Help? CTD even with clean install.

[norrec787]

So as the title suggests, I am having CTD issues even with a clean install. Here's a quick history of what I've done.

 

I had a handful of mods installed that worked fine. I saw how great the combination of Climates of Tamriel and RealVision ENB made the game look so I wanted to give them a try. I used the walkthrough videos to get them installed and it worked fine. After a little play time, I decided the darkness of nighttime from CoT was a bit too dark so I wanted to change it. I exited the game, launched NMM, deactivated CoT, reactivated it with the lighter night, then launched the game but started to CTD. I eventually, after much troubleshooting, had to reinstall everything and use TES5Edit to get it working again. I played for a few days with no issues. Then I decided to add two more smaller mods. One just upped the gold that NPC's carried, and the other added some craftable crossbows. Here we go again.. CTD. Also note that I can't even create a new game. It just hangs with the skyrim logo and music. So as before, I deactivated all mods, cleaned all mods with TES5Edit that BOSS said were dirty, absolutely no luck. So as before, I backed up any saves and .ini files I edited, put them into a folder on my desktop and completely uninstalled skyrim and every file on my drives. Did a fresh clean install, launched the game, STILL can't create new game. Just hangs there. So what is going on?? How can there be an issue if everything is clean? I haven't even touched any mods or game settings. I have the game through steam which I thought might be causing the problem, like maybe it was taking something from the steam sync, but even with sync disabled it doesn't matter. Can anyone help? I would be uber greatful.

[chanchan05]

How about trying to use a clean ini file? Seems like that may be the culprit since it's the only one that came over from the previous install.

[norrec787]

How about trying to use a clean ini file? Seems like that may be the culprit since it's the only one that came over from the previous install.

That's just it, I haven't put any of my backups into play yet. The only files that are being used are the default ones the game sets up at install.

[norrec787]

bump

[ArtMurder]

What do you do to "clean" your mods with TES5Edit? Cleaning something the wrong way can result in some bad stuff...

 

Do you use Wrye Bash? Trying pulling it up and it will tell you if any mods conflict or have conflicting master records.

 

You are really throwing me off with your terminology a "hang" a "freeze" and a "CTD" are very different things, and are the result of different things happening. CTDs mean crash to desktop, the game will flicker, then disappear, leaving you looking at your desktop, this is usually caused by a mod conflict, a missing master, or memory overload. A "hang" is when your FPS drops totally or almost to zero, and the game starts doing anything reeeaaally slow, if at all, and the FPS either slowly creeps around at obnoxiously low numbers until you close the game, or goes back to normal after 30 seconds or so, this is caused by the game trying to do to many things at once or limitations in the processing power of the computer. A Freeze is when the game just STOPS all at once, you will usually here some sort of sound loop, usually some sort of really annoying "DADADADADA" or "CLICKCLICKCLICK" and the game will not do anything and all, and you have to use CTRL+ALT+DEL to pull up the task manager and kill skyrim's process, and in some cases even restarted your computer to stop the annoying "DADADADADADADA" sound (or whatever sound it makes), as it doesn't always stop the sound when the game stops.

 

Anyways, if your game is CTDing on the main menu, it means there is a missing master, which can be possible even if you have no other mods installed if you've been pocking around with TES5Edit. Simply double check using some sort of mod program, like Wrye Bash that lists each mods master files.

 

If it is indeed a hang on the main menu, it means that it's possible something is wrong with your computer, and you should try running skyrim on lower settings, or try running another game with similar graphic quality to skyrim and see if it works.

 

If it is indeed a freeze, then it is likely something is corrupted in your skyrim files, and if that's the case then have steam check the integrity of the game files.

 

in addition, someone else mentioned the INI, and I just want to double check that you are indeed talking about the ini files located in Documents/My Games/Skyrim and NOT the one in Steam/SteamApps/common/Skyrim/Skyrim. If not, try deleting both the skyrim.ini and skyrimprefs.ini in the documents folder, and launching the game through the vanilla default skyrim launcher and it will replace them with the default vanilla ones.

Edited December 13, 2013 by ArtMurder

[norrec787]

@ArtMurder

 

Ok sorry for the improper use of terminology or lack of explanation I'm just frustrated. I'm aware what CTD is and by "hang" at main menu I mean when I click "new" to start a new game, the menu goes away and it just sits there. Music plays fine, the skyrim logo "floats" around like normal, but it never goes anywhere. Need to ALT+TAB out and end process. I only CTD when trying to load a save file, IF I even load a backed up save into my save folder.

 

In terms of cleaning with TES5Edit, I do it the way that the walkthroughs explain how to. Also, yes when I delete the skyrim files before a fresh install I get the ones in Documents/My Games/Skyrim AND Steam/Steamapps/common. I completely removed every skyrim file on my system except for my backups in a folder on the desktop.

 

Also, no I have not tried Wrye Bash yet but will be when I get home from work.

 

As far as a problem with my computer, that is highly doubtful. I just built it and it has zero issues running any of my other games at max settings. I will post stats just for the heck of it.

 

Thanks.

 

 

AsRock Extreme 4

Intel Core i5 oc'd @ 4.4GHz

-plenty of cooling with a Kraken x60

MSI GTX 770 Lightning Edition 2GB

16GB Corsair Vengeance 1600

Win7 64-bit

Edited December 13, 2013 by norrec787

[ArtMurder]

I only make a big deal about the different terms because it helps people to figure out the problem easier. ^_^

 

Try out the mod Safety Load, it fixes "load hangs" like you are describing for me, have not had one since installing it.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/46465/?

 

Your computer is very similar to mine, I use an asrock MB, i5 CPU, GTX 660, 16gb of ram and win7 64BIT, so i can confirm it should be able to play ultra skyrim with no problems, it's possible the hardware received damage, which is very possible if you put the computer together yourself and it is less the say, 3 months old. This is unlikely, but you should try running another game on very high settings just to check. ^_^ I noticed you mentioned overclocking your CPU, which can result in it having hiccups and errors much, much faster then if it's not overclocked.

 

if your issues persist, reinstall the game totally through steam, by selecting to "Delete All Local Content", and then totally redownloading and installing the entire game. In addition, you might want to try putting all your back ups into zip file and deleting the original, as it's slightly possible(allbeit highly unlikely) something in the back ups you are saving is still interacting with the Skyrim files from wherever you have it placed temporarily. If this doesn't work, then contact steam or Bethesda support, as the issue may not be related to any mods you had installed!

 

EDIT; random suggesting, try running SKSE/Skyrim Launcher as Admin, my game started bugging out bad a while back, and now I run SKSE as admin every time and the game works fine again. For some reason when I installed Saints Row 4 it made a lot of my games start messing up on launch or on the menu screen, and I have to run about half of them (including SR4) as admin just to play them!

Edited December 14, 2013 by ArtMurder

[norrec787]

Thanks Murder.

 

I will give these ideas a try. As far as actual pc hardware problems, I also feel it is highly unlikely that is where the problem lies. I have enough experience in building/oc'ing and have ran hours of stress tests and also other high demanding games with no issues so I just can't see that being the case.

 

As far as putting my backups into a zip folder, I was actually thinking about that myself. Like maybe the game was seeing them somehow. There were times I would delete the saves folder and replace it with a different one, and some of the old saves were somehow still in there.

 

Again, thanks for your input and I will update this thread with my findings.