nt5raham

Sorry, I've never used MO2 so I can't advise on that. The process of elimination can be very revealing. Remove mods until it is stable. Pay attention to what you remove, when you remove it, and what the result is. You can usually narrow it down pretty well that way. Once you determine which mod is causing the problem, that is often when the real work begins to find out why that mod is a problem. It may be something simple like load order, or something more complex. There is a key to building up a good load order with a lot of mods, and it involves using xEdit (in this case, SSEEdit). The author of all of the variations (F04Edit, TES5Edit, SSEEdit, etc., collectively referred to as xEdit) is Elminster, and Elminster has published Elminster's Method. I started from zero, literally uninstalled Skyrim, Steam, Vortex, everything. I started over, following the Method, and that is a large part of where the credit goes for my stable load order. It involves checking plugins for conflicts with other plugins. It is done one plugin at a time, and it works. Start with the base game, add a mod, check for conflicts and resolve. Add another mod, and repeat. It is not fast and instant, but takes an investment in time. In the long run it saves time, and you learn along the way so you can troubleshoot most problems on your own. Elminster's Method can be found here: https://tes5edit.github.io/docs/index.html The whole Tome of xEdit is helpful, but the Method can be found in section 6. It takes the guesswork out of many, many problems.

Unfortunately I do not have enough knowledge to know which errors in a log are known and acceptable, and which errors actually mean something. Some basic troubleshooting can usually narrow it down. How many active plugins do you have at this point? You were at 259 earlier, and you said you found a mod that was a problem and you removed it so does that mean you were now at 258? If so you need to get to 255 or below.

Basically, yes. Some of your ESPs may already be light, and if so they are not counting toward that 255 plugin limit. What mod manager are you using?

Regarding the reference handles limit, I would go to the Engine Fixes mod page and ask there. The posts are closely monitored and usually get a quick response. https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/17230?tab=posts Regarding HTR's comments: Skyrim SE has a hard limit of 255 "Active" plugins. Active plugins have a Mod Index in the form of a 2-character hex value, starting with 00. Most plugins are either .esm or .esp files. The initial game is going to include Skyrim.esm which is Mod Index 00, Dawnguard.esm, HearthFires.esm and Dragonborn.esm. You should also see Update.esm in there. This is your base game, and already you have used 5 of the 255 plugin "slots" that the game can handle, with 250 remaining slots. Then you start installing other "required" mods like the Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch (USSEP), then some optional mods, and pretty soon you are filling empty slots left and right. You've installed about 300 mods - are you wondering how your game is working with that many installed? There is another category of plugins, called "light" plugins, that do not technically take up one of the 255 Active plugin slots. They are all going to have a Mod Index beginning with FE followed by a 3-character hex value. The game supports up to a total of 4,096 "light" plugins. These are called light partially because they don't take up an Active slot, but also because only the smaller mods/plugins can be used like this because of a size limitation placed on them. Common candidates for mods that can utilize a light plugin are simple follower mods, utilities, and things that make small changes to the game in general. You won't find any major quest mods packed into a light plugin. Some light plugins have the .esl extension, and these are somewhat limiting because they are programed to sort toward the beginning of your load order. You won't find any .esl plugins loading late in your game. There is also another type of light plugin that uses the same .esp extension mentioned above that is normally used for Active plugins. But in this case the .esp plugin is relatively small, and it has been configured with a "flag" that allows it to be treated like it has the .esl extension, but without the load order limitation placed on .esl plugins. This type of plugin is often called ESP-FE because it is a .esp plugin with a light Mod Index beginning with FE. They are also sometimes called esp-esl, and even the term "ESLify" has been coined to describe the process of making a regular .esp file into ESP-FE. That is what HTR was asking, "Are ANY of those ESPs, converted to ESPfe?" How do you know how many Active plugins you have installed/enabled? If you followed the Ultimate Guide then you are probably using MO2. I've never used that manager, so I can't help with that. I know in Vortex there is a counter on the Plugins page that shows the number of Active/Light plugins so you can keep track. I'm sure MO2 has something similar. Some .esp plugins are already ESP-FE when you download them because the mod author has kindly done it for you. Other .esp plugins are good candidates to be made ESP-FE, but you must initiate the process. Again, with Vortex there is a feature built in that flags any .esp that is a good candidate for ESP-FE, and you know it can be safely converted. Once you see that flag in Vortex, converting the .esp from regular to ESP-FE is just a few mouse clicks away. You can find a guide to manually make this change here: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/21618 If you keep installing mods, and you have converted all of the possible .esp plugins to ESP-FE, but you are still running out of Active slots (more than 255 Active plugins), then "merging" Active plugins is the next step. There is usually no reason to Merge a light plugin since they don't count against the 255 limit, unless it needs to be included in a merge with an Active plugin because of dependencies. There is no real-world way that you could reach the maximum number of plugins you can merge (theoretically over 50,000 plugins), but like light plugins, not all plugins are good candidates for merging. This is covered in the Ultimate Guide under the section for MODS TO BE INSTALLED OR ACTIONS TO BE MADE IN THE END OF MODDING PROCESS. I currently have 985 mods installed with over 1,000 plugins, but by using the processes described above I only have 204 Active plugins. The rest are either Light (559) or have been Merged (around 300). I did want to push the envelope (contrary to the advice of Mator who created the zMerge tool I use), and I merged 249 simple follower mods into one merged .esp...that is 249 plugins now taking up a single plugin slot, and it works perfectly. If I wanted to put forth the effort, those 204 Active plugins could easily be whittled down to less than 150, leaving room for literally thousands of merged plugins (do the math). There are limitations to this process, but in the real world it is unlikely you would reach those limits. The largest real-world example I have seen is a player who's been into Bethesda games for a decade and installed over 1,800 mods in Skyrim SE. And that is with a stable game and no weird CTD issues. BTW, if anybody tells you Vortex is not a good mod manager for serious modding, I will definitely disagree. 985 mods is pretty serious. Vortex is powerful and flexible and has served me well for reaching my current load order. Those that complain are usually those who are unfamiliar with Vortex's features and how to use them...like picking up a Swiss Army knife and only using the main blade. But, like Ford vs. Chevy, to each his/her own. No matter what, you have to follow the advice of the experienced modders. Take your time, and test, test, test. You said it yourself that you started out testing as the Ultimate Guide suggested, but it is easy to get complacent, lazy and sloppy. Then it bit you in the backside. The more you install, the more you need to test. I check every single mod I install for ITMs, dirty edits, and conflicts with other mods using xEdit. Then I put it in game and test it. Go to the area(s) that the mod affects, check out the house, meet the follower and make sure they aren't turning funny colors, etc. Then I start playing. One. Mod. At. A. Time. Even then, some mods have problems that show up later. I have a mod installed that kept causing CTD when entering certain cells. Eventually I worked out that I had just made a level, and this mod had a bug that caused CTD in cells that it "touched" at that certain level and beyond. Fortunately, the mod author was right on top of things and fixed it immediately, so I have kept the mod. There have been other bugs I have found in mods that are no longer supported, and sometimes I can fix the bug myself. If the mod I'm testing has a problem and I decide to uninstall it, I go back to a save before the mod was installed so there is no residual garbage left over in my current game to corrupt my saves. I never uninstall a mod mid-way in a play-through. If I uninstall a mod that's been installed for a while, I start a new game. That'll make you stop and think before installing just any old mod willy-nilly! BTW, I haven't been modding for years like some people around here (like HTR). In May of this year I was where you are now, just starting to do some serious modding, following a published guide.

@Algabar - LOL I love the OP screenshot from the thread you provided! Skyrim meets The Wizard of Oz! So then, we have confirmed that there is an alien spacecraft at the center of the Bermuda Triangle after all...and it is running Bethesda's game engine! Seriously, thanks for the info. It was most helpful.

Fallrim Tools (ReSaver) provides this information, but only when the tool is opened a certain way. See my relevant post on the mod page: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/5031?tab=description

Sounds like you're on the right track! And yes, it is tedious work. But it is very rewarding when you finally get to enjoy that beautifully modded and stable game. Good luck!

Thanks DD! *makes mental note to stick with .14 for now*

Wow, going instantly from 0-300 mods is quite a jump! One benefit of building a little at a time is that you learn to troubleshoot along the way while it is still simple (just a few mods). The first thing that comes to mind when I read your OP is simply this: Are you overtaxing your computer? Lots of mods requires a powerful PC, lots of memory, and a strong graphics card. Specifically regarding indoors versus outdoors, if your ENB settings are set really high (i.e. ultra setting) then you will be using a LOT more resources outdoors. Only an upper-end gaming PC could handle this. Perhaps this could be a factor? In general, a good way to troubleshoot would be to systematically disable mods until the game stops crashing. That will often show you where the problem is. Any modding guide should be telling you to install a little at a time. Install some mods, start game and test. Install some more mods, start game and test. Now you need to go backwards from that. This is from the Skyrim SE Ultimate Modding Guide web page: https://www.sinitargaming.com/skyrim_se.html Important tip #2: To install 200 mods and then launch your game is not a best idea. I personally recommend to do in this way: install a few mods (let's say 5-7 if these mods are big, 20-25 if small), sort them with LOOT, launch your game, check it's stable. Install 5 more and so on.

@anjenthedog, thanks for the link, and it agrees with what I was saying. They talked briefly about "save bloat" and yes, when disabled it is still in the save. That is exactly why I use it, so it can be brought back if needed, if I find out a mod was using it, or whatever. Most of us don't have a problem with save size, but if we do then a tree here or there isn't generally the source of the problem and it isn't going to make a big difference. Edit: BTW, my earlier post about mod authors moving objects to z -30000 is also keeping the object in the save. That is probably why they do it as well, so they are not making irreversible changes.

Not sure if this will help with your decision, but if you look at the major mod authors out there, when they want to get rid of something from the vanilla game (i.e. a bush that would show up in the middle of the living room of your new house), they often change the position of the object rather than delete it. This is what I usually do with trees, as I mentioned before. Objects are positioned using a standard x,y,z coordinate system. A common tactic is to change the z (elevation) to -30000, which essentially buries the object far underground without actually deleting it. I have done the same using xEdit when a slight adjustment in position wouldn't work for a particular situation. Food for thought.

@BrotherShamus, just to be clear, @anjenthedog is disagreeing with my suggestion. I'm not sure.

Interesting! Kind of a Skyrim Bermuda Triangle...

The purple text indicates it is a master that is being overwritten...in this case it is being overwritten with no data by Update.esm and BDS. If I was using DynDOLOD, I would not worry about it. I also consider that Update.esm, at least in theory, is like USSEP in that it corrects problems in Skyrim.esm, and BDS is in harmony with Update.esm. So I would agree to the no action required answer, but for a different reason.

Skyrim SE has a hard limit of 255 Active plugins. I'm not sure this is your only problem, but it is a problem. Just to test, disable enough mods (and then deploy mods) to make sure you are at 254 Active plugins just to be safe. If that works and the game loads, we can go from there.

Then this is not a save problem. There is a mod issue, most likely. I would disable half of your plugins and see if it CTD.

Do you know how to use coc in the console to change cells?

Trying a new game is a sure way to find out if it is a save problem or not. Using Save Cleaner before determining for certain if it is a save problem may or may not tell you anything. I usually try to determine the problem before applying a fix. It is like changing parts on a car blindly without knowing what failed - that can get expensive and use up a lot of extra time.

Ah, that would limit things.

Perhaps. Have you tried going back to the save where you first entered the Barrow to see if you can enter or re-enter that far in the past? In other words, go back to before you entered the first time.

Cool! Hope that fixes it! Did you try a previous save to see if that is a factor? Also, make sure to follow the mod instructions to back up your save before cleaning it.

Heh, even a level change can be a contributing factor. I just helped a mod author narrow down a CTD in certain cells that happened once the PC reached a certain level. "It never happened before" was the mantra of the day, and we were trying all kinds of things...cleaning saves, disabling mods, etc. Turned out that my character had made a level, and that exposed the bug in the mod that nobody had ever seen. He found the problem in his mod, uploaded a new version, and the CTD went away without me having to change anything. You just never know.

No, the NPCs will not react to it. But when any given mod loads, and if it references that object and the object has been deleted, then there may be a script or reference out there with nothing to point to. That causes game instability. It is one of the reasons why uninstalling mods in the middle of a play-through is discouraged. Say for example, there is a mod that moves a tree from point A to point B. If the tree is disabled, the mod still finds the tree and is happy. But you don't see the tree or the change that took place since it is disabled.

I wouldn't ignore the possibility that this may be caused by a mod. In your Papyrus log, Tainted Blood is tying to do things with draugr and failing. I'm not saying that is the cause, but mods sometimes "touch" things in ways we might not expect.

There is a tool on Nexus called Save Cleaner. The stated purpose is to reset cells in your save. Before using it, I would highly recommend loading a previous save - 2 or 3 or more saves back - to see if the problem exists there. https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/34601