Corrupted Saves

[markdf]

Flexcreator followed up with me over on the nexus forums. He believes that it is an issue with Skyrim's underlying engine; it writes the header incorrectly when the amount of data to be written gets too high. I'm inclined to agree. The only consistent thing about the crashes is that they seem to start when there is a lot of data to write, be it scripts or script instances or MCM data or forms.

[Monoman1]

As an effort to narrow it down would it be possible to create 2 mods. One that stresses the mcms only and another to register animations only sans mcm.

 

If we could replicate the issue with a single mod it might be useful.

[Guest]

Hey, I'm back with some info, I'm back to pretty much my old load order except I registered only 30 or so and not all of the funny biz animations and I registered animations only in small groups. Now everything seems to work solid. Thanks a lot for pointing out the issue, if not for this post I'd have given up since I would have never found out this was the cause.

[Redwolf777]

I've been struggling through with the same problem for the last week, I had a hunch that DynDOLOD was one of the factors that was causing my saves to corrupt. I wonder what can be done to prevent save corruption other than avoiding adding animation mods for sexlab. I love DynDOLOD because it makes the game look stunning, yet activating sexlab + creatures/ additional animations 100% of the time causes the saves to become "corrupt", even in a new save. 

 

I hope someone can find the root cause of these problems, surely there's a decent amount of people who are having this same issue. This was the only post I was able to find that addresses this problem. 

[markdf]

I hope someone can find the root cause of these problems, surely there's a decent amount of people who are having this same issue. This was the only post I was able to find that addresses this problem.

The thing is, if it's an issue with Skyrim's underlying engine, then Bethesda would have to patch the game. SKSE does miraculous things, but this is probably beyond its capabilities.

[markdf]

Another trend I've noticed: mods with big esps tend to increase the odds of save corruption... but there seems to be absolutely no limit on esms. Adding Falskaar or Wyrmstooth, no problem. Adding Summerset Isles, Mia's Lair, or Cult of Dibella, problems start to appear when there's too many of them

[Monoman1]

Was this ever a problem in fallout 3 / NV?

[BigOnes69]

I have not had the problem of corrupted saves since removing non replacer mod 7.6 and NSAP 3.1. I have gone with the newer SLAL since it has most of the old animations and then some with all the new packs that came out. I wish I had removed them separately so that I could further define for yuz guyz but I did not. My problem did not occur until upgrade to Sexlab 1.60 and continued with 1.61 but I suspect it was in the Non Replacer mod 7.6.  Perhaps someone can further define this. I have had about 1 week of on and off heavy game sessions without the problem so I am fairly sure one of these two are involved. Good Luck. My latest problem is that after the player character is flogged through several of the mods installed if I save or the save immediately following ctd's. Any Ideas?

[heehatatt]

Any news on this? Cleaning up Sexlab helps, but that's about it. When registering animations again, the tipping point of a save being corrupted seems to be enabling creature animations.

EDIT: Corruption happens for me when I try registering more animations than SL allows. Can I remove animations that come packaged with SL? I don't use pretty much any of them besides the lesbian and Leito ones, now that SLAL came out.

 

[markdf]

I have not had the problem of corrupted saves since removing non replacer mod 7.6 and NSAP 3.1. I have gone with the newer SLAL since it has most of the old animations and then some with all the new packs that came out. I wish I had removed them separately so that I could further define for yuz guyz but I did not. My problem did not occur until upgrade to Sexlab 1.60 and continued with 1.61 but I suspect it was in the Non Replacer mod 7.6.

 

I had the opposite experience; when I uninstalled SLAL and replaced it with Non Replacer 7.6, I stopped having the problem.

 

[BigOnes69]

 

I have not had the problem of corrupted saves since removing non replacer mod 7.6 and NSAP 3.1. I have gone with the newer SLAL since it has most of the old animations and then some with all the new packs that came out. I wish I had removed them separately so that I could further define for yuz guyz but I did not. My problem did not occur until upgrade to Sexlab 1.60 and continued with 1.61 but I suspect it was in the Non Replacer mod 7.6.

 

I had the opposite experience; when I uninstalled SLAL and replaced it with Non Replacer 7.6, I stopped having the problem.

 

 

I have had the problem come back recently. I am going to go back to an old save and see if I can identify where and when it is occurring.

[markdf]

 

I have had the problem come back recently. I am going to go back to an old save and see if I can identify where and when it is occurring.

 

That's exactly the problem with this bug -- it's not being caused by any one mod. It's being caused by too much of something, either animations or scripts or MCM complexity or something.

 

All you can do is keep uninstalling Sexlab mods until the problem stops. Uninstalling DynDoLod helps too, or at least configuring it without any dynamic LOD.

 

[4nk8r]

 

 

I have had the problem come back recently. I am going to go back to an old save and see if I can identify where and when it is occurring.

 

That's exactly the problem with this bug -- it's not being caused by any one mod. It's being caused by too much of something, either animations or scripts or MCM complexity or something.

 

All you can do is keep uninstalling Sexlab mods until the problem stops. Uninstalling DynDoLod helps too, or at least configuring it without any dynamic LOD.

 

 

 

I agree this is a memory ceiling that doesn't directly have to do with which method is used to load the additional animations...or even directly to do with the animations or Sexlab itself.  This may just be a memory limit we've never encountered before now.

 

I'm still using SLAL.  Once I ditched Captured Dreams, this problem mostly stopped happening.  I did see this a few more times after getting rid of CD.  It seemed to happen when I had orphaned scripts lingering in memory.  I'm not sure why they were orphaned, but I sometimes see a slow accumulation of active scripts over time when examining previous saves.  I call them orphaned because they are listed in SaveTool only by formID, no script names.  When this happens I just go back to the last good save and clean out those "orphans", then play on from that point forward.

 

I just finished changing my mod loadout and load order.  I removed some, added others, merged a few, adjusted load order and built a custom override file via TES5Edit by filtering for conflicts.  I'm about to start a new playthrough, but so far I haven't been running into this much anymore.

[heehatatt]

 

 

 

I have had the problem come back recently. I am going to go back to an old save and see if I can identify where and when it is occurring.

 

That's exactly the problem with this bug -- it's not being caused by any one mod. It's being caused by too much of something, either animations or scripts or MCM complexity or something.

 

All you can do is keep uninstalling Sexlab mods until the problem stops. Uninstalling DynDoLod helps too, or at least configuring it without any dynamic LOD.

 

 

 

I agree this is a memory ceiling that doesn't directly have to do with which method is used to load the additional animations...or even directly to do with the animations or Sexlab itself.  This may just be a memory limit we've never encountered before now.

 

I'm still using SLAL.  Once I ditched Captured Dreams, this problem mostly stopped happening.  I did see this a few more times after getting rid of CD.  It seemed to happen when I had orphaned scripts lingering in memory.  I'm not sure why they were orphaned, but I sometimes see a slow accumulation of active scripts over time when examining previous saves.  I call them orphaned because they are listed in SaveTool only by formID, no script names.  When this happens I just go back to the last good save and clean out those "orphans", then play on from that point forward.

 

I just finished changing my mod loadout and load order.  I removed some, added others, merged a few, adjusted load order and built a custom override file via TES5Edit by filtering for conflicts.  I'm about to start a new playthrough, but so far I haven't been running into this much anymore.

 

For me I've noticed its been occuring when SL would register too many animations along with creature animations. So i just cut out about 80% of SL's base animations and about 20% of the creature animations, using 40 NSAP anims and about 70 slal anims. Perhaps you guys could try it and see how it goes. I followed this post http://www.loverslab.com/topic/47839-remove-sexlab-native-animations-to-substitute-for-nonsexlab-animations-and-zaz/

 

on a side note 

 

 

additionally https://scontent.fsnc1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpt1/v/t34.0-12/12626106_1712398685659432_1961602694_n.jpg?oh=7b20ee4e0e73c1a57d9951006b856749&oe=56B25328

[BigOnes69]

 

 

I have had the problem come back recently. I am going to go back to an old save and see if I can identify where and when it is occurring.

 

That's exactly the problem with this bug -- it's not being caused by any one mod. It's being caused by too much of something, either animations or scripts or MCM complexity or something.

 

All you can do is keep uninstalling Sexlab mods until the problem stops. Uninstalling DynDoLod helps too, or at least configuring it without any dynamic LOD.

 

 

 

I agree but recently uninstalled  a handful of normal mods not having to do with sexlab and it stopped also. It looks to be an engine limit that is partially based upon your machine. The newer sexlab with more animations etc. just pushes it beyond the threshold depending on the amount of mods installed and the capabilities of your system..

[4nk8r]

There isn't much limit "based on your machine" in this context.  I'm not stating this to brag, but my system has 48GB of RAM and a 12GB video card.  I still can't use any of the additional SLAL or other animation bootstrappers available without causing save-game corruption, even on a completely new game.  There is something inside the savegame that has a maximum size.  Possibly the Papyrus size or changeformCount?

[markdf]

There isn't much limit "based on your machine" in this context.  I'm not stating this to brag, but my system has 48GB of RAM and a 12GB video card.  I still can't use any of the additional SLAL or other animation bootstrappers available without causing save-game corruption, even on a completely new game.  There is something inside the savegame that has a maximum size.  Possibly the Papyrus size or changeformCount?

 

How fast is a single core of your CPU though? That's probably what's limiting. Modern CPUs have more cores, but each core isn't a whole lot faster than those from CPUs five years ago. Much of Skyrim's engine is strictly single-threaded, and I think that's where the engine starts to choke.

[4nk8r]

 

There isn't much limit "based on your machine" in this context.  I'm not stating this to brag, but my system has 48GB of RAM and a 12GB video card.  I still can't use any of the additional SLAL or other animation bootstrappers available without causing save-game corruption, even on a completely new game.  There is something inside the savegame that has a maximum size.  Possibly the Papyrus size or changeformCount?

 

How fast is a single core of your CPU though? That's probably what's limiting. Modern CPUs have more cores, but each core isn't a whole lot faster than those from CPUs five years ago. Much of Skyrim's engine is strictly single-threaded, and I think that's where the engine starts to choke.

 

 

I have an i7 that operates somewhere in the 3GHz range for a single core (is quad, hyperthreaded). This seems more related to the size of some subsection of the save file.  It's not even the raw size of the save file.  I have 11MB saves (new game) that are unfix-ably corrupt, and 14MB saves from previous play-throughs that load just fine.  It seems like if there are too many active objects in memory when you try and save (I'm thinking it is too many form objects), the resulting save is damaged.  Game performance is fine otherwise.  I even have to use a frame limiter to avoid the indoor poltergeist effect when framerates go above 60.

 

Right now, I'm just using animations that come native to SexLab, plus those that are added with MNC + BDIC and a few others.  Even without additional animations, my savegames are prone to corruption as soon as I leave the LAL cell area and get loaded into whatever cell matches the LAL option I've selected.

[4nk8r]

I've pointed this out previously, but when using http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/27119/? to analyze the saves, I see:

 

Under "Global data table 3"

• 2 Papyrus

If you click on the words "2 Papyrus", not just expanding the +, you get an error in a damaged save:  "Range check error".

 

This doesn't happen on working saves.

 

What this means, I have no idea.  Something obviously messed up with the Papyrus stack in the damaged saves.  I don't know if game-time settings that were in effect during save creation might be adjusted as such to prevent these issues before they happen (like heap sizes, etc.).  I'm going to experiment a bit and see what I can figure out, but it's not much more than random tinkering.

[markdf]

I've pointed this out previously, but when using http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/27119/? to analyze the saves, I see:

 

Under "Global data table 3"

• 2 Papyrus

If you click on the words "2 Papyrus", not just expanding the +, you get an error in a damaged save:  "Range check error".

 

This doesn't happen on working saves.

 

What this means, I have no idea.  Something obviously messed up with the Papyrus stack in the damaged saves.  I don't know if game-time settings that were in effect during save creation might be adjusted as such to prevent these issues before they happen (like heap sizes, etc.).  I'm going to experiment a bit and see what I can figure out, but it's not much more than random tinkering.

 

What I've always noticed is that game plays just fine when the corruption is happening. If I alt-tab out and check my saves in SaveTool, I can see that they are corrupt, yet I can keep playing with zero problems. I can even recover sometimes by unregistering animations.

 

So I don't think it's the Papyrus stack IN-GAME. That is, it's not something you can fix with an ini file tweak.

 

So there may be an upper limit on the size of the papyrus section in the file. Or there may be a problem with the serialization process, such as a race condition in one of the threaded parts (IO is one of the parts of Skyrim that is multithreaded, I think). The developers may have used a 16 bit counter somewhere in the serialization code, rather than 32 bit... although I can't imagine why anyone would do that in this day and age.

 

 

Idea

If something wants to get in there and play with ini settings, try REDUCING the amount of threading. Try to get Skyrim to use a few threads as possible, disable every multithreading option. See if it will accept iNumHWThreads=1. Then (if it runs at all) see if the corruption issue gets worse or better. If it's a race condition caused by multithreading, this might help.

 

[markdf]

So I haven't tested this thoroughly yet, but...

 

I tried out Boris's new fix for ENBoost/ENB. I've registered a bunch of extra animations, and so far no corruption.

www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/73618

 

If you've been having this corrupted savegame issue, maybe give it try.

 

 

[Monoman1]

How does it perform?

I've read that it might add a certain amount of stutter. It would still be better than not being able to save at least.

[markdf]

How does it perform?

I've read that it might add a certain amount of stutter. It would still be better than not being able to save at least.

 

I didn't notice any change in performance. I did eventually reach a new limit where the game couldn't handle any more animations without corruption. But it was a higher limit than before, so that's good.

[4nk8r]

 

How does it perform?

I've read that it might add a certain amount of stutter. It would still be better than not being able to save at least.

 

I didn't notice any change in performance. I did eventually reach a new limit where the game couldn't handle any more animations without corruption. But it was a higher limit than before, so that's good.

 

 

With this new ENB, how large was your papyrus size when it was just below the crash threshold?  My experience has show my current crash point to be about 9MB (not the new ENB).

 

Edited: for clarity.

[markdf]

I'm stable at 9.2 mb.

 

If the size of the Papyrus section is the issue, does that mean that animations are being stored in Papyrus's memory space? If so, that may be a bug in Sexlab (or a bug caused by Sexlab's interaction with other mods). Animations have better places to be stored than Papyrus's very small limited memory space.