infinite loading screen, main menu

[ChadChadborn]

Well, that was my 'best' shot, but there was also a recent post about a too-small Windows swapfile causing a CTD. If I recall correctly, the author had severely limited the size, thinking it was ok because of their amount of installed RAM. Check the size of your swapfile, make sure it is more than just 2-4 GB. Depending on your installed RAM and disk space, maybe even try for 24 GB or so...

 

Have you tried using the profiles feature to make your mod swapping a bit faster? That way, you could 'freeze' your original install, and disable/enable mods in the new profile. Just don't install/uninstall mods, as that can cause them to be removed from the staging folder, and break your older profile, I think. I haven't tried profiles much, I misunderstood how they work, and messed stuff up early on.

 

You have verified your game files, right? (Assuming you are not 'downgrading' - if you are, it is real easy to get the wrong version of SKSE mods and cause problems.)

Painstakingly disabling and re-enabling mods turned out to be the correct course of action; SSE Engine Fixes Part 2 wasn't causing the crashes, but rather allowing the crashes instead of an infinite recursion bug. After installing all files for Part 2 that fixed the error code 126 and I disabled all mods that weren't utilities, bug fixes, or modding resources until I finally narrowed in on the culprit over the course of roughly 12 hours.

 

Turns out that the issue, the only issue, is that I have the AE version of Open Cities Skyrim because I foolishly deleted the SE version that I had downloaded so long ago. The reason this wasn't immediately apparent by simply disabling Open Cities is because any mod that had a patch for Open Cities built into it also caused a CTD immediately on startup. At least I've finally located the offending mod, but unfortunately I can't find a 1.5.97 compatible version of Open Cities anywhere.

 

Edit: Found a source for the 1.5.97 compatible version of Open Cities Skyrim, my game runs perfectly now.

Edited September 26, 2023 by ChadChadborn

[7531Leonidas]

Glad you worked it out!

 

One more question - which mods are you fighting to keep by using the 'downgrade' 1.597? There is a modding.wiki ( https://modding.wiki/en/skyrim/users/skse-plugins ) that lists SKSE-based mod versions for the various SE 'updates', and some attempts at replacements for ones that are/will not be updated.

[blitzen]

I always disable the custom memory management in Engine Fixes, since it has caused crashes for me across multiple Skyrim installs on different computers. I don't know what mods any of you are using, but if you ran out of file handles you would get stuck in a loading screen. There is a MaxStdio value defined in the Engine FIxes configuration file which I believe defaults to 512. Set it to 8192 or at least 4096. See if that helps. There is also a property for maximum save file size. I think it's a boolean that should be true but defaults to false. That fixes problems with large save files.

[ChadChadborn]

Glad you worked it out!

 

One more question - which mods are you fighting to keep by using the 'downgrade' 1.597? There is a modding.wiki ( https://modding.wiki/en/skyrim/users/skse-plugins ) that lists SKSE-based mod versions for the various SE 'updates', and some attempts at replacements for ones that are/will not be updated.

I'm downgrading because sadly any pre-AE follower mods cause the game to crash when loading up, something about AE changing the loading speed or other and basically causing followers to load too quickly and CTD. Unfortunately a lot of follower mod authors either aren't around anymore or just aren't doing updates, so I'm sticking with 1.5.97 for the foreseeable future.