicts or installing a different file.

[halieslade]

I had a problem when I looted a bandit as well.

 

It was because of a missing requirement (body, armor, skeleton etc) Skyrim was the only game that happened to with me in all the time I played games. It had nothing to do with SKSE or anything else. Installed the Skeleton etc and problem solved. It was a pain in the ass to figure out where I went wrong

 

You rock!  Your pain will hopefully be my gain

 

Will try that at the end of the evening when I'm back to the game.  Thank you.

[RitualClarity]

 

I had a problem when I looted a bandit as well.

 

It was because of a missing requirement (body, armor, skeleton etc) Skyrim was the only game that happened to with me in all the time I played games. It had nothing to do with SKSE or anything else. Installed the Skeleton etc and problem solved. It was a pain in the ass to figure out where I went wrong

 

You rock!  Your pain will hopefully be my gain

 

Will try that at the end of the evening when I'm back to the game.  Thank you.

 

It isn't always the issue however when the game tries to access something that it don't have, or it isn't correct you get a crash. Crashing at a location is usually a missing or corrupted resource, crashing when trying to loot a body is usually something to do with the body or the Skeleton as that is what you would have (armor before , nude now). Most crashes like what you and others experience is simply a missing or screwed up file which unfortunately could be anywhere. The though process is something like this. You look for consistency. In your case crash when looting. Then you can try to loot only selected items. If you can loot rings and such without a crash than those should be fine. If you remove an armor and crash you can then focus on armor or body. Same goes with crashing with locations. Look at mods that should be changing those locations and disable them. Then you don't crash you know the conflict or screwed up file. (I actually verify cache for those first before messing with the folder as those are rare with my collection of mods I use) The idea is look at the crash, verify it happens consistently, then look at what is happening right before. You can get so much info from those events that can really help narrow down the causes.

 

Give it some time and practice. It takes this to learn and grow as a modder/gamer. Trust me if you do this in time you will be able to resolve most if not all of your problems, and those that you can't... you can give quite good info for others to help or give really good ideas (like the crash from bandit issue )

 

Oh and it really wasn't a "pain" The first crash I was like what the hell, Second is ,,, ? Then the third time was .. fuck me what the hell is going on. Then I removed a few items stopped and then went back to loot a few more until I found what the problem was, went back to MO and looked around and checked the body and skeleton ( I believe it was the skeleton that wasn't correct) and fixed that. Entered the game and tried removing the bandit armor and ... no problem.. About 10 minutes of work after the second crash. Would have checked for a problem earlier but ... we all know how stable Skyrim is so everyone can understand my thoughts that it was just one of those crashes. lol.

[halieslade]

Thanks for the pep talk, ritual. I'm needing it about now.  I didn't have HDT physics installed so I added that.  And SOS. Still crashed while looting, so I unchecked SkyUI and tried again.  No difference (though it took longer to load the bandit's inventory).  All the bandit had was some hide armor and a couple of iron weapons, so it's not like there was some special mod-only gear or anything.  When the NPC's inventory opens, I can see it.  It's when I try to loot either one item or all  ("R") that I CTD.

 

So now my plan is to keep Googling solutions, get Steam to verify cache and try to think of another reason I can't loot.  It's a bit comforting, oddly, that this is a problem others have had for the last couple of years and that they eventually solved it.  None of their solutions worked for me but I'm not done looking.

 

By the way - MO tells me that there's an ESP missing when I mouse over the save.  But it doesn't tell me which one is missing.  Perhaps TES5Edit will help?

 

 

[myuhinny]

You can also use wrye bash which has a save tab option that you can look at and it will list every save you have when you click on one of the saves that you are trying to load it will list every mod that you had installed and what load order those mods were in when you made that save so you can adjust the load order to match the save load order. It could be that a mod is out of order or missing and when you try to load the save it causes a CTD. If you were wearing a armor/outfit and uninstalled that mod it can cause the game to CTD because it is trying to find something that is no longer there.

[halieslade]

You can also use wrye bash which has a save tab option that you can look at and it will list every save you have when you click on one of the saves that you are trying to load it will list every mod that you had installed and what load order those mods were in when you made that save so you can adjust the load order to match the save load order. It could be that a mod is out of order or missing and when you try to load the save it causes a CTD. If you were wearing a armor/outfit and uninstalled that mod it can cause the game to CTD because it is trying to find something that is no longer there.

 

I've been kind of doing that with MO already.  In this test game, I'm wearing fur armor and hide bracers, using an iron sword I looted from a bandit earlier.  So there's no issue here with any modded armor.

 

But now something stranger is happening, as I tried looting one item and didn't crash.  Tried 2, we're good.  Then tried "R" All and back to CTD.  Tried this on several dead bandits and I actually managed to loot "All" on one of them, so it's inconsistent.

 

My inventory is still fresh (I'm only level 1) so it's not a matter of too much stuff.  Now I wish it had CTD'd every time so I could feel like the problem was consistent and not random like this.

 

EDIT: A little progress, maybe?  I had 3 or 4 bandit corpses to loot, and noticed that I could individually loot bracers, boots, weapons, and gold just fine.  It was only when I looted the armor itself (especially iron) that I would CTD.  Then I went into an Inn and tried to remove my own armor (Hide) and once again, CTD.

 

So, my tentative conclusion is that the loot crashes are due to missing meshes as myuhinny suggest.

 

My choices as I see them: Install an armor replacer that would fill the void, or go into my meshes folder and purposely bugger up the armor folders, then tell Steam to verify cache.  Would it then replace the deleted files?  I'd make backup copies before I took that risk.

 

I may do both, but at this point I'm pretty confident that the loot issue is with armor meshes.  I didn't crash looting anything else.