A request for help: I'm out of ideas to fix my CTD's!

[OJLMethos]

Hello and I hope you are here to help!

I'll start with an apology for yet another "CTD, plz halp" thread, but I have exhausted my knowledge and can't seem to find the solution on my own, so I'm really hoping someone here can.

I have been "playing" and modding Skyrim (originally LE, now SE) for 5 years and have literally never finished the main quest, not once. Every time I try to tailor the game I get CTDs which I never seem to be able to fix. I then end up CTD'ing more than I play and ultimately give up. A year or so passes and I build up the courage to give it another go... rinse and repeat the cycle.

 

This is my attempt to recruit 3rd party help from some knowledgeable guy or gal to guide me towards a solution so I can finally complete this game!

Issue description:

Concisely (and not very helpfully):

• I CTD at random points, but the most common occurrences are:
• Randomly in combat - it has occurred when I am moving, casting, attacking. but nothing consistent, not every combat, not even the same spell / action / weapon or anything reliably causes a crash.
• Sometimes on area transition i.e. walking into / out of a cave / city / building - but again, not always.
• Sometimes when I load after a death - yet again, not always.
• Once even just being outside looking at a Hunter near Helgen I randomly crashed.
• I have not been able to reliably replicate when, how or why any of these occur. Sometimes one fight I will CTD, reload and do the fight almost exactly the same with no issue. Sometimes I transition areas and CTD, reload and then transition with no issues.
• I have successfully debugged and fixed other CTD issues I was having by going through and disabling mods 1 by 1 until I found a culprit. Unfortunately that doesn't work anymore due to the sporadic nature of these crashes and the inability to replicate circumstances / environments to "test" against.

Needed information to help diagnose / fix:

Please see my Modwatch page for plugins, load orders and ini's: https://modwat.ch/u/OJLMethos/plugins

You may see it's a relatively comprehensive build, starting with a base of STEP 0.2.0b and then overlaying my own selection of mods beyond that.

 

A note on STEP:

 

• I followed the STEP guide thoroughly over the course of a week and do not believe I messed it up (but anything is possible!).
• I also use the STEP conflict resolution (CR) patch and Lighting and Weathers (LW) patches per the guide, so I am told "missing" compatibility patches highlighted in LOOT are actually dealt with by the STEP patches, I am trusting the STEP team are capable and accurate. Mods covered by the merged STEP patches are:

1. USSEP
2. Particle Patch
3. Animated Weapon Effects
4. Armour and Clothing Extension
5. Book Covers Skyrim
6. Deadly Spell Impacts
7. Elemental Staffs
8. Enhanced Blood Textures
9. Improved Closefaced Helmets
10. Pilgrims Delight
11. Realistic Water Two
12. Audio Overhaul
13. Immersive Spectral Assassin
14. CACO
15. CCOR
16. Immersive Citizen - AI Overhaul
17. WACCF
18. Convenient Horses
19. Relationship Dialogue Overhaul
20. AS LAL
21. Cutting Room Floor
22. Oakwood
23. Cathedral Weathers
24. Enhanced Lighting

• I believe I have downloaded all other patches for mods beyond the STEP guide (but again, happy to be wrong if you spot a gap).

 

 

LOOT / xEdit / FNIS / MO / Core tool Info:

 

• My Skyrim SE is up to date
• My SKSE 64 is up to date
• I use Mod Organiser
• I have NO missing masters
• I have NO form 43 mods. All are updated to form 44.
• All Masters have been cleaned using xEdit
• Dawnguard.esm has been manually cleaned
• All ITM and "Deleted" records have been cleaned on all mods per LOOT flags
• All mods descriptions were read and followed to the best of my understanding, including the appropriate install order (overwrite / overwritten) and load order (plugins order) plus patches.
• I sort plugins using LOOT, including manually added metadata I add from mod description pages.
• FNIS is run every time I changed any animation file / skeleton mod.
• DynDOLOD is run every time I changed anything to do with external models / textures.
• I do not run a bashed patch because I dont believe I need one.

 

Papyrus logs:

• I know Papyrus logs are a controversial subject as to whether they are useful, but without anything else I go by I have been reviewing my logs and tried to learn what I can.
• My interpretation of the logs has been based from this guide [Papyrus guide link]
• I have been using PowerGREP for windows to scrape script files to understand which mods / scripts are causing what errors.

From all the above I have observed the following (which frankly, may or may not be helpful - maybe you can decide):

1. Initial errors / lines are compatibility checks from Frostfall / campfire / wet and cold / immersive citizens / DYNDOLOD and can be ignored
2. CACO and CCO have lots of "form ID" errors relating to properties on scripts attached to references (e.g. 4f000d8a) not initialising because the script no longer contains that property. The guide says "this is an error generated because a script was recompiled, a property was removed, but an ESP that accompanies it was not properly updated to remove the property. It will cause no damage, but it's annoying."
3. po3_XXX "error: Failed to setup moving reference because it has no parent cell or no 3D" appear often during combat and I think are from Frozen Electrocuted Combustion. The Papy guide linked above suggests these are often false errors "when references are no longer loaded in memory, but when checked, have the correct properties" and so are harmless.
4. aaaUCEnemyScript Call RegisterForModEvent and Assigning 'None' to temp non-object variables are also some of the more prevalent errors during combat. Again the guide says this are benign.
5. There are some XPMSE errors which I dont understand, and am surprised to see.

Full Papyrus logs of a few recent crashes are attached for direct reference if someone knows a lot about them. I am still a novice when it comes to properly understanding them.

 

Log 0: crashed soon after exiting Bleak Falls Barrow, coincided with casting a spell from a mod I have installed (Spellsiphon)

Log 1: Crashed in external cell while running upto Whiterun. Whole load of stack dumps in the log which has never happened before. Odd to see a script referencing Spriggan (which I didn't knowingly encounter)

Log 2: crashed in an external cell just after a quicksave and then on trying to enter into a building.

Log 3: crashed in an internal cell during combat, nothing notable to report.

 

 

 

 

Extra Information

System Hardware:

• Intel Core i7 8700k (@3.7Ghz)
• 32 GB DDR4 RAM
• NVIDIA GTX 1080 8GB
• Samsung 850 EVO SSD (500 GB)
• Gigabyte z370 AORUS Motherboard

 

Other

• I do not run an ENB.

 

 

 

I have put a lot of time and effort into trying to properly mod my game but have no more knowledge to try and fix it, so I really really hope that someone out there can help :smile:

 

It took me two days to compile this post, but if I have missed something you think would be help, please let me know and I will happily include it!

 

Thanks to all who bothered to read :D

Edited March 3, 2020 by OJLMethos

[JimmyRJump]

What I don't understand is how it always comes this far. You install a hundred mods in one sitting and then complain the game crashes? I've been playing Skyrim/LE/SE since November 2011 and have used more than a thousand mods (am now using 744 mods with 379 plugins -252 regular and the rest esl/light) and I can more or less play crash-free. But that didn't happen overnight. It took years of trial and error and reading and searching and re-starting the game from scratch and add mods from scratch.

 

Start anew and install mods of which you're absolutely 1000% sure they work and then add a few (max five) mods at a time until the game crashes. Then you'll know which mod is the one that causes a problem. This is not a response because I don't want to help. It's because you're the one-hundred-tousandth guy who can't swim and jumps into the deep end of the pool regardless and then of coure cries for help. Learn to swim first.

[OJLMethos]

Hi Jimmmy and thanks for your reply.

 

I didn't install "a hundred mods in one sitting" and I'm not complaining about the crashes - apologies that I didn't make it clear in the original post, but to be explicit now:

 

I do exactly as you do and install mods 10 or so at a time, tested for half an hour per batch and if I find and issue, I resolve it - this whole process took me over a week for the core of the mods (as mentioned in the original post, if you read it) and is the same process I have been following on all my modding attempts across years and years.

 

I rinse and repeat the above until I have all the mods installed. I had no issues during the "install testing" and it is only on testing the current setup for around 16 hours that I have now been experiencing crashes.

 

It has taken me around three weeks of testing, researching, debugging and patching to get to this point. I have not yet actually started to "play" the game. I am asking for help diagnosing these issues so that I can.

 

To clarify a point further for you: where I am getting stuck is that it is not one mod that causes issues, it's one mod conflicting with "X" other mods. These conflicts are not always readily apparent (e.g no file conflicts in MO, no LOOT compatibility suggestions or where a script is conflicting with another mods scripts). THIS is where I am asking for help. I don't know how to diagnose where these hidden issues are and do not know how to fix them.

 

What would you do in the above circumstance?

 

edit: I am also saddened in your response. Your other posts on this forum to other users who just copy paste their .esp lists and have plainly done far FAR less work than I have in trying to debug their game have had more positive replies from you. Must have caught you on a bad day I guess :sad:

Edited March 3, 2020 by OJLMethos

[anjenthedog]

• I CTD at random points, but the most common occurrences are:
• Randomly in combat - it has occurred when I am moving, casting, attacking. but nothing consistent, not every combat, not even the same spell / action / weapon or anything reliably causes a crash.
• Sometimes on area transition i.e. walking into / out of a cave / city / building - but again, not always.
• Sometimes when I load after a death - yet again, not always.
• Once even just being outside looking at a Hunter near Helgen I randomly crashed.
• I have not been able to reliably replicate when, how or why any of these occur. Sometimes one fight I will CTD, reload and do the fight almost exactly the same with no issue. Sometimes I transition areas and CTD, reload and then transition with no issues.
• I have successfully debugged and fixed other CTD issues I was having by going through and disabling mods 1 by 1 until I found a culprit. Unfortunately that doesn't work anymore due to the sporadic nature of these crashes and the inability to replicate circumstances / environments to "test" against.

 

I'm not sure you can escape all CTDs. I'd learn to cope with them, rather than attempting to fantasize about playing skyrim completely free of them.

 

I've encountered all of the above (perhaps with the exception of loading after death, since I die very infrequently)

 

Some can be mitigated by

• creating a new save regularly after being out in the field for an extended period of time (then reloading that save following its creation)
• escaping to caves/dungeons regularly to reduce GPU load and allow the game's script engine to "catch up"
• keeping save files "clean" by regularly using Fallrim tools
• keeping the number of loaded animations well below the upper limit
• keeping the mod count well below the max
• patching any known issues (requires through reading of mod description, posts, and bugs tabs)
• ensuring that all dependent mods are loaded and working, prior to installing the "next file" in a chain of mods
• avoiding installation of dubious conversions (the kind that report errors in your mod manager but "hey, they like still work!")
• making sure to keep up with mod updates. Updates aren't only done to conform to the latest skyrimg/SKSE versions. They also often include patched code, both those that openly state they've modified the source to resolve issues but also ones that aren't documented.

[MFitz56]

I'm sorry if I missed it in the information that you gave, but do you have?

 

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/17230

 

I don't think, having a stable game with no, or at least rare, CTDs is too much to ask for. While I am still playing with LE my game only seems to crash when Apple decides it is going to upload things in the background. THAT is very frustrating since they offer to only upload at times I specify and then they ignore it with impunity. But I digress.

 

The other thing that helps a great deal is this:

 

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/4875

 

This is made by the guys that brought you the STEP program. It will help optimize your ini settings in order to provide greater stability.

[OJLMethos]

Hi MFitz,

 

Thanks for your suggestions, I forgot to mention that I do indeed use the engine fixes and also Bethini for my ini's

 

Side note: Papy logs uploaded for anyone who maybe able to look at those - dont know why they didn't originally upload

[Indio21]

Hello OJLMethos, just as an fyi I did not take this as a "CTD, plz halp thread", you have to much info for that, lol. A quick look I took at the beginning of your LO does reveal some placement errors. I too use the UHDAP mod and it is the only one I have that is "required" to be above the USSEP. Also the correct arrangement recommended for LO starts with the UHDAP - MusicHQ.esp to be first, at top, then the numbered ones from 0 to 4 below it. I also see you have Laterns of Skyrim which if I remember correctly also is recommended to be above the USSEP. I do not have that one now but made a mental note about it when I finish conflict resolution on my current LO to follow up on it again. Reread the description page on the lanterns to verify, been a while here.

 

I read all the posts and looked over, basically, the info you provided. The only tool I do not see mention of, and probably the most important besides one's MM in my humble opinion, is xedit. Are you performing the steps outlined in the Tome of xEdit for conflict resolution of your LO? Only xedit is going to reveal conflicts beyond LOOT and your chosen MM. It is there you will see if any custom patches are needed for your LO. Below I will put a link to the Tome guide for you. I would recommend reading most all of it before beginning CR. The "Scripting" sections are the only ones I have not read yet.

 

I have some other mods that you have too and seen some real conflicts from them in xedit that will require either arranging LO or a custom patch. There is no way for me to have all those conflicts memorized from working through them but I can tell you some are like the CCOR, Cloaks, Improved Helmets, etc, and that Timing is Everything. The Timing one I have been putting off doing as it conflicts with so much in my LO. Just want to do the basics of CR first to learn and build up to ones like that. Now like I said I have been avoiding it so whether or not it is conflicts we want IDK as I am avoiding it for now, lol.

 

I believe the step you are missing is CR. I thought when I started it was just a matter of explicitly reading and watching everything offered for info on a mod and get all necessary patches. Sort it and it should basically work like a toaster. Unfortunetly, not the reality :sad:!!!!!! Look over the Tome guide and follow the necessary steps to verify you only have "conflicts" you want. Once you have performed CR I believe you will find the stability you are seeking. As an extra note I have read of people not even needing the Alternate Start mod after performing CR. Hoping to find that one out myself :smile:. Happy Modding!

 

https://tes5edit.github.io/docs/index.html

Edited March 6, 2020 by Indiao21

[Indio21]

OJLMethos, I had to return to doing CR of my own LO after the above post. Remembering some of your mods that I have the same I opened one up in xedit to show you what I mean by CR.

 

 

Well, I was hoping for an image to be readily available but still learning to use the nexus site. Anyways, if you open the attachment you will see Cloaks being overwritten by a patch for Legacy of the Dragonborn and Konahrik Accoutrements. Mind you this can happen with any mod using the same cells as Cloaks, in your LO, coming after it. This is not an example for if you just have these mods. The DBM_KA_Patch.esp overwrites Cloaks for the "Cloak of Krosis" with a blank cell. This means that that cloak of Krosis will never make it into the game. In this situation if the conflict cannot be resolved by arranging LO and no professional patch offered, I will have to make a custom patch just for this to work in my arrangement of LO. In your LO you may not have a mod that would conflict this way with Cloaks.

 

This is why CR is such a necessary evil. The game may play with no issues from these two mods and the only existing "tell tale" is the fact I will not see that cloak in game. This is a basic, simple example of a conflict one does not want. From there it can go to CTDs, and as I have learned, beyond!! Hope it helps and good luck :smile:

 

Also, so the world of modding does not beat down your enthusiasm and perception of what you are trying to do, watch the first 3.5 minutes of this video below. It will greatly enlighten you to this "world" of modding and help keep expectations in reality so you do not feel so let down as things develope :smile:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EKcS7qmtLo

Edited March 7, 2020 by Indiao21

[OJLMethos]

Hello OJLMethos, just as an fyi I did not take this as a "CTD, plz halp thread", ..... Happy Modding! [truncated]

 

 

Hey Indiao21,

 

Thanks so much for your replies, I have touched upon xEdit but pretty much only for the quickautoclean and some manual cleaning as directed by the STEP guide.

 

I am at least aware of the CR stuff xEdit can do and have started to look at it but was lacking a resource / guide and the Tome you linked maybe it!

 

The STEP guide has a CR patch made for all the mods that they use, which they have created themselves. This resolves the issues with the mods you specifically highlighted (as they happen to be part of the STEP core guide), however the mods I have added above-and-beyond the STEP guide may have conflicts of their own - so this is still very much going to be useful I suspect.

 

I'll check out the tome you linked and see what I may have conflicting - shall report back with what I find :D

 

thanks again for your posts!

 

edit: I have also downloaded a useful tool in the .net script framework, which posts very useful crash logs with stack information that can help identify issues - I recommend it for anyone who wants to add to their diagnostic toolbox. link https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/21294

Edited March 7, 2020 by OJLMethos

[Indio21]

Hi OJLMethos, if you are referring to the step guide for xedit the Tome guide is the more updated version. Not to say there is not still useful info there, just the tome is currently updated for the most stable version of xedit with the functions it currently offers.

 

"The STEP guide has a CR patch made for all the mods that they use, which they have created themselves"......hmmm, will have to look over those patches myself then. Might save me some work :). Guess I did not research it fully. Keep in mind that those patches could also be outdated if they are not being maintained. Just found one of those myself I had to remove.

 

"This resolves the issues with the mods you specifically highlighted".....Nope, that is a feature of xedit's Quick Check For Conflicts. The color codes for the cells and lettering all mean something to help us with CR. The Tome guide will provide a legend for it and show you were to find it for quick reference it xedit.

 

"so this is still very much going to be useful I suspect"......Performing CR in xedit is the only way for sure to know if conflicts are what you want or if you will have address them. I know your LO is fairly small but pay particular attention to using the full function of this tool with groups too. The idea with CR in xedit is when we have resolved all the confilcts and the QCFC is ran, nothing shows in the left pane :). By putting mods into groups we tell xedit we are fine with that conflict and remove it from the list so we know it has been resolved.

 

By following "The Method" outlined in the Tome you will put every two mods into a group. By doing this, later when we decide to add another mod and run the QCFC only the last mod in the last group of a conflict will appear for us to resolve the conflicts. Without groups every single mod with a conflict to the new mod or a mod that the new one affects will be in the list. This portion is for LO Management and will make life soooo much nicer X amount of months later when one wants to add more mods.

 

Also, keep in mind my pics above are not showing the full view that xedit will show. I had a setting on to only show conflict rows, so it hides all the "green" ones (no conflicts). In the left pane you probably noticed other entries beneath Cloaks. Everyone of them are a conflict with other mods in my LO and more complex than the simple one I did find for an example. You may have no mods conflicting Cloaks in a bad way.......or you could have multiple ones :(. Like I said xedit is the only program/tool I know of that will show all those conflicts.

 

Here is a link to an interview with nexus and the creator of xedit. This will provide some real insight to xedit and why exactly CR is a necessity and not an option, well if you want a 99% conflict free game anyways. The creator explains why exactly he did create xedit and its need to perform CR has not changed in all these years! Have fun, and you are welcome!

 

https://www.nexusmods.com/news/13911