The issue returneth

[MrFrancis]

Ok, I'll give that ago. If I have to get rid of problematic mods then so be it. If it fixes my game and I can keep playing I'm happy. I'll erase both Speedy Resources and More Deathclaws.

[MrFrancis]

I got rid of of both of the above files. The issue is happening again today. A new thing I saw was when it hit, I was firing the vanilla 357 revolver, and when I tried to reload it the animation started playing and then stopped like half a second in, and I was stuck in 1st person with the gun frozen in my hand, in a "mid animation stance" in front of me. I loaded my quicksave and tried to do it again, though I couldn't replicate it. It was odd though.

 

Anyway here's a 3rd video (that I put as unlisted since I don't want to subject my few subscribers to this issue) recorded earlier with the issue in action, and I decided to vocally demonstrate each symptom of the issue. This time I was allowed to pause with escape and wait, though most movement was disabled (jumping and ducking) as were the other actions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeVJBgGk3n4

 

I'm unsure if it's still tied to Deathclaws somehow; once again I was level 22 or so, and had not experienced the issue (or any crashes rather) at all while traveling the entire wasteland, doing the usual quests, killing the usual enemies, discovering the usual locations...and not once experiencing any of the symptoms for this issue. It was only until when I decided just now to go and tackle some Deathclaws that it started up, right as I entered the area, this time it was the train yard as it's easier to reach as opposed to the Promontory. What's strange though is that earlier today I managed to clear Sloan quarry without a hitch. No issue, no locking up in first person, no controls disabling. This makes the culprit being Deathclaw-related less plausible. I can clean the quarry without the issue happening for some reason. Or it's a mod that's corrupt or conflicting. Not sure really, there's no obvious culprits for me, and I'm careful when installing mods.

Edited November 7, 2016 by MrFrancis

[dubiousintent]

As things are slightly different, leave those mods out for the moment. Once we pin down the actual cause of the problem you can try re-installing them again and see if they have any impact.

 

At this point we are trying to narrow down potential mod conflict/error variables. It's either by dropping things out, or by starting from scratch and adding and testing things one at a time. For the moment we are eliminating logical possibilities one at a time. When we run out of them, then we have to start from scratch.

 

Are you using any "animation replacer"? (Those won't show up in the "load order".) If so, try uninstalling them. Most likely you will have to delete the entire "Locomotion" folder ("Data\Meshes\Characters\_male\Locomotion"). The game will then get it's vanilla animations from the "Fallout - Meshes.BSA".

 

Edit: If not using any "animation replacer", then try uninstalling the "Deathclaw Respawning" mod.

 

Unless there is a material visual change in what happens, you don't need to keep making videos.

 

-Dubious-

Edited November 8, 2016 by dubiousintent

[MrFrancis]

I recently installed animation replacers, though the issue was a thing before I installed them and still is with them. I've deleted the "locomotion" folder anyway since I prefer the vanilla animations. If that's all I need to do to restore all the default animations then great.

 

I thought of just disabling all mod esp. and esm. files in the Mod Manager and seeing if that eliminates the issue. The obvious downside is that it wouldn't tell me much about the actual cause of the issue.

 

This was the last video I intended to make. I thought I'd show everything off once last time in case I missed anything, and this time I tried all the standard controls and functions that I use when playing, one at a time . Where the videos take me no time to make, I don't plan on doing anymore, 3 clips is enough of a demonstration.

[dubiousintent]

I believe I forgot to tell you to be sure to make a "clean save" once you uninstall a mod, before you re-load using that "clean save" to resume testing. (See this entry if you don't know what a "clean save" consists of.) That's to let the game flush out the "missing content" from the removed mod. Hope you knew to do that. If not, my bad. I know better than to make assumptions, but my memory occasionally fails me.

 

If you didn't, try a "clean save" and test with the "Speedy Resources" and "More Deathclaws" removed again. As you don't care about the animation replacement, leaving that out is fine.

 

If the issue existed with vanilla animations, then they probably aren't the culprit. Uninstall the "Deathclaw Respawn" mod next and lets see how that goes.

 

-Dubious-

Edited November 8, 2016 by dubiousintent

[MrFrancis]

So, I removed the other Deathclaw mod (a shame, though I can always get it back later if it turns out it's not the culprit) did a clean save, and then as level 13 or I warped myself to a location just near the train yard (where I was yesterday with the last video) with the use of the console. I experienced no problems at all, nothing happened related to/that fit the descriptions and symptoms of the issue, no lockups or crashes, no disabled controls.

 

Whether I fixed it by clean saving and removing the mods or the issue by coincidence decided not to kick in (and I'm only level 13 compared to level 20+ where it mostly starts occurring), I don't know. I managed to clear the area, switching weapons every minute, using VATS, jumping, ducking, etc. I'm more leaning towards it being luck that it didn't happen, as it's not fitting with past results.

 

The animations mod that I downloaded seems to still be active, even though I deleted the "locomotion" folder. Are the any additional files/folders I should delete that the game will rebuild? The animations and stances in-game are not the default ones and are the ones given by the mod.

Edited November 8, 2016 by MrFrancis

[MrFrancis]

I've decided to expand out and post a help thread in the Steam discussions for FNV, and see if any additional advice comes through. Hopefully that helps me find the source quicker. I've got one reply so far (at the time I posted this reply here). I'll copy what they said down here:

"I could see this being the result of a scripted mod, where the logic breaks down under specific conditions, either because of a coding oversight or an incompatibility with another mod.

You wouldn't necessarily know of this incompatibility by looking for conflicting records in your plugins, because scripts are a great way to avoid having conflicting records in the first place. Two different scripts in two different records can run simultaneously and break each other horribly if they mess with the same things, and you would never be the wiser unless you compared the source code or until you witnessed the awful, awful results in-game.

I glanced through your thread on Nexus Mods and some alarm bells started ringing when you mentioned this:

 

One thing I noticed, and this might be irrelevant, was just before I force closed the game, I opened the console, and there was just "refreshing player" all down the console. Not sure if that's normal or not.

 

That's not normal. At all. The console mostly doesn't say anything at all in an unmodded game except maybe some VATS related debugging information or whatever you type in yourself. Certainly not this particular message. It's from a mod, without question, and if the console contains nothing but that message on repeat, that's a bad, bad sign.

The message could be harmless. Some modders are a bit lazy when it comes to hiding their debugging messages, even in scripts that are intended to execute every frame. But personally I'm leaning more towards the possibility that the script responsible for sending the message has gone haywire and wound up in an endless loop. In any case, it's something that you should no doubt investigate, especially in your current predicament.

It's going to be problematic to find out which script that is, though. The only option I can think of is to load all your active plugins in xEdit and then manually search the source code of all script records in all of your plugins (skipping the official ESM files) until you find the one that contains the message.

If you manage to find it, uninstall the mod it came from and check if the issue persists."

Edited November 8, 2016 by MrFrancis

[dubiousintent]

First, that's encouraging news that the Deathclaw mod is the culprit, but as you say you need to check if it is level related. There is a console command "player.setlevel <number>" (where <number> is a decimal integer number (i.e. 1-50) for the desired level) that you can use to jump that up for testing. Suggest one level at a time to pin down when that occurs. That should have an immediate effect so you can load your last save in that area, change the level, run some tests, change the level and test again, all without any further "clean saves" or reloading.

 

Second, the advice you got on the other thread sounds like it came from an experienced mod creator, and personally I find nothing wrong with that logic. But while I know programming, I have not gotten into that of the GECK so I can't really help with the script even if you find it. (Not that I am the only resource available to you, but just so you know.) And unless you are willing and able to do that "script surgery", your only recourse is to drop the offending mod. Best option is to point out the problem to the author if they are still active.

 

But first you have to determine the mod causing the problem, and seem to be narrowing in on it. It is entirely possible that the script getting into an endless loop is triggered by having a specific level.

 

If you get significantly past the level where you encountered the problem before (say to 30), then try reinstalling the Deathclaw Respawn mod, reloading from the same saved game, and run through the level test again. That should pin it down conclusively.

 

As for the animation replacer: what is the mod name (or even better, post the link) and I'll download it and see where else it is installing.

 

-Dubious- [Edit with additional testing steps.]

Edited November 9, 2016 by dubiousintent

[MrFrancis]

The mod: http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/38527/?

I only recently downloaded the animations and the issue was happening well before I had them installed (I'd say I had hard saves from last year that had the issue ready to go and would start moments after I loaded them, though I deleted them ages ago) so I know this isn't the cause. I might re-download it in the future and give it another go; I don't really care for animation changes, though I might fancy trying it out again and seeing if I like it better the second time round.

 

I'm not sure if it is any of the Deathclaw mods that were doing it, since I've yet to have the issue happen on my new save with both mods removed. It's entirely possible that they were involved. Though I didn't have them installed when I first started experiencing this issue for the first time ages ago. The character level part of it is curious. I don't know if it's relevant/related or if it's just coincidence that the issue isn't happening when I'm a lower level.

 

My last resort is removing all the mods and starting fresh with a one-by-one re-installation of the mods I want, which would be time-consuming but would work as a last-ditch effort. Even then though I would't have worked out which mod, if any, was the culprit. Anyway, I'll continue playing a little bit each day (I've lost a tiny bit of interest in playing due to the constant restarts but hey, it's all for a good cause) and see where and when the issue starts up. It's a shame the console doesn't fire off with errors when the issue occurs, or an error report gets put somewhere in the game files that lists script errors.

 

I'm not into making mods, I just play the game and download the mods I want. I can't do scripts (the "script surgery" sounds too complicated/advanced for me) or editing any of the fancy stuff, hence I've come for help here. I greatly appreciate your time and help and I'd prefer help from a retired support specialist like yourself who's an old timer and knows the stuff. So far it's going well, albeit a little slow, but it's better to be careful and detailed.

[dubiousintent]

We have been trying to figure out likely sources of the problem to avoid having to start from scratch and test each mod. If we can determine that "level" is a trigger, then we know you can test by simply pushing your test character to a particular level, run to one of the (vanilla) Deathclaw sites in "god Mode" (console "tgm"), and push through several levels there to try to trigger the problem with each mod. Having a way to force the problem to trigger is the key to solving the issue because it otherwise takes so long to get to the situation in normal play.

 

If "level" is a trigger, then we may have to resort to re-installing and testing each mod if we can't determine from it's description which mod is testing for level. Once we pin down the source of the problem, we can then explore possible solutions other than simply dropping the mod.

 

Unfortunately, when the source of the problem is unknown it really is this time consuming, detailed, and tedious to track down the cause. I appreciate your determination to find it, and the community will benefit in the long run. To what extent will depend upon how widespread the mod in question is used.

 

Edit: regarding the WAR animation replacer. As it happens I have that mod, so it was easy to check. It places ".kf" files in both the "meshes\characters\_1stperson" and the "meshes\characters\_male" folders. Consequently you will need to delete them as well ("_1stperson" and "_male" that is) or at least their contents. Note the "_male" folder may have an "idleanims" sub-folder which will be from other mod(s). Leave that as WAR doesn't have any "idleanims". There may also be a "skeleton.nif" file. That should remain as well. You only want to delete ".kf" files. I realize they are not related to your main problem, but it is simple to resolve while we are at it.

 

-Dubious-

Edited November 9, 2016 by dubiousintent