290hrs in and suddenly my save is taking 20+ minutes to load, anyone know a solution please?

[PlaceboPRS]

Unfortunately I wasn't aware of the age old bug that you need to keep making new save files, I kept saving over my old saves and suddenly it's now taking 20+ minutes to load, which makes the game pretty unplayable because I'm not going to put it onto easy or play in god mode or something!

Don't suppose anyone knows a solution please?

I uploaded my latest save here in case anyone wants to test it themself to see if it'll work better for them: https://www.mediafire.com/file/7npmlylnyuyr2df/Save314_1CE6B980_5061756C205374617468616D_101054_20231207170541_72_0_4.sfs/file

I do of course use mods but I don't believe any of them are the cause, this is my list anyway FWIW:

*StarfieldCommunityPatch.esm
*CraftAdhesiveVacuumTape.esm
*CraftMissingResourcesOnly.esm
*crafting_updated.esm
*Following Asteroid Fix.esm
*HSIBA - Extras.esm
*Item Sorter.esm
*MoreDramaticGravJumps.esm
*MoreImmersiveLandingsTakeOffs.esm
*MoreVisualizedDocking.esm
*OutpostShipbuilderUnlocked.esm
*ResourceJunk.esm
*ShipCargoStorage.esp
*ShipCombatOverhaul.esm
*SkillFixes - Vanilla Purist.esm
*Weightless.esp
*xatmosNoClutter.esp
*SCO-Engines.esm
*COCSOS - Seek Out Stores.esm
*ShowMorePOI.esm
*Improved Combat AI.esm
*Leveled Mission Rewards.esm
*Mission Boards Anywhere.esm
*Sit To Add Ship.esm
*Starfield HD.esm
*Richer Merchants.esm
*ResourceJunk Crafting.esm
*VenpiCore.esm
*BooksRevamped.esm
*CoraCanRead.esm
*IncreasedSpaceLootDistance.esm
*PEAK Enemy AI NM.esm

 

Thanks in advance! :)

 

[PlaceboPRS]

PC Specs are:

CPU: Intel i9-13900KF
GPU: RTX 3070 Ti
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z790 UD AX
Ram: 32gb Kingston FURY Beast DDR5
Storage: Samsung 980 Evo 2tb NVME

[HeyYou]

What is the file size of your saves? Going NG+ *might* solve the problem.

[PlaceboPRS]

1 hour ago, HeyYou said:

What is the file size of your saves? Going NG+ *might* solve the problem.

 

36mb or so, the last one that loads normally (16 seconds from 4th December) is 34mb.

I've progressed very little in the main story so I'm a long way from being ready to NG+ sadly

[LarannKiar]

You can try removing your mods and load the problematic or maybe an earlier save but.. if no luck, then the save might have gotten corrupted. (In previous games, the "infinite loading screen" issue was almost always caused by corrupted saves).

If you check Task Manager >> Processes >> Starfield.exe while the save is loading, what do you see? RAM usage is static, with only a minor periodical increase? No drive activity by the game? Processor usage is ~20%?

Edited December 8, 2023 by LarannKiar

[PlaceboPRS]

18 hours ago, LarannKiar said:

You can try removing your mods and load the problematic or maybe an earlier save but.. if no luck, then the save might have gotten corrupted. (In previous games, the "infinite loading screen" issue was almost always caused by corrupted saves).

If you check Task Manager >> Processes >> Starfield.exe while the save is loading, what do you see? RAM usage is static, with only a minor periodical increase? No drive activity by the game? Processor usage is ~20%?

Went back to the 4th December save that loaded normally but it quickly became super slow loading unfortunately, just saved in Akila then loaded again and took a good 5-10 minutes. Checked taskmanager and it was showing zero drive activity:

 

[LarannKiar]

It seems to be the "infinite loading screen" issue then, known from earlier games. If you wait long enough, in theory (and depending on how the save is corrupted) the save may load but it takes very long. In most cases though, players are not that patient and say the save doesn't load at all.

Unfortunately no one has ever managed to find an universal solution, saves are binary files.

This is the first time I hear about this issue coming up in Starfield though. Not a good sign, the game is just 3 month old..

But I have never heard about a single case which involved an unmodded save.. this doesn't necessarily mean one of the mods you listed is broken, it could mean the game's save buffer/loader can't properly handle/write/read certain kind of new content which causes the process to hang.

I think you should prioritize which mods are absolutely necessary and use only those on your next playthrough otherwise there's a great chance it'll happen again. (And even if a future update patches the code, the fix probably won't be retroactive).

[PlaceboPRS]

8 minutes ago, LarannKiar said:

It seems to be the "infinite loading screen" issue then, known from earlier games. If you wait long enough, in theory (and depending on how the save is corrupted) the save may load but it takes very long. In most cases though, players are not that patient and say the save doesn't load at all.

Unfortunately no one has ever managed to find an universal solution, saves are binary files.

This is the first time I hear about this issue coming up in Starfield though. Not a good sign, the game is just 3 month old..

But I have never heard about a single case which involved an unmodded save.. this doesn't necessarily mean one of the mods you listed is broken, it could mean the game's save buffer/loader can't properly handle/write/read certain kind of new content which causes the process to hang.

I think you should prioritize which mods are absolutely necessary and use only those on your next playthrough otherwise there's a great chance it'll happen again. (And even if a future update patches the code, the fix probably won't be retroactive).

 

The Bethesda community manager Christian Van Hoose reached out to me on Twitter and asked me to send him the save the loaded ok and the first one that didn't and he said he'd pass them onto the team so hopefully something positive will happen, we shall see!

[LarannKiar]

4 hours ago, PlaceboPRS said:

 

The Bethesda community manager Christian Van Hoose reached out to me on Twitter and asked me to send him the save the loaded ok and the first one that didn't and he said he'd pass them onto the team so hopefully something positive will happen, we shall see!

Wow, I can hardly believe it... I can't decide if they just wanted to sound polite or the developer team is actually willing to examine/compare the saves in hope to improve their code... which is both concerning (as if they feel there's something wrong with their current code) and amazing at the same time but either way, you're right, we shall see.

[PlaceboPRS]

He posted two updates about it on Reddit (not in response to me but in relation to the bug):