How do I figure out which mod is crashing my saves?

[Grimurei]

For some reason I can no longer access my save games because they would crash to my desktop as soon as I tried to load any of them. Even making a new save doesn't seem to help because as soon as I start playing on that new save I experience that same problem. For example if I die, or I get stuck somewhere and I try to reload a recent save I would just crash to my desktop. I am very frustrated and don't know how to troubleshoot this issue. Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

[squares]

This is a common issue with heavy modded Skyrim, assuming you didn't change your load order or added\removed some mod mid playthrough that broke something. There are some solid solutions that can help with CTD after loading a save: 

 

Option 1. After starting your game open console and type  

coc qasmoke

press Enter, wait a few seconds, then load your desired save. You can also start a new game, wait till ESC menu is available, then load you dedsired save.

 

Option 2. Create a save in a smaill interior cell, let's call it "Safe Save". After starting a game, load that "Safe Save" first and then your desired save. Some small house without tons of clutter or other objects will do. Qasmoke cell will also do. There are mods that add something like showrooms, where people make screenshots of their works and there is literally nothing in the cell, those will also do a trick. I was using http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/18148/? for a long time for this purpose, untill Option 3 came out.

 

Option 3. Download this mod, follow author instructions.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/78557/?

[Nazzzgul666]

For some reason I can no longer access my save games because they would crash to my desktop as soon as I tried to load any of them. Even making a new save doesn't seem to help because as soon as I start playing on that new save I experience that same problem. For example if I die, or I get stuck somewhere and I try to reload a recent save I would just crash to my desktop. I am very frustrated and don't know how to troubleshoot this issue. Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

Just to be sure.. when you say "even on a new save", do you mean you could load the game once to make a new save there, or did you start a new game and saved?

That's a big difference, to be more specific: if it happens on an old game even with new saves, see the hints above. It's not a single mod.

If it happens on a new game, there is indeed something wrong... more than normal, i mean. The "i want to be sure" version in this case is: disable all mods except some few, try if you can load saves whith a new game. If no, disable more, if yes, enable some more. Continue till you found the mod that causes problems.

[Grimurei]

 

For some reason I can no longer access my save games because they would crash to my desktop as soon as I tried to load any of them. Even making a new save doesn't seem to help because as soon as I start playing on that new save I experience that same problem. For example if I die, or I get stuck somewhere and I try to reload a recent save I would just crash to my desktop. I am very frustrated and don't know how to troubleshoot this issue. Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

Just to be sure.. when you say "even on a new save", do you mean you could load the game once to make a new save there, or did you start a new game and saved?

That's a big difference, to be more specific: if it happens on an old game even with new saves, see the hints above. It's not a single mod.

If it happens on a new game, there is indeed something wrong... more than normal, i mean. The "i want to be sure" version in this case is: disable all mods except some few, try if you can load saves whith a new game. If no, disable more, if yes, enable some more. Continue till you found the mod that causes problems.

 

I am able to load the game once but once I but once I try to reload that exact same save it just crashes to desktop. 

[Nazzzgul666]

Beside squares tips, this could help: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/31724/?

But it could also mean your saves have too many loose instances especially if you uninstalled a lot of mods.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/52363/? This could be further help, but if you delete too much it can also kill the save... make backups. If both don't help, it's possible that you can't repair your saves and have to use qasmoke always or start a new game.

[Grimurei]

My game is so unstable now after installing those mods that I have severe framerate drops even at the beginning of the game. I guess the only option is to uninstall and reinstall. 

[DurtyNelly]

Can you give us your load order, please?  

 

If you're using a huge amount of mods you might be going over the string table limit. Skyrim has a string limit of 65,000 strings. The vanilla game with DLCs and the USLEEP patch require 28,000 strings on their own, so what you add piles onto that bottom line and boom. It's easy to reach the limit. There have been tests done that seem to say that if you start with a string count of 55K+, you will reach the 65K limit in about 20 hours. No one knows how much padding you need to play for longer periods of time either. The more breathing room you have the better. 

 

If you go over that limit it crushes your game, and will not load saves. Interesting NPCs, for example, has 3,500 strings alone. Things like Legacy of the Dragonborn is heavy, Interesting NPCs, Sexlab's total impact with animations is a little over 6,000 strings. If you're using all of these together, you're going to have a very bad time.    

 

Here is a running record of strings in mods that is being updated and maintained due to this issue. It has all the information I mentioned about 55K will be 65K in 20 hours and recommendations on how to test your game to try to see if it might be okay for more than 20 hours.

 

There is a thread talking about this issue. Lots of information there and tools to restring mods and the like.    

 

You can use TESV ESS Files Editor to see how many strings your save has.  I would use it on one of  your saves and see how many strings you have.

 

This may not be your issue (what you are describing sounds like it is very possible, though), but if you intend to play a heavily modded game, you should at least see how many strings you have to lessen the likelihood of it crapping all over you after putting 20+ hours into a play through.     

 

 

 

[Grimurei]

I already did an uninstall (Also cleared my skyrim directory on steam of all the local files) and reinstall of the game. I am now running it mostly Vanilla with light modding. I will be more aware of the mods I choose to install and the kind of space they take up. Thanks for the help guys.

[yatol]

 

If you go over that limit it crushes your game, and will not load saves. Interesting NPCs, for example, has 3,500 strings alone. Things like Legacy of the Dragonborn is heavy, Interesting NPCs, Sexlab's total impact with animations is a little over 6,000 strings. If you're using all of these together, you're going to have a very bad time.    

 

Here is a running record of strings in mods that is being updated and maintained due to this issue. It has all the information I mentioned about 55K will be 65K in 20 hours and recommendations on how to test your game to try to see if it might be okay for more than 20 hours.

 

 

i have interesting npc, sexlab, falskaar, summerset, wyrmstooh, undead, jotunheim, helgen reborn, northern enounters, wheelsoflull, moonadnstar, agentofrighteousmight, weissadlershamlet, forgottencity, mzarkwonder, conan hyborian age, moonpath.... in that save

that save have much more than 20 hours, everything is done

"about 55K will be 65K in 20 hours" -> bullshit, even if i don't know what those strings are (probably the dialogs)

 

 

"I am able to load the game once but once I but once I try to reload that exact same save it just crashes to desktop."

 

uncheck half your load order

load a save

save

load that save

if it's a crash, uncheck half of your load order

when it no longer crash, check mods until it crash again

get rid of the fail mod (trying to fix the problem is a waste of time since it can be another mod that fail because of fail mod ram leftovers)

 

 

[DurtyNelly]

 

 

If you go over that limit it crushes your game, and will not load saves. Interesting NPCs, for example, has 3,500 strings alone. Things like Legacy of the Dragonborn is heavy, Interesting NPCs, Sexlab's total impact with animations is a little over 6,000 strings. If you're using all of these together, you're going to have a very bad time.    

 

Here is a running record of strings in mods that is being updated and maintained due to this issue. It has all the information I mentioned about 55K will be 65K in 20 hours and recommendations on how to test your game to try to see if it might be okay for more than 20 hours.

 

 

i have interesting npc, sexlab, falskaar, summerset, wyrmstooh, undead, jotunheim, helgen reborn, northern enounters, wheelsoflull, moonadnstar, agentofrighteousmight, weissadlershamlet, forgottencity, mzarkwonder, conan hyborian age, moonpath.... in that save

that save have much more than 20 hours, everything is done

"about 55K will be 65K in 20 hours" -> bullshit, even if i don't know what those strings are (probably the dialogs)

 

 

"I am able to load the game once but once I but once I try to reload that exact same save it just crashes to desktop."

 

uncheck half your load order

load a save

save

load that save

if it's a crash, uncheck half of your load order

when it no longer crash, check mods until it crash again

get rid of the fail mod (trying to fix the problem is a waste of time since it can be another mod that fail because of fail mod ram leftovers)

 

 

 

 

That is just what has been said by many people more knowledgeable than me. That is why I posted links about the issue. If it works for you, awesome.   

[yatol]

 

That is just what has been said by many people more knowledgeable than me.

 

 

heard of the helgen carriage bug?

many people more knowledgeable than me had that bug, yet they weren't able to find the problem (just take a look in google)

 

the problem are mods like pinup poser with quests that have highter priority than the helgen quest

the fix is to give that quest priority 100

 

that bug is nothing, you can't ctd because of scripts, you see what don't work, you know where to look

 

when you crash, you have no idea what the problem is, until you find it (it's all about luck)

[DurtyNelly]

 

 

That is just what has been said by many people more knowledgeable than me.

 

 

heard of the helgen carriage bug?

many people more knowledgeable than me had that bug, yet they weren't able to find the problem (just take a look in google)

 

the problem are mods like pinup poser with quests that have highter priority than the helgen quest

the fix is to give that quest priority 100

 

that bug is nothing, you can't ctd because of scripts, you see what don't work, you know where to look

 

when you crash, you have no idea what the problem is, until you find it (it's all about luck)

 

 

Not going to argue with you, yatol.   

[Nazzzgul666]

Although i've said how to do, i have a similar question now. I don't have crashes (yet) but several stack dumps in my save, is there a way to figure out which mod or what action caused that? As far as i know, a game with stack dumps is broken and it will only getting worse... or is there anything i can do?

Papyrus.2.log

[yatol]

is there a way to figure out which mod or what action caused that?

 

nope

 

dumps break stuff because if you get one during the civil war, after dropping those scripts in the log, when the game reload them, they try to do stuff that can no longer be done, get stuck there, and won't do stuff they had to do when you do stuff after the dump

 

you get a dump when there's too many active scripts running

a dump is a list of all of those scripts before the game reload them

the problem is in the list, finding it is all about luck

 

like that crash

 

 

trying to get in that area that was some

 

ERROR_CODE: (NTSTATUS) 0xc0000005 - The instruction at "0x%08lx" referenced memory at "0x%08lx". The memory could not be "%s".

 

EXCEPTION_CODE: (NTSTATUS) 0xc0000005 - The instruction at "0x%08lx" referenced memory at "0x%08lx". The memory could not be "%s"

 

useless crash dumps

 

how are you supposed to find out the problem is that with that thing?

enderal npc were probably made with an automate tools, crappy result

forgot to give new heads to some npc, like the one above, after checking its id, did it

getting back there was a ctd because conflict with corpse from the save and new nif

 

can get in the ctd zone with a not much older save, there's no d9427 corpse that didn't despawn

either something i killed near wasn't save correctly, either stuff from main quest near make the game load one of those old d9427

older save isn't old enought to bother finding out

 

 

[Nazzzgul666]

 

is there a way to figure out which mod or what action caused that?

 

nope

 

dumps break stuff because if you get one during the civil war, after dropping those scripts in the log, when the game reload them, they try to do stuff that can no longer be done, get stuck there, and won't do stuff they had to do when you do stuff after the dump

 

you get a dump when there's too many active scripts running

a dump is a list of all of those scripts before the game reload them

the problem is in the list, finding it is all about luck

 

 

Not sure if i get it. If it's just too many scripts, why should it be a certain mod? I have a lot of mods that runs scripts and are at least sometimes quite heavy, and when two or three do their stuff at the same time... but if it's just too much, it shouldn't matter which one i stop?

[yatol]

that blabla about script heavy is bullshit

 

requiem, sofia, screenshotassist... have scripts with onitemadded() or removed()

those scripts are nothing, don't think you will find screenshotassist in lists of scripts heavy mods

the one of sofia just check you didn't pick up something to make her do a comment, or didn't give her something to make her do a comment (there's no need to check your inventory to do that)

the one of screenshotassist just check you didn't drop or pick up one of custom light torch (you don't need a script for that stuff either, whatever it was)

when you go to jail, a script transfer your inventory to a coffer, some quests do the same, too many things in your inventory with those scripts, it's a dump with those smalls scripts

 

the mod that kill you if you don't equip a torch, have just delete the stupid script, not sure what it was doing (instead of having it check your onequipped or unequipped, it was doing it for the draugrs too, and the script was probably reload, reload, reload again until there's too many of them, and again after the dump, dump spamming, save dead)

 

just open your save with savegamecleaner

if you did undeath, you will find dozen scripts in updateoffset (those are active scripts too)

those scripts should be killed when the object they are load onto is unload, but they aren't, so they stay there, doing nothing

in enderal i have 3000 chest scripts, a script given to a container (no need for a script to do that stuff either)

if a mod give a script that don't unload to containers, or activators, or... it wont be long to have too many active scripts

 

if you play with a mod like warzone that make hundred of npc fight each other, well... you are asking for trouble

one script in case the npc switch to sword to remove arrows, one to check if the npc is defeated, one to check if the npc is in cold area to add breath vapor.... too many of those small scripts that aren't doing much on too many npc, it's dumps

 

so what if a mod like sexlab use dozens of scripts to work?

you won't get dumps because of that, you need 1500-2000 active scripts to get a dump (50 npc in a cell with a spell that have 20 effects that load a script, then 22, 24, 26, 28... if someone want to find out)