Audio stops working / strange buzzing sound

[781Fuzzy]

Hello everyone,
 
I am once again heavily modding my Skyrim. The game is more or less stable, however, my audio isn't.
 
What happens is that, after a few seconds to minutes, there will be a slight "click" sound and my audio will cut out - weapon sounds, footsteps, voices, you name it. However, the music and background noise (wind) will still be working, at least until I enter/leave an exterior cell, at which point my audio will vanish completely.
 
Saving the game, then restarting the game and loading that save fixes the audio, at least until it breaks again.
 
I have tried disabling my mods one by one, but cannot determine a single mod which causes this issue. If I turn off most of my mods, my audio will not cut out, but instead sometimes produce a buzzing sound that gets louder and louder until I open the menu.
 
I couldn't find a thread describing a similar problem. I did have this problem on a previous installation of Skyrim, but only in one particular (modded) area. Back then, I fixed the issue by updating the respective mod at some point, but this isn't an option for vanilla cells, unfortunately.

 
Solution:

 

One of my SKSE plugins, "New Vegas Anti Crash", was preventing my game from crashing.

Without the plugin, my game would crash after about 10 seconds. NVAC failed to completely prevent the crash, however, which made my game very unstable, part of which was the audio glitch.

I removed the NVAC plugin and did a lot of testing to fix my crashes. (In my case, "Enhanced Landscapes Winter Edition" was at fault.)

 

[Guest]

1.) Does this happen with and without a headset?

2.) Are you sure the sound you're hearing is wind is it the noise it makes when you're killed?

3.) Make sure your FPS capped below 80 or else this phenomenon can occur

4.) its not a pirated version is it?

[781Fuzzy]

Thanks for the reply.

 

1.) Yes; I just tested it through my monitor's speakers. Same result.

2.) No death sound, as far as I can tell. What I mean is that while voices, weapon sounds etc stop, the music and environmental noise will continue (for a bit), meaning that the problem isn't my sound in general going mute.

3.) I'm running the game at 60 FPS.

4.) No; official Steam version.

 

I've done some more testing. Sometimes, seemingly randomly, my sound won't break. It usually stops working after ~30 seconds, but every now and then, I'll start up the game and it'll be completely fine for several minutes until I close the game.

 

When my sound does break, however, something strange happens. If I start a conversation, there won't be any voice. The subtitles won't go away at all, as though the game were waiting for the voice line to finish. If I then end the conversation by pressing tab, then reinitiate it with the same character, I'll be stuck in the conversation. If I recall correctly, when you make a character say something, then press tab, then press e again, you won't be able to do anything until their line has finished. This makes it seem to me like my sounds aren't just silent, but are instead never played at all.

 

I went on to test if it's my script load or something, but my script latency is around 40 ms, before and after the sound breaks.

[781Fuzzy]

Done some more testing.

 

First off, here's some footage of the glitch I'm getting:

 

 

 

 

I've found out two things about this glitch:

 

1.) It appears to be more than just audio.

I think this because under normal circumstances, I can alt tab and close Skyrim in the task bar, which will completely kill the application. If I try to do the same when my audio is glitched, however, Skyrim keeps running in the background, visible only in the task manager. So whatever causes the audio glitch is seemingly related to the game being able to shut down properly.

 

2.) One of my SKSE plugins is involved.

When I tried turning off all my mods, all my SKSE plugins were still running. I'm using New Vegas Anti Crash, which is obviously intended for New Vegas, but works to an extent in Skyrim. When this plugin is disabled, I don't get the audio glitch. Primarily because my game crashes after 10 seconds.

 

Here's my theory: My game is actually "supposed" to crash due to one (or more) of my mods. NVAC, however, prevents it from doing so. Instead, the game "partially" crashes, which kills the audio, prevents it from closing properly and generally makes it unstable.

 

I'll probably have to do a lot of testing to narrow down the cause of the crash. If anyone has any advice on this entire issue, I still appreciate it very much.

[Guest]

Do you have crash fixes and the preloader installed?

[781Fuzzy]

I have Crash Fixes. I didn't have the Plugin Preloader. I installed it now, but that didn't fix the issue either.

 

I do get an awful lot of errors in my Papyrus logs, but those do not seem to be the cause of my crashes.

[Guest]

The crash fixes and the preloader where meant to replace that fallout plugin you have... Make sure to read the instruction on crashfixes

 

specifically 

 

How to use the memory allocator patch?
1. Open CrashFixPlugin.ini and find "UseOSAllocators=0"
2. Change it to "UseOSAllocators=1"
3. Download and install SKSE Plugin Preloader
4. Start game, if you get an error saying that memory patch could not be applied read the message for help, otherwise you're good to go.
(5.) Causes game to crash and you use ENB? Set ExpandSystemMemoryX64=false in enblocal.ini
(6.) Causes game to crash more frequently (especially with UNP RaceMenu sliders)? Try AlignHeapAllocate=1 in CrashFixPlugin.ini

[781Fuzzy]

Thanks, I've done those things now. I also tried some of the other instructions on the mod page, unfortunately my game still crashes after about 10 seconds without NVAC.

 

I've enabled Crash Fixes logging, but those don't help you, do they?

[Guest]

No only the author of that mod could tell you, if your game is crashing at 10 seconds then something needs to change that NV mod you should just delete and be done with it if its allowing you to continue when the game should crash because then engine is imploding on itself.

 

I have a ton of mods and I never crash with crash fixes + preloader. I would continue testing and seeing if you can find the mod thats the culprit that crashes and screws up your audio if you don't find it,, it might be time to start a new save.

 

I'll ask do you have an ENB? and can I see your enblocal.ini if you do? Also do you have windows 10 or windows 7?

[781Fuzzy]

that NV mod you should just delete and be done with it if its allowing you to continue when the game should crash because then engine is imploding on itself.

 

That's what I thought. It's like it's artificially prolonging my game's lifespan by a few minutes.

 

I've never had a Skyrim installation this fucked before, either. I just don't want to reinstall everything, I mean I just did a few days ago. My save is new. What I'm doing now is turning off mods one by one, to find what's giving me so much trouble.

 

I had an ENB but uninstalled it because I thought that may be the problem (and IMHO vanilla + ELFX/RCRN looks better).

 

Thanks for the help again, but I guess I'll just have to figure out which mods are causing this on my own now.

[Guest]

Dont go just yet, have you ever used mod organizer before? I could save you a ton of time just by teaching you how to use it and you'll never have a problem with installing and reinstalling if you like I could even use teamviewer to get you setup.

 

But also I wanted to say is that don't uninstal your ENB!! It does alot more for your game then just making it look pretty in fact you can turn of all the visual settings and just use it for its memory settings.

 

I really think i could get your game running better than it ever has if you want help I'll help you, you don't even need to use teamviewer if you don't want I could just walk you through it.

[781Fuzzy]

I'm using NMM.

 

I'll look into the ENB stuff.

 

About the teaching, sure, but we gotta do it later. Sun's rising, gotta hit the hay. Night.

[Guest]

I'm using NMM.

 

I'll look into the ENB stuff.

 

About the teaching, sure, but we gotta do it later. Sun's rising, gotta hit the hay. Night.

 

lol its okay I was going to suggest tomorrow anyway and yes the ENB you can turn %100 of the effects off and only keep the memory settings.