Savefile keeps CTD'ing

[Symyr]

So as the title says, loading up my savefile keeps causing me to crash to the desktop. I've played this playthrough since about 2013 off and on every couple of years but now that i was playing again i wanted to finish Solsteim area and i quickly realized why i stopped playing last time. I crashed to desktop. Alot. This time i was able to play for about 2 weeks with a bunch of those crashes and i'll try to outline what i did each time to try and eleveate the problems.

 

In my quest to solve the most frequent crashes i had, i removed a mod specifically for solsteim called aMidianBorn Solstheim Landscape because online i found posts saying that i might be causing issues. My issue being crashing whenever i got close to Raven Rock and sometimes  when i tried to fast travel around the island. Remote fast travel always worked, whenever something was nearby i crashed to the desktop. So to me, something being wrong with the mod since it seemed to be around the entire island didn't seem far fetched. Removed the mod and indeed crashing got a lot less frequent, i was able to play for about 4 hours at a time which was a big improvement over the 30 minutes to an hour before that.

Then i noticed i couldn't leave Solsteim, for some reason when i wanted to go back to Skyrim to dump all my gems etc at my home the game would also crash. So after trying a bunch of things to be able to leave like coc Whiterun which all crashed the game straight to desktop. I found a mod called stuck in Solsteim. Which didn't work the first try but second time i tried to leave it did so yay, great succes! Dump my stuff, travel around in Skyrim a bit, finish up some housing stuff. Go back to Solsteim to continue questing. 

Goes fine for the most part untill i get to kolbjorn barrow, the barrow you pay a guy to dig out for you.  I had gotten the note i was needed for the final part of that chain, go in, do my thing. Yet when i wanted to leave the barrow, CTD. The way i got out was by loading up Skyrim not through SKSE but by using the steam launcher for Skyrim itself. Why that worked? I have no idea. But i got out, went to Raven Rock saved my game in Severin Manor as i had read during my quest to fix the crashes that saving in a house or room could help when dealing with crashes. So i saved, shut down the game, booted up through skse again and played for a few more hours, figured everything was fine.

Crashed again while running around, found a post saying i should put everything to low in settings and boot up again. Did that and it worked. Shut it down and put everything to ultra again and could keep playing. Saved the game in the middle of Raven Rock near the smith and that was the last time i was able to load up that character. I can't load it up through SKSE or the vanilla launcher. Each time i get the notification that mods are missing. The only mod i removed at the time was a steam workshop mod called the Asteria because i realized i didn't really go to that floating house anyway.

 

I figured i would give some background before getting into what i have tried since.

- Checked for updates of mods : there were none as i had updated them all before starting to play again this go around

- Checked SKSE if it was the correct version: Turns out it was.

- Found posts telling me to reinstall Skyrim completely: did that, didn't work.

- Found posts telling me to reinstall each mod: did that, didn't work.

- Found posts telling me to delete the folder and try again: did that, didn't work

- Found posts stating that older mods that are no longer used might be still lingering: went looking and reinstalled the mods i could remember and find (some were no longer on the nexus site sadly)

- Found posts saying to use Resaver to check for things in the save file: Loading my save file into Resaver it did tell me that i had 224 stacks and 709 frames which could indicate a serious problem. Checked that and found that -  script://WeaponRackActivateScript">WeaponRackActivateScript  - had 628 occurences. Found a mod that claimed to deal with that problem and installed it but since i couldn't even load into the save i doubt it did anything.

- Made a back of the save file i was going to try things out on  because i found posts saying to delete the problematic scripts. Went back to Resaver and clicked delete on the entire stack of WeaponRackActivateScript that i could find, each folder with 5 frames. I could load the game but everything was gone as in my gear and a ton of ui elements. My joy lasted briefly once i noticed the empty inventory and stuff being off. Noticed only after that, that it all belong to the Skyrim.esm file which i now assume is basically the starting file it all needs.

- Copied back the save file to work on that again. Found posts saying to just choose terminate on those scripts. Tried that, still CTD just as before so didn't help.

- Heard of a different tool called savecleaner, people said it was fairly harmless so i pushed all the buttons that didn't give warnings, trying to load up the save in between each button attempt. Meaning FixScriptInstance ( said  0 script instances removed ) - Delete all # ( didn't seem to do anything) - Clean other ( Nothing needed to be cleaned.) - Del. broken actives ( Removing broken active scripts..  0 active scripts removed. Searching and removing orphan arrays.. 0 orphan arrays removed  Done.)  I didn't dare clear Formlists as i had read people saying not to mess with those, same for Rest havok. Each time i did also do the auto back up thing because an extra backup couldn't hurt imo.

- Spotted the mod editor button in the savecleaner tool and i see i can delete mods there too ( i see mods that i don't recognize so i think i uninstalled them ages ago, as in years) Haven't tried deleting mods through that yet as i don't know if it's a safe thing to do.

- Was getting pretty desperate at this point so i loaded up a save off about a week ago inside Severin Manor hoping i could atleast start from there again. No luck, same CTD.

- Started a new character and tried to load into my save from there as i had read it sometimes worked, they called it savehooking. No luck, same CTD.

- Since i had reinstalled all mods i figured i should check the load order and such. Loot showed errors which i used tes5quickclean to fix up. No luck, same CTD

- Since i had followed a post telling me to delete the Skyrim folder a bit before all this i figured maybe some old stuff might still be on the drive ( yes it's still installed on a mechanical hard drive, the last one in my machine). Tried an undelete tool and found that sadly it had all been overwritten or in poor condition so no luck getting some of those no longer on nexusmods mods back. I did find some names of mods but that's about it and after checking Savecleaner i noticed the mod button there and i could see all the mods listed there too. So this step was just fruitless and desperate as i seem to be becoming as this search goes on.

- I tried to use Modwat.ch as that was in the recommended post but it didn't seem to be working after i pressed upload? Connection also times out on the site so i guess it's not working anymore?

 

Savecleaner let me export a plugin list so i added that to the topic. I honestly have no idea what else i can do. I started modding this game years ago and it worked ( with the occasional crashes as i described at the start of the topic). It's why i added what i did so far as i figured it might help give an idea about how things went. I saw alot of posts talking about Papyrus but i have no idea what that is either.

 

 

 

plugins list skyrim.txt

Edited February 12 by Symyr
Forgot a step so i added it

[xkkmEl]

Hey, perhaps you're being too persistent.  Virtuous to a fault, as they say.

You've done everything possible, sometimes that's just how it goes.  Save files get corrupted, occasionally.  Buggy scripts create impossible conditions that get baked into the savefile, and such.

Let that poor Dragonborn have his restful sleep and honor him by remembering and retelling his many adventures and CTDeeds.

[xkkmEl]

In the spirit of being more concrete.

Some mods don't react well to changes in the mod list or load order.  If it happens, it can't be fixed.

Running without SKSE when you have skse-dependent mods active usually irremediably breaks most save files.  Can't be fixed.

The 628 suspended stacks likely indicated a case the "dumping stacks", which may or not be related to the CTD.  The procedure I know to get out of this situation is to delete a "script instance" related to a dominant entry in the suspended stack list (don't delete the suspended stack, delete the script instance that corresponds to it).  It sometimes breaks something important, often not.  I've fixed a 23000 suspended stack situation like this.  It'd fix your CTD only if you happen to delete the faulty script instance.

In any case, frequent CTDs are more often caused by faulty nif files or textures.  The single piece of wisdom I can share on this, is: the culprit is the last mod you installed before noticing the increase in CTDs.

[Symyr]

Damn. That's really sad to read tbh. Was hoping to actually finish the game after spending all that time in the playthrough. Had even gotten the 4th or maybe5th? black book finally.

I tried setting the load order exactly to what the resaver tool showed me it used to have ( besides obviously mods i can't get anymore). Didn't know that about breaking SKSE when loading without it.

Deleting the script instance thing you mentioned. Is that in the resaver tool? I don't mind trying it. And i have no idea which texture mod it would be that i installed before noticing CTD's. It's been my experience from the start that Skyrim will just crash at times so i kinda took it as part of the game to a certain extent ^^

[xkkmEl]

Yes, delete the script instance is done via the resaver tool.

The goal is to get rid of the script that is generating too many active stacks which triggers the "dumping stacks" problem.  Once that is done, the game will eventually sort through the suspended stack, resuming them.  Depending on the number of suspended stacks, it'll take more or less time.  Often seconds, but can take 20mn or more as it did in my 23000 stacks case.

With 628... It's not clear you have a problem there.  It's definitely abnormal, but I'd recommend this action only if you see that it's still increasing.  It could also be on the way to resolving itself naturally without risking more breakage if you happen to delete a critical script instance.

Like I said, chances are low that the suspended stacks are related to your CTD.

[Symyr]

Ok looking at the script instance section. The number there is 118 518 soooo might help if i tackle that one...

I see they are sorted alfabetically so going to take some searching with some like A having 7 643 things in it, D 14 456, O having 33 447 ... there's high numbers all around so it might work.

Now the thing i see the most of ( i checked O folder in scriptinstance first since it seemed like it had the highest number) is ObjectReference: *Skyrim.esm: code (code), There's a TON of those. As in, way more then any of the other mentions in there.

Some have things connected to them in the information section to the side, others litereally have nothing besides and ID number, no state, have a RefID and then everything else is zero. So do i delete the ones that hold nothing because they are the ones that are breaking things? Or do i find things that are similar and therefor duplicates?

 

Edited February 13 by Symyr

[xkkmEl]

118000 script instance is not unusual.  I have 170551 in my currently running game.

The "suspended stacks 1" and "suspended stacks 2".  Those should empty 95% of the time, and contain less than 300 otherwise.  But as I said, even that is ok if it is not continuously growing.

You really ought to try starting a new game.  If it does not CTD abnormally often, you were very likely looking at a corrupted and unrecoverable save file.  If it does CTD, start experimenting with disabling mods trying to narrow down on the mod (or mods) that contribute to the CTD rate.  It can be a long and frustrating exercise.  Once you know the likely culprits, you might return to your save file and see if you can recover it.

Building your mod list incrementally, one at a time, and being attentive to when CTDs and other problems start to appear will give you the best chance of quickly identifying the culprits (it'll be a recently added mod).

It is a sad truth that the game engine itself contains random CTDs that noone understands.  Bear in mind that some amount of CTD is inevitable and that even if none of your mods contain problems, the CTD rate will increase some as your modlist becomes more complex.  The game has to handle more and more execution flow variations that will eventually find a way to hit one of these unknown CTD conditions.

[xkkmEl]

Perhaps someone more knowledgeable on mesh- and texture-related CTDs.  If those are to be suspected, perhaps the use of Cathedral Asset Optimizer might help.

Anyone?

[Symyr]

Been able to play several hours now. Had 2 crashes near water ( found out why, had the old pure waters.esp through steam workshop active so removed that since i have the realistic water mod installed from nexus and was using that one in my previous playthrough).

Now i'm crashing each time i try to enter the inn in Riverwood though, not sure why yet since i don't have any mods that pertain to inn's particularly. Was able to enter the blacksmith and trader building just fine.

[Symyr]

Before trying to disable mods i tried an extra mod ( because why not ^^) called crash logger unfortunately what came out of that crash log didn't make sense to me either.

 

Stack trace:

Frame: 0, FP: TESV.exe+0x006495b2
Param 0: <unknown>+0x00000008 (void*)
Param 1: 0x00000000 (null)
Param 2: <unknown>+0x285a0cd8 (void*)
Param 3: <unknown>+0x0b32fedc (void*)
RET: TESV.exe+0x007965a6

Frame: 1, FP: TESV.exe+0x007965a6
Param 0: <unknown>+0x285cf230 (void*)
Param 1: <unknown>+0x284db0c0 (void*)
Param 2: TESV.exe+0x0178b1d0 (void*)
Param 3: <unknown>+0x21d95780 (char*) "D"
RET: TESV.exe+0x00204170

Frame: 2, FP: TESV.exe+0x00204170
Param 0: TESV.exe+0x0178b1d0 (void*)
Param 1: TESV.exe+0x0178b1d0 (void*)
Param 2: KERNEL32.DLL+0x0001d720 (void*)
Param 3: <unknown>+0x0b32ff84 (void*)
RET: TESV.exe+0x0065af5c

Frame: 3, FP: TESV.exe+0x0065af5c
Param 0: 0x00000000 (null)
Param 1: <unknown>+0x00000001 (void*)
Param 2: TESV.exe+0x0065b000 (char*) "V"
Param 3: TESV.exe+0x0065b000 (char*) "V"
RET: TESV.exe+0x0065b02b

Frame: 4, FP: TESV.exe+0x0065b02b
Param 0: TESV.exe+0x0178b1d0 (void*)
Param 1: <unknown>+0x77ba0a8c (void*)
Param 2: 0x00000000 (null)
Param 3: 0x00000000 (null)
RET: ntdll.dll+0x0006cdeb

Frame: 5, FP: ntdll.dll+0x0006cdeb
Param 0: <unknown>+0xffffffff (void*)
Param 1: ntdll.dll+0x000b15c6 (void*)
Param 2: 0x00000000 (null)
Param 3: 0x00000000 (null)
RET: ntdll.dll+0x0006cd71

Frame: 6, FP: ntdll.dll+0x0006cd71
Param 0: TESV.exe+0x0065b000 (char*) "V"
Param 1: TESV.exe+0x0178b1d0 (void*)
Param 2: 0x00000000 (null)
Param 3: 0x00000000 (null)
RET: <unknown>+0x00000000

 

No clue what that char means. Wasn't pressing V as it's not a movement key or an interaction key. Even D at the start of the thing doesn't make sense as i purely moved forward and looked around with the mouse towards the door of the inn. Did hit E to interact with the door and enter the inn before crashing but don't see char E .

Figured i would post it here in case someone understood something in it as the mod specific forum posts haven't seen alot of interaction as far as i can tell in the recent years.