EldritchEquations

Well, I just tried it again, another new game, and once again it crashed on reload in Diamond City. What would you recommend at this point?

Sorry about the slow response, last week was long... thanks again so much for all of this. Info under spoilers.

Can do, under spoiler. It looks like the very end of it is cut off, had to double-check but that's literally it.

Someone else pointed me at Fallrim Tools... I'm not sure why, as I have no idea what it does. I have it now, I guess? All they vaguely said was, "Examine your save." Yep, it's there. It still won't load after saving in Diamond City right across from the noodle stand, on a completely new save, with nothing but F4SE, UFO4P, Settlers of the Commonwealth, and now this tomfoolery. Then someone else said go get Buffout 4. OK, fine. So I go download x86, x64, and ARM64 of the Microsoft Visual C++-- as Buffout 4 doesn't specify which you need-- and xSE Plugin Preloader F4, Address Library, and Buffout 4. Game won't run at all now. HEADDESK Windows gives me the little circle like it's doing something for a second, and then nothing. EDIT: Changed the Load Method in xSE Plugin Preloader. Loaded. This is what I get from the Buffout log when I try to load into the save inside Diamond City. New game just out of the vault, F4SE, UFO4P, and Settlers of the Commonwealth. I save at the noodle stand, exit, and this is the reload attempt:

Someone else pointed me at Fallrim Tools... I'm not sure why, as I have no idea what it does. I have it now, I guess? All they vaguely said was, "Examine your save." Yep, it's there. It still won't load after saving in Diamond City right across from the noodle stand, on a completely new save, with nothing but F4SE, UFO4P, Settlers of the Commonwealth, and now this tomfoolery. Then someone else said go get Buffout 4. OK, fine. So I go download x86, x64, and ARM64 of the Microsoft Visual C++-- as Buffout 4 doesn't specify which you need-- and xSE Plugin Preloader F4, Address Library, and Buffout 4. Game won't run at all now. HEADDESK Windows gives me the little circle like it's doing something for a second, and then nothing. EDIT: Changed the Load Method in xSE Plugin Preloader. Loaded. This is what I get from the Buffout log when I try to load into the save inside Diamond City:

Yes. I have a clean save actually just before exiting the vault specifically for testing. I've been trying the method you suggested for months to find the culprit, but everything from the UFO4P to True Storms has done it to me. Which doesn't make any sense, thus why I'm baffled.

Yes. It loads fine. Honestly the next thing I'm going to try is getting rid of the Unofficial patch.

Just uninstalled everything with NMM, again. Once again, it loads fine. I save, close, and reload, and it's fine. This is a mod conflict, there's absolutely nothing else it could be, but I have NO idea which one. No matter what I uninstall, it doesn't solve the issue. As shown, I've had it down to TWO mods, literally TWO, and it caused this exact crash. UFO4P and Settlers of the Commonwealth, neither of which have any such reported problems. Neither do any of the other mods I've identified to be "causing" this and subsequently uninstalled. My modded game used to be the bright spot of my week, now I'm honestly so depressed about this half the time I don't even fire up my PC. I had hopes one day of releasing my own city builds, but at this rate of failure, I don't want to play anything anymore.

Been at this for months. Still no clue what's causing it. At some point, I thought pretty much every single one of these was the issue and obviously turned out not to be. Before I say this all again: Yes I've tried verifying my cache. Yes I've reinstalled the game. Yes I've reinstalled all my mods. No it doesn't happen on a brand new, clean save with no mods. Yes I've tried uninstalling them all and turning them all on one at a time. Yes I've tried installing them all and turning them off one at a time. I can't find the culprit.

I did. I've done this so many times I've literally pulled out hair over it. I think I nail down the problem, and then I find another mod that is also causing the exact same issue. And there's no way every single one of these highly reliable mods is the problem. I appreciate and get that it can be done. This is by absolutely no means the largest, most intensive, nor most complex loadout I've done. I built 16 settlements up, including every single one of the Triangle of Death, and saved the blueprints with Transfer Settlements using over 220 mods. Sim Settlements, armor mods, body mods, quest mods, Beantown Interiors, Atomic World, Lexington Interiors-- a ton of things you have are things I either have or have had, and have had no problems with. I've modded it way beyond this time and time again, but every single attempt in the last six months has just been random crashes. The Diamond City mods all work fine. I loaded them all up into a Profile, and I can get into Diamond City, save, reload, run into a building, save, exit, reload, etc. Stuck all my building mods in a profile. Loaded that up just fine as well. No problems. Uninstalling everything and testing everything one at a time has given me several false-positives. It's why the list is so small at this point, because anything that causes the issue I just immediately uninstall and continue along testing the rest of them. I have no confidence anymore that when I find one that's causing it that it's the actual problem, because I've had it reappear with so many different mods. Example: Everything else is disabled. It won't load Diamond City. OK, easy, right? Just get rid of 3DNPC_FO4Settler.esp Except, if I do that, I know from experience because I've been dealing with this absolute migraine for months, that it will happen again. And then I'll go do this all over again, and find some other mod, and uninstall that, and restart my game. I don't see anything on either mod page about it, but going to the UFO4P page to ask seems like a good way to get told it's absolutely any other mod but theirs. And in this journey of migraines, I've had false-positives several times where it's X mod, I take it off, and it's still happening. I've played with these two before with no problems. But short of someone on the 3dNPC page coming back to me or anyone else being able to verify this conflict, I'm back to exactly where I started of having no idea why this isn't working or how to even find out.

I honestly don't even know wtf. I disabled everything and I've been going through enabling mods one at a time, loading in, going to Diamond City, saving, closing, and reloading. Anytime it crashed with a mod enabled, I just took it off. But it KEEPS happening. I've gone from 200 to half that. I yeet something off the list because I enable it and it either crashes or fails to load DC after the save, and then it happens again. But this is such a small list at this point, of things I've used before on this PC, and never had a problem. I've started fresh several times now. I don't know what else to do.

I'm not sure if it was optional, I just saw a comment in the FAQ about needing the HD DLC. This seems to be the updated version, and it has links lower down on the page of face textures that the mod-dev says work well with it. I'd make a personal rec but I don't use any face textures for FO4 so I don't really know what's "the" face mod most are using. I only use CBBE bodies because some armors I want require it, but I always go with the closest-to-vanilla option. No worries about being a hassle, that's what this forum is for. If someone responds it's because they think they might be able to help so I've found everyone here is really patient. I'm a step beyond the "click and install" learning curve myself, but not by much, so if I think I can help with what may be a simple problem, I try.

Oops, looks like I accidentally deleted Question 4. Do you have any other mods installed? This is a texture for CBBE bodies, but if you say you have all the requirements, that should be fine. Did you make sure CBBE installed correctly before you installed this? I also see on the mod page that it says this is no longer being supported, it was last updated in 2018 and there have been multiple game updates since then, and your issue with the faces is a common one. Down the mod's description page it has an entry about the face bug possibly being caused by the wrong size textures, and that you need the HD DLC. You may already do this but I'd rather say something you may already know, which is always check the mod page and at least the first page of comments. The description and stickied notes will usually give you a lot of info you'd otherwise spend hours trying to figure out yourself. CBBE should be installed first, and then this. If you attempted to install it manually before you used Vortex, you should make sure you didn't move files somewhere they aren't supposed to be before going and trying a mod manager. NMM is still upkept by the community, but unfortunately I don't have any experience with Vortex. I've heard Gopher on Youtube covers a lot of stuff about Vortex, his videos might be worth checking out. I'd also go download LOOT and use it to sort your mods. It's not a catch-all, especially once you start installing a lot of mods, but it will generally put mods in the correct order. However, it may just be that this mod is out of date, or that the face bug issue was never fixed as I see quite a few folks in the comments there asking about that same issue. This stickied post is a great guide to getting stuff in order, I've been using it for a bit and I'm even getting help for some problems myself. It looks like a very intimidating wall of text, but it's a lot simpler than it looks, and it has saved me a LOT of headaches. Hope any of that helped.

1. Did you follow the instructions here as per creating/editing your Fallout4Custom.ini file? 2. Which mod manager are you using? It's usually not a good idea to install a mod manually unless the mod page specifically says so. I would also recommend Mod Organizer 2 or Nexus Mod Manager but not Vortex, as those are the two always recommended to me, and I have heard of some issues using Vortex. 3. Which face mod do you have installed specifically? Do you have all listed requirements installed? 5. Have you downloaded LOOT and used it to sort your mods?

Nup, crashed again at that same spot. Messed around with my load order a bit, didn't add or take anything away just tried adjusting placement of some stuff, but same result. I install them all in small groups of categories, and a good deal of them are things I've used successfully in the past. So I'm starting to think it's A) something I'm not as familiar with the stability of, and/or B) a conflict between two and not any one mod being a problem but the combination of them together. And what I have in spades right now that I haven't had much of in the past is adjustments to NPC dialogue. Like, five or six of them I think. The order could be wrong, or it could just be too many of them. After the last suggestion from NaiRae to check all my Diamond City mods, I loaded up JUST the mods that edit or add anything including NPCs to Diamond City, and it didn't crash. Maybe some sort of dialogue conflict is happening when I enter the city. I'm guessing but I can appreciate a lead, even if only a random feeling, because it's far preferable to having NO idea what to even try next. XD