False Save Corruption (SSE Engine Fixes doesn't seem to work)

[DadbodSupreme0]

Hello.

Title says it all! I've installed SSE Engine Fixes (both parts) and edited the .toml file in the SKSE plugin folder (MaxStdio = 8192 | SaveGameMaxSize = True). I am still getting dialogue errors (for example, I'll talk to Arngeir to initiate visiting Paarthurnax, but then the dialogue cuts out completely and I can't progress) and strange bugs (for example, books are completely blank) that cause all my save files to be falsely corrupted. I have to quit the game to desktop and restart it if I want to load anything. SKSE and SSE Engine Fixes (again, both parts) are up to date and seem to be properly installed (I manually installed Part 2 to the Skyrim Special Edition folder, as per author instructions, and Part 1 is categorized as an Engine Injector in Vortex). This all seems to be happening like... 10-15 minutes of starting up the game and loading a save. 

The versions of SKSE and SSE Engine Fixes are AE 1170+, as is my version of Skyrim Special Edition. If anyone wants my full modlist, I will happily send a pastebin (but I truly do not know how to find my load order and easily copy/paste it  so any help on that would be loved). If anyone could be of assistance, I would greatly appreciate it and I'm sorry if this topic was asked time and time again. Normally, I'm pretty good at sniffing out problems with my mods and load order, fixing it through Vortex or older threads, and carrying on with my day, but this problem has been plaguing me for a week and nothing seems to be working. So I'm open to all sorts of suggestions.

Thank you!

[Karna5]

I've never in 10 1/2 thousand hours of Fallout 4 nor 310 hours of Skyrim SE even considered using an engine fix. Do you have these issues without the engine fix?

My basic rule is if something needs an engine fix to use it, I don't use it.

I'm all in favor of frameworks which enhance and expand the capability of mods (such as F4SE and SKSE), but the game engine itself is not broken. So I don't understand the popularity of engine fixes in Bethesda games.

This confusion by me is not directed at DadbodSupreme as I have noted articles by Dark0ne (the owner of Nexus Mods himself) supporting Engine fixes and patches for Bethesda games. But I just don't get it. I don't use the fixes and don't have such issues. It's just not broken unless a mod breaks it.

[DadbodSupreme0]

15 minutes ago, Karna5 said:

I've never in 10 1/2 thousand hours of Fallout 4 nor 310 hours of Skyrim SE even considered using an engine fix. Do you have these issues without the engine fix?

My basic rule is if something needs an engine fix to use it, I don't use it.

I'm all in favor of frameworks which enhance and expand the capability of mods (such as F4SE and SKSE), but the game engine itself is not broken. So I don't understand the popularity of engine fixes in Bethesda games.

This confusion by me is not directed at DadbodSupreme as I have noted articles by Dark0ne (the owner of Nexus Mods himself) supporting Engine fixes and patches for Bethesda games. But I just don't get it. I don't use the fixes and don't have such issues. It's just not broken unless a mod breaks it.

Without SSE Engine Fix, Skyrim SE (at least, to me) has constant crashing, stuttering, and memory leaks. A lot of my mods are quality-of-life based, visual changes, script-altering mods (AI behaviors, follower interactions, dialogue overhauls, quest alterations like At Your Own Pace, etc), entirely new areas, and perk overhauls. It was my understanding that Skyrim Special Edition is "soft-locked" in allowing a certain number of plugins (which I exceed already) and the Engine Fix mod unlocks this (and does many more things), allowing more modding potential. It worked for me, for years.

Well, until this problem, of course. 

[Karna5]

5 hours ago, DadbodSupreme0 said:

Without SSE Engine Fix

Interesting. I wonder which mods are doing that to you. I have a few hundred installed Skyrim AE mods so far, but none of them cause that issue for me. I see you've got a premium account, so if you check image share you could see some film examples of my Skyrim game if you want (linked in the imageshare), but I can't link them here as I suspect this follows general audience rules.

I play at 4k resolution all ultra and don't have stutters or image leaks, but I also am not using any terrain mods yet, just animations, Ostim Standalone kinda sutff (maybe 24k animations) and outfits and 4k bodies and hipoly and basic quality of life as well.

I'm glad the patch works for you, though. I haven't found a need for it yet

p.s. In Fallout 4 I was generally running 370ish plugins at any given time, but I'm too newly back to Skyrim and haven't hit that many yet.

[DadbodSupreme0]

5 minutes ago, Karna5 said:

Interesting. I wonder which mods are doing that to you.

I wonder, as well. And I really do not want to disable half my modlist, test, re-enable, test, etc. Especially with my modlist as big as it is (which I just checked my plugins on Vortex and it's comfortably sitting at about 323, so I probably have way more than I thought). Also, the bug happens like... 10-15 minutes into the game and I don't even know how to trigger it, but I think it has something to do with dialogue or custom NPC voices. Only custom followers I have is Inigo and Thogra, right now, but I also have 3DNPCs. Then again... that same thing happens with Arngeir and other in-game NPCs, so... might not be that.

I think what I'll do is delete a good handful of mods, delete the Engine Fix, start a completely new game, and see how things go. If I notice any stuttering, crashes, etc. I'll install the Engine Fixes again. Then, if I keep getting the save corrupt bug, I'll probably purge all my mods, do a complete reset on everything, and start fresh with my modlist. Which... I am not looking forward to doing.

[DadbodSupreme0]

I suppose nothing can be done. If anyone else finds this thread and had the same problem, I'm just going to offer a simple-- albeit, annoying-- solution: Purge and delete everything, reinstall, and restart your modding journey.

It's unfortunate. Last night, I tried to disable some new mods I installed, completely remove all traces of SSE Engine Fixes, started a brand new game, and the bug still kept happening. I love this game, but man is it fickle. I'll post my findings in a few days.

[Karna5]

Say, DadbodSupreme, something you said just reminded me of a problem I encountered several months ago. I had a solid, stable build with several hundred mods for the longest time, and there were a few mods I always trusted to upgrade because I'd been using them for year(s).

One day I noticed I started getting terrible lag, and the "help [item] 4 armo" or "help [idle] 4 idle" type of searches in console either stopped working or were getting sorted strangely and weren't giving me all the answers I expected.

I struggled with this for weeks, and then one day I noticed "Sup F4SE" had another update, and when I read the change log, it mentioned it was reverting a search change it had made. The search change when it was initially added was not in the change log, so I had no way of knowing that for several weeks it was Sup F4SE which was causing all these issues for me.

I mention this because sometimes you're just not going to find the answer if the issue was introduced by a mod you trust without putting the change into the change log when you upgrade the mod.

Sometimes you are doing everything correctly, and sometimes someone sneaks a bomb into your mod list.

Likewise, I currently can't play Fallout 4 because some mods I use are not yet updated to the "next gen" patch Fallout 4 introduced a few months ago. So I'm in Skyrim AE currently doing my best to keep the game stable. But some problems are just not in mod write ups and not in any forums I can find through search engines.

*Shrugs* That's the life of an extreme modder, I guess. Sometimes things aren't in your control.

[DadbodSupreme0]

1 hour ago, Karna5 said:

Say, DadbodSupreme, something you said just reminded me of a problem I encountered several months ago.

Interesting! I decided to try and see if others mods were the problem. I was staring at Vortex for like 20 minutes, earlier. I was contemplating on deleting everything or just another 15-or-so mods that I thought were unnecessary fluff. So I did that (and disabled some plugins that were just patches requiring those mods), started a fresh game, and... so far, so good. About 30 minutes in and no false save bug (usually happens about 10 minutes in) so far. I'm hoping it remains that way, but I've just been stress-testing my game, trying to talk to as many people as I can, reading all the books, etc. to try and get the bug again.

Hope I fixed my game, but unfortunately, I can't tell which mods may have instigated the bug, in the first place.

[DadbodSupreme0]

So, interesting development. The game was working just fine, started it up like normal, did my thing, traveled around and did some quests. No bug at all! Played for hours and I didn't see the bug again. But then... I recruited Inigo. Gave him a full set of enchanted armor and weapons (which shouldn't matter). Exhausted all the dialogue with him, left the Bee and Barb, and... corrupt save bug. I don't have the Engine Fixes installed, but it might have to do with follower mods...?

I'll reinstall Engine Fixes, do some testing, change the MaxStdio .toml again, and see how it all goes... This is extremely frustrating.

[Karna5]

58 minutes ago, DadbodSupreme0 said:

but it might have to do with follower mods

That's interesting. I don't have a single follower mod installed. Now I'm kind of scared of them *laughs* Thanks for the update!