CTD - thought I'd fixed it!

[TheBrux]

Dug Skyrim out the other month and played through vanilla, then this week got around to the modding scene to see what it was all about. "Challenging yet worthwhile" is the overall verdict.

 

Anyway, I've struggled with CTDs for a while. No major load order issues I couldn't overcome; I seemed to be getting memory issues despite all the advice on reallocation of memory, etc. Last night I eventually tracked that down to a conflict between RLO and CoT, which disappeared after disabling RLO. Two solid hours of uninterrupted gameplay before bed and I figure I'm over it.

 

When I shut Skyrim down, it seems my Start Menu has stopped working (Win10, x64). I shut down with a view to looking this morning - which I've duly done. Windows boots up with something along the lines of "Critical Error: Start Menu and Cortana aren't working". Turns out this is a major issue, but a few reboots later all seems fine - a little too much HDD activity at boot, which settles down, but otherwise things work.

 

I fire Skyrim back up with exactly the same mods I used last night, perfectly stable, but now I CTD between the Bethesda logo and the main menu - a clear sign of dodgy mods or load order despite that fact that neither variable there has changed. I'm wondering if something happened with the Cortana cock-up.

 

Anyway, I'm both stumped and utterly wound up and I'm finally admitting defeat, coming to this forum and risking ridicule for some advice! Thank you in advance for anyone prepared to chip in. I've tried to provide as much detail up front as I can but no doubt I've missed some things, so sorry for that. Desperately trying not to be a noob.

 

First things first: Specs

 

i7-3770 @3.5GHz

8GB RAM

GTX 660 Ti 2GB

Win 10

 

Active mods in load order (as determined by LOOT via SKSE):

 

Skyrim.esm

Update.esm

Unofficial Skyrim Patch.esp

Dawnguard.esm

Unofficial Dawnguard Patch.esp

Hearthfires.esm

Unofficial Hearthfire Patch.esp

Skyrim Project Optimization.esm

EFFCore.esp

LAnterns of Skyrim

Climates of Tamriel

Campfire

HighResTexturePack1 to 3

Unofficial HighRes Patch

When Vampires Attack

Guard Dialogue Overhaul

Convenient Horses

Follower Commentary Overhaul

EFFDialogue.esp

Skyrim Project Optimization.esp

The B-Team

UIExtensions.esp

Further Dark Dungeons for ENB.esp [part of CoT?]

Inigo.esp

Run for your Lives

Cloaks.esp

SMIM-merged No Dragonborn

Skyrim Flora Overhaul

Legionettes

Research Thief

HothFollower.esp

HothFollower UFO patch.esp

Chesko_Frostfall.esp

WATER Plants.esp

Argonian Access.esp

Better Dynamic Snow.esp

Moss Rocks.esp

WATER DG.esp

SkyUI

ShootingStars

Rainbows

Supreme Fog

CoT - Dungeons Hazardous

CoT - Interiors Cold

CoT Weather Patch

Supreme Storms CoT version

CoT Nights Level 1

Dr_Bandolier.esp

CoT-WeatherPatch_NL1.esp

CoT-WeatherPatch_SupStorms.esp

better_torches.esp

Armored Skeletons

Apocalypse - the Spell Package.esp

Chesko_Wearable Lantern.esp

Quick Start [the only change I made between last night's stable session and this morning's farce was to remove this MOD and XCE - now I'm past the start, clearly I don't need it. Can't see this being the issue but I reactivated - still no deal]

 

 

Not showing are ENB 217 (recommended version by CoT - acknowledge it isn't the latest) run as Injector; ENBoost; CallStabilizer and Memory Blocks Logger in SKSE (latter doesn't log, though, despite all relevant EXEs running as Admin).

 

Key info from various config files:

 

enblocal.ini: Reserved mem 512MB, VSync on, otherwise generally default to what Boris says.

 

SKSE.ini: default heap currently at 1024 (yesterday was 2056, no issues, fiddled since to no avail), scrap at 256.

 

skyrim.ini: iMaxAllocatedMemoryBytes=76800

 

Probably a few other tweaks but well before I got it stable, nothing I'd expect to break it. Manually set VRAM at around 2G but I think that was superceded by downloading the ENB memory fix for my specific hardware config - I certainly can't find the value in any INI anymore.

 

[Purr4me]

http://s26.postimg.org/taohig1vt/sky_help_2.jpg

 

Chose green arrow, allow window to record the action to allow these changes to take place.

Run this twice and verify all things are in order from there. Run directly from there....skip things if need be or use the new versions from steam SKSE installed. But verify first for windows 10.

[TheBrux]

No dice, sadly. First attempt found two corrupt files and replaced them. Second attempt reported one. Went for a third attempt to be sure... still reported one. Ran the game anyway and while it seems to survive a bit longer, hovering on the Imperial dragon logo for a few seconds more than usual, it still bombed to desktop before reaching the menu. Revalidating the cache a fourth time but I suspect I know the answer - which begs a new question: what is this one corrupt, unfixable game file? Are mods interfering with the validation process?

 

I really cannot be arsed with a fresh install of both the game and the mods!

 

Edit: Scratch that new question. Swift Google points to this being caused by a modified INI (which I clearly have) so verification sees it as corrupt and, while it should technically replace it with a default file, this isn't happening.

 

Suggestion is that I delete the INI and get a new one from scratch, but since I doubt it's the INI that's causing the crash I won't be doing that quite yet.

Edited August 14, 2015 by TheBrux

[Purr4me]

 

First attempt found two corrupt files and replaced them. Second attempt reported one.

Th's an indication something is writing to your files ,IF steam can not Fix a file? it's due to right protections, meaning the file it found is locked so it can't replace it.

 

Permission issue. If the game is not in a UAC control folder, then you have a bad piece of software being used on your games software some where, a bad script, malicious data or code...It's deliberate.

 

Steam will fix it if there are no other tools or codes running to interfere with steam.

I understand, it's frustrating...but a single line or bit of code place in a strategically altered data packet can close down a program. Including steam.

 

Went for a third attempt to be sure... still reported one

Point.

 

Edit: Scratch that new question. Swift Google points to this being caused by a modified INI (which I clearly have) so verification sees it as corrupt and, while it should technically replace it with a default file, this isn't happening.

Permission issue. UAC controlled file, what set permissions on your games files?

what programs use .net your running ?

 

Block access to your stuff from the networks except steam and watch what takes place.

 

1+1=2..and ya know, there arrant 2 there playing the game just 1

[TheBrux]

I think I get what you're saying and will see what I can do, however I've found some more weird stuff.

 

I finally took the plunge and decided to vet each mod one by one. I eventually narrowed it down to Supreme Storms; took that out of the load and the game ran fine, despite that fact that the same mod ran with no issues yesterday. Now I guess it's possible that one or both of CoT and Frostfall adds similar functionality and possibly introduces a conflict, but I was definitely seeing plenty of (lower case) supreme storms while the mod was running so I could easily be led to believe it was in full working order. I would also have expected MO and LOOT to flag a conflict like that. Indeed the CoT download page recommends SS to use in conjunction while FF has explicit support for CoT - though that does leave room for a second-order SS/FF incompatibility I guess.

 

Typically, though, that isn't the end of it. Having exited Skyrim (damn you, real-world responsibilities) and just come back to it, I find it now crashes between Bethesda logo and Main Menu again - even without SS. Looks like I'm back to manually checking each mod to see if there's another dodgy one in there.

 

What I'm really struggling to understand is why a mod that works perfectly on one load suddenly causes load-order CTDs the next time around. Are the mod files becoming corrupted one by one?

[Purr4me]

pick 3 of the last "latest" saved games you have. hard save them safe..somewhere.

delete or move all saved games out of that document folder or Mo's profile if even using it.

 

point: the profile "current user" of the game in question is that games data base, all data pertaining to run-time errors and mods will be stored in those.

3 legged Dog..tripods. have balence, choose a balenced session.

 

1 is the earliest

2 is the middle

3 is the last.

------------------

you can of course choose any files if many are there.

you need to remember that these saved games get overwritten too, and some may contain irregular codes still, ..let's consider them, so afflicted "infected".

I tell all of this because it's important you know, this data is "uploaded" to steam, you see it in achievements with your game time played.

many different things take place, we need to keep focus on exact things. your having session problems, one day it works, another session it does not.

Game data is static, it does not change. programs that run in the background can change things that are static....Ergo ,what's writing to your game files?

 

Process of Elimination is a very good start...you have a better Idea now what to choose, Divide and concurrence of all of that data, dig out that mole and kill it cold.

[fiewiel]

I think youre running into win10 problems. If your operating system is suddenly throwing errors you should fix that first.

There are several w10 threads on this forum about problems, go look through them.

Basically I would backup the whole skyrim/mod organizer folder and redownload/reinstall the game with steam. This should (I can only comment what I read) install skyrim with the correct dx runtime (which w10 hasnt at default). After that you can import your mods/savegames.

 

But personally I think the mainproblem is that some game is obviously able to kill your windows startmenu, which shouldnt happen at all. IMO you should spend some hours testing if your w10 installation is truly working as it should.

[TheBrux]

Tracked the latest issue down to Belt-Fastened Quivers, which never seemed to have any effect anyway and I suspect clashes with Bandoliers, so it's been binned. I'll dig deeper tomorrow when I'm awake but yeah, I'm still inclined to blame W10 for this.

 

I've manually installed DX9.0c as per other instructions in the forum, though i never really had any ENB issues I'd noticed as when I can get through to the Main Menu the game runs well.

 

We'll see in the morning if it suddenly changes its mind on yet another random mod!

 

Thanks for the help so far, guys.

[TheBrux]

As expected, it stopped liking yet another mod this morning. In the end I just deleted everything and spent about six hours today reinstalling, reconfiguring... and now I'm just running into new errors which I'm sure I could fix through more forum scanning but, frankly, it's getting a bit much for me.

 

It was nice while it lasted.

[fiewiel]

You do use mod organizer, yes?