Skyrim Saves & CTD's: A Tale of Woe Eternally Retold

[Paradox_of_Theseus]

My Skyrim experience has been really frustrating of late, simply because I can't figure out where the source of my errors are coming from. A year ago I was running a fully modded Skyrim at the mod limit and experienced little to no problems. Recently, after deleting and reinstalling due to all the new updates to my favorite mods, I am experiencing a virtually unplayable environment.

 

What happens is that I can start a new game just fine (Live Another Life), and any save or play time in the starting cell is just fine. However, once I begin adjusting mods via the MCM the game begins to break. Although it has NEVER CTD'd while I have been configuring the mods, most saves I make after I begin configuring will cause Skyrim to crash when I try to load them. After configuring the mods and choosing "a new life to begin", the game typically runs for 15-20 minutes (although it is prone to freeze for long periods of time and then pick back up) before CTDing. Not a single save AFTER leaving the starting cell has been successfully loadable.

 

I've tried weird fixes people suggest when I Googled the issue, and I tried a Save File Cleaner to see if it works (it didn't). I'm basically at the end of what I can do on my own and definitely would appreciate some help.

 

For reference, I run FNIS, TES5Edit, LOOT, and Wrye Bash to ensure the mods are all playing nice together. I don't know for sure if my physical hardware is the issue, but I run an i5-2500k, 16GB RAM, NVIDIA GTX 580 and the build is now 4.5 years old.

 

Let me know if you need me to post anything specific like Load Orders or Papyrus Logs. I'm *hoping* there is a simple dumb thing I forgot to do that will fix everything right as rain. >_>;;

 

Any help is appreciated.

[WraithSlayer]

If you start a new game and immediately load one of the CTD-saves right after creating the character, does it still crash?

[chymaera]

Doubtful that it's your hardware. Skyrim's got that problem - there are some mods that make it impossible to load saves directly. What I normally did was keep a save of my char in the Alternate Start dungeon. Load that first, and then load the CTD save.

As for the constant crashing... well. I dunno about Papyrus logs & script conflicts, but try uploading it here with your load order. Someone should be able to tell you if there's something wrong.

[zippy57]

I tried a Save File Cleaner to see if it works (it didn't).

By "it didn't", do you mean cleaning the save didn't work or the save cleaner itself didn't work (i.e. it crashed rather than load the save)?

[Paradox_of_Theseus]

If you start a new game and immediately load one of the CTD-saves right after creating the character, does it still crash?

 

Yes. I've tried a few different saves and once they start crashing, even if I load a new character in the starting cell, it crashes before fully loading.

 

I tried a Save File Cleaner to see if it works (it didn't).

By "it didn't", do you mean cleaning the save didn't work or the save cleaner itself didn't work (i.e. it crashed rather than load the save)?

 

 

 

Funny thing...loading the Save Files actually crash the SaveTool.exe. >_>;;

 

 

Also, attached is the Load Order and Papyrus log. loadoader.txtPapyrus.0.log

[zippy57]

Funny thing...loading the Save Files actually crash the SaveTool.exe. >_>;;

Yeah, that's what I was checking for. You've got the string table overflow bug. Read the first post here. A tool to help alleviate the problem is currently in development.

[spoonsinger]

 

Funny thing...loading the Save Files actually crash the SaveTool.exe. >_>;;

Yeah, that's what I was checking for. You've got the string table overflow bug. Read the first post here. A tool to help alleviate the problem is currently in development.

 

 

Umm, not entirely sure that's down to the 'string overflow bug'. It is a very small load order and the O/P doesn't have many of the main culprits for that. I would probably suspect animation overload.

 

 

ps

 

Yes, the whole failing to loading into Save Tool, suggests an indemic fault, rather than random FNIS error.  However, I can't see that load order would cause the string fault on a game, Actually I've always suspected it's when you save is actually done is a contributory factor in load crash. (i.e I've have failed to load games which on a previous save loads, but loaded fine on a save made a minute earlier - if that makes sense),

 

[zippy57]

I don't believe "animation overload" can crash SaveTool. The string overflow bug is the only thing I know of that will do so. It can be quickly and easily checked anyway using TESVESS; if you get an error when clicking on "2 Papyrus" then you have the bug.

[spoonsinger]

I don't believe "animation overload" can crash SaveTool. The string overflow bug is the only thing I know of that will do so. It can be quickly and easily checked anyway using TESVESS; if you get an error when clicking on "2 Papyrus" then you have the bug.

 

Crap, my sticky fingers and old age fugglyness. (Yes and sorry).

 

[Paradox_of_Theseus]

 

Funny thing...loading the Save Files actually crash the SaveTool.exe. >_>;;

Yeah, that's what I was checking for. You've got the string table overflow bug. Read the first post here. A tool to help alleviate the problem is currently in development.

 

 

 

Awesome, I'll check it out now. =)

 

 

Checking out the TESV ESS tool now, but not sure what to make of the post wanting me to Global Data Table 3. Is the Length under the Papyrus field the one that should be under 65535?

 

 

Also, this string table overflow thing sounds about right. One of the things I noticed was that a lot of my save files begin to go bad when I activate SexLab Creatures. If that feature is worth about 550, then that's a significant enough jump to where I might right under the limit and that pushed it over (on top of activating other things). I think the Frostfall and Campfire will be the first to get the axe though.

 

[WraithSlayer]

 

Checking out the TESV ESS tool now, but not sure what to make of the post wanting me to Global Data Table 3. Is the Length under the Papyrus field the one that should be under 65535?

 

No, it's not that. Try it with a save you know works: In Global Data Table 3, select "2 Papyrus" by clicking on it, and the right-side window will display information, one of which is Strings (xxxxx). The number displayed is the string count. If the number goes over 65535 as you play, any saves made past that point get bricked. Ideally, a save made right out of the character creator shouldn't be over 55,000, or you're likely to hit the limit as you register SexLab animations and play for a while.

[Paradox_of_Theseus]

 

 

Checking out the TESV ESS tool now, but not sure what to make of the post wanting me to Global Data Table 3. Is the Length under the Papyrus field the one that should be under 65535?

 

No, it's not that. Try it with a save you know works: In Global Data Table 3, select "2 Papyrus" by clicking on it, and the right-side window will display information, one of which is Strings (xxxxx). The number displayed is the string count. If the number goes over 65535 as you play, any saves made past that point get bricked. Ideally, a save made right out of the character creator shouldn't be over 55,000, or you're likely to hit the limit as you register SexLab animations and play for a while.

 

 

 

Sorry for the days of delay, work got hectic and I didn't have the energy to fiddle with this at home.

 

I did take your advice though. I disable iNeed, Locational Damage, Campfire, and Frostfall. After that I was able to create a stable save in the starting cell and run TESV ESS successfully. Apparently I currently have ~64000 strings right out of the gate even with those other mods disabled.

 

There's not a way to determine the number of strings each mod is taking up without disabling, opening up a new save, and checking with the TESV ESS tool is there? I'm trying to see now whether I can ditch some tertiary mods that might have a lot of strings, but can do without.

 

Thanks again for your help as well.

[zippy57]

The only real method is running each mod individually and seeing the change, and even that isn't 100% reliable as strings from different mods can be merged and the game occasionally adds and removes them on the fly.

[Paradox_of_Theseus]

Saw this: http://www.loverslab.com/topic/61293-help-test-fix-for-save-game-string-table-overflow/

 

And this: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HY4b4L3tJuYPxJazEc8XeF-q3WXI11u76hlKKleQel8/edit

 

Inbetween uninstalling and checking the string count on various mods over the past few days. Looks like its a great time to be alive! =D

 

Hopefully the potential fix keeps the good news rolling in.