Marts Monster Mod 37b3 Crashing... Help!

[ExodusRisen]

Ok, I've been playing Oblivion for a long time now and until I downloaded Mart's Monster Mod 37b3 it never crashed. Tonight, I was playing through the Knights of the Nine quests and right after I killed the wraith who guards the Crusader Sword I tried to go through a door and the game suddenly crashed to desktop. This never happened before. :wallbash:

 

I need to know... which .esp files from MMM are known to be responsible for crashes, so I can remove them?

 

Here is a list of the ones I have installed, and the exact order I have them installed in using Oblivion Mod Manager:

 

(I have Oblivion with Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles, all with the latest patches. I also have installed the Unofficial Oblivion Patch, the Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch, and the Unofficial Mods Patch!)

 

Mat's Monster Mod.esm is located at the top of the list, right beneath Oblivion.esm.

The unofficial patches and DLC are all underneath them, and Mat's Monster Mod is at the very bottom of the list.

 

Mat's Monster Mod is set up in the list as follows:

 

1. Mat's Monster Mod.esp

2. Mat's Monster Mod - Knights.esp

3. Mat's Monster Mod - Shivering Isles.esp

4. Mat's Monster Mod - Diverse WaterLife.esp

5. Mat's Monster Mod - Durability and Damage.esp

6. Mat's Monster Mod - Extra Wounding.esp

7. Mat's Monster Mod - Farm Animals.esp

8. Mat's Monster Mod - Looting NPC & Creatures.esp

9. Mat's Monster Mod - More Wilderness Life.esp

10. Mat's Monster Mod - Dungeons of MMM.esp

11. Mat's Monster Mod - City Defenses.esp

12. Mat's Monster Mod - Resized Races.esp

13. Mat's Monster Mod - Additional Enemy NPC Vars.esp

14. Mat's Monster Mod - Gems & Gem Dust.esp

15. Mat's Monster Mod - Hunting & Crafting.esp

 

So, which of these will I have to remove to stop the crashing? :thumbsup:

 

Also, does MMM have any problem with Natural Environments or Unique Landscapes?

 

I was thinking of installing MMM along with those for the ultimate Oblivion experience but I thought it prudent to ask about compatibility first.

[Deleted1217574User]

OK, let me say this about that: For one, it may not necessarily be MMM, or even a mod-related CTD. Oblivion's just a naturally unstable game. Did you try a few times, and get the same crash? What I recommend doing is just disabling all the MMM mods entirely, load your game, and see if it works. Make sure you duplicate your save first, though. If it does, then it is MMM, in which case I recommend going through and disabling each plugin 1 by 1 until you find the culprit.

 

As for the others... Natural Environments *should* be alright, since, as far as I know, it doesn't add any new content, just modifies the old. UL, though, might be problematic. Especially some of the larger ones, like Entius Gorge and whatnot, that even change elevation. Depending on what you care about more, just adjust your load order to prioritize between the two and see which you care about more.

[yeahchris]

I know that More Wilderness Life has a conflict with UL Rolling Hills. There is a patch available. The only MMM esp that I've ever heard of causing crashes for some people was Extra Wounding - the one that adds certain MMM combat behavior to non MMM npcs. I'm somewhat uncertain that that could be responsible for the crash in question, however, considering it was on an area transition when you were (it sounds like) well out of combat.

 

My suggestion would be to reload and try the same door again. If you transition successfully, no problem. If you crash again revert to an earlier save and cheat your way back to the same door. If it doesn't crash, it was probably some kind of save corruption. If it crashes again then you're looking for some kind of mod conflict or issue.

[ExodusRisen]

I think I found the solution! It's a three-step process. :)

 

Firstly, I performed the suggested, necessary test...

I loaded up my saved game, which was before the hallway where the door in question is located. I went back up it and was able to pass without a crash. This made me suspect it was more an oblivion-related crash than a mod-related one, so I did the following as precautions: (This is where the three-step process comes into play!)

 

1. I downloaded and installed Windom Earle's Oblivion Crash Prevention System for OBSE, since I do have OBSE in use and it is supposed to cut down immensely on non-mod related crashes. Since this isn't a mod, it won't interfere with any existing mods.

 

2. I downloaded and installed both MMM patches for UL. The two they had were for the Heath and for Rolling Hills. Since the dungeon where I crashed isn't all that far away from the Heath, I figured this was a case of "better to be safe, than sorry".

 

3. I rearranged my load order for all my modules according to the following system that was recommended for preventing crashes: (This order seems to work for people.)

 

Mod Load Order (For use with Oblivion Mod Manager):

 

Oblivion.esp

Unofficial Patches

Weather, Environment, and Sound mods

Minor mods, New Items, Weapons, Houses,and completed DLC mods

Major Overhaul mods (MMM, OOO)

Mods which need to take precedence over the overhaul mods

DLCs (not completed)

Quest mods

Gameplay Chagning mods

Unique Landscapes mods

 

Since doing these three steps, I haven't crashed anywhere in the game again. I am also using FastExit which prevents the notorious Oblivion exit crash. (Seems to be the only program that really does fix that, in fact!) So, keeping my fingers crossed but all these things seem to have fixed the problem I was having. :thumbsup:

[ExodusRisen]

Hmmm... it seems the crash was more tricky to solve than I thought. It came back!!!

But I solved it, and here is how:

 

(First, I decided to test my saved games. I determined that the crash was occuring on all of them, so I reasoned that they could not all be corrupt saved games.)

 

The first time the crash took place, it was on leaving the room where you slay the wraith in Underpall Cave. This was on Saved Game 1. :wallbash:

 

The second time the crash took place, it was on leaving Underpall Cave's exit but without fighting the wraith.. This was on Saved Game 2. :blink:

 

The third time, I used Saved Game 3, hiked from the Priory of the Nine all the way back to Underpall Cave and it crashed once more on leaving the cave's exit. :devil:

 

I decided to test what part, if any, MMM played in things.

 

Disabling MMM or any part of it caused crashes rather than fixed them, so I re-enabled MMM and decided to try again. That's when the cause of the crash finally hit me!

 

All of my saved games were saying that message about using content that is no longer available, which came about when I re-installed all my mods but didn't start the game over. That is why the game was crashing! To solve this, I saved over them and quit.

 

When I reloaded the game and tested each save, the game did not crash once. :woot:

 

Thinking the good luck might be a fluke, I quit and tried one last time, with no crashes.

 

So, it was actually both a save-related and mod-related crash!

[silverjoe]

Additional NPC enemy variants increases the chances of CTD in modded games,

 

what is your full load order?