Loading Screen Crash

[GreatDestroyer]

I recently got Fallout 3 on Steam, and one of my friends sent me here, to get some awesome mods. Well, it's been a few days, and now I've got a horrible problem. Every time I try to load a new area, the game crashes. I've had a couple issues with mods before, but I've been able to work them out on my own with some trouble shooting. That has not been the case here. I've tried disabling/deactivating/uninstalling some of the more recent mods and it does nothing. I'm also tried thinning out my game saves.

 

Initially the problem started when I tried to enter the Marigold Metro Station in Grayditch during the Those! quest. I could still walk around outside and even enter the Grayditch houses. Yet whenever I tried to enter the Metro Station the loading screen would hang a bit, then go to black (with just the loading symbol sticking around, still moving). Then the game would crash with a "Fallout 3 has encountered a problem and needs to close" message.

 

After some trouble shooting I figured that perhaps that Station, or indeed the whole Metro System, was the problem. So I fast traveled to Megaton and that worked fine. Then I entered my house, again no problems. Then I tried to leave, and it crashed. Now I am stuck in my house and the game crashes every time I try to leave. It also crashes if I try to Wait.

 

By the way, I have the Game of the Year edition, if that makes a difference. I also have FOMM, FOSE, and FO3Edit.

 

My FOMM list:

 

Fallout3.esm

Anchorage.esm

ThePitt.esm

BrokenSteel.esm

PointLookout.esm

Zeta.esm

Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch.esm

Weight.esp

Apocalypse Armory.esm

Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch - Operation Anchorage.esp

Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch - The Pitt.esp

Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch - Broken Steel.esp

Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch - Point Lookout.esp

Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch - Mothership Zeta.esp

NoWeaponArmorDegrade.esp

All Companions Essential.esp

1PipboyPDA.esp

agcTARDISf3.esp

DSClothingStorageSystem.esp

Apocalypse Armory.esp

Apocalypse Armory - Optional Historical Names.esp

DIM CUSTOM RACES V2.esp

13eyes27hairsucanplay.esp

eyes_hairpack_en.esp

eye_hair_en2.esp

Faff.esp

DIM TYPE3 conversions.esp

DIM TYPE3clothesRETAIL.esp

bzArmour.esp

LNC StealthSuit.esp

QApplebysOutfit.esp

QToughChickArmor.esp

QToadletVaultsuit.esp

QNeverclockVaultsuits.esp

99+2.esp

FalsSexyT3Conversions.esp

Arcade'sNightwear.esp

AsharasFormalClothing.esp

FrenchMaid.esp

Ladyoutfit1.esp

PEDress.esp

MicroBikini.esp

K2_GirlieGirlLeather.esp

K2_GirlieGirlLotusSpike.esp

K2_LadyDeath.esp

K2_Bubblegum.esp

K2_GirlieGirlRaiderWitch.esp

Ghostbodysuitv3.esp

stockings.esp

Dark_Temptress.esp

HY_direwolf_type3.esp

blackrock_shooter.esp

Persona_and_Secret.esp

SomeClothes.esp

Trooper_outfits.esp

Scrap_Metal_Armor.esp

TeslaForGirls.esp

SwampfolkOutfit.esp

Lookout Outfits.esp

Black Puppet Armor for Fo3.esp

FetishLingerieSet.esp

FetishFishnet.esp

Koukaku_Armor.esp

TombRaider.esp

DeeDee_AdultBooks1.esp

Mysteriouswoman_clothesaddon.esp

Mysteriouswoman_corsetntrousers.esp

FatherandNun.esp

 

Total active plugins: 68

Total plugins: 74

[prensa]

GreatDestroyer - Hello!

 

Make sure that:

 

Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch - Broken Steel.esp

 

Is fixed as it has a bug that can cause CTDs, normally around Rivet City.

 

I posted a simple fix using FO3Edit for that in the Discussion section of the Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch:

 

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3808

 

Look for:

 

Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch - Broken Steel.esp Rivet City area CTD fix

 

Are you using the latest version of Apocalypse Armory, 1.93 Beta?

 

To check, open up FOMM & left click on Apocalypse Armory.esm & make sure it says 1.93 Beta down at the bottom of FOMM.

 

Do the same for Apocalypse Armory.esp, if either say 1.9, 1.91 or anything other than 1.93 you've got the old files in still.

 

In that case drop the new Apocalypse Armory.esm & Apocalypse Armory.esp from V193_UPDATE into your data folder, saying yes to overwrites.

 

Note that only the Apocalypse Armory.esm & Apocalypse Armory.esp will say 1.93 Beta. The Apocalypse Armory patches will still say 1.9, that's perfectly normal.

 

You can grab the update in the files section here:

 

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14773

 

Do the CTDs happen when you just run Fallout 3 & the DLCs with no mods?

 

If you haven't tried without mods do so.

 

If you don't get the CTD problem with your mods turned off, it points to one of them being the cause or at least clashing with another.

 

If that's the case turn your mods back on one at a time, checking between each to see if the game still runs fine.

 

As soon as you hit the CTDs again you'll know which mod is the culprit.

 

Hope this helps!

 

Prensa

[GreatDestroyer]

Thank you for the help Prensa, unfortunately my game is still having problems.

 

I applied both fixes, which seemed to do the trick at first, but then the crashing started up again. So I went through my mods as suggested and everything seemed to work up until after applying a couple of the mods. I then turned them off and checked the others. And again that seemed to do the trick, I was able to resume my proper game with those mods removed (I'd created a separate save file for the testing) and enter the Marigold Station.

 

But now it's crashing again, every time I try to enter the nest. Also a new problem has cropped up. After my last save (in Lesko's Lab) I have been unable to save, as that will also cause the game to crash.

 

As far as I can tell my mods are working, and even working together. I have no idea what is causing these crashes. Is there any software I can get or any other way to actually check for whatever error or conflict is causing this?

 

I will be running another check through the mods again. Any further help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Updated FOMM List:

 

Fallout3.esm

Anchorage.esm

ThePitt.esm

BrokenSteel.esm

PointLookout.esm

Zeta.esm

Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch.esm

Weight.esp

Apocalypse Armory.esm

Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch - Operation Anchorage.esp

Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch - The Pitt.esp

Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch - Broken Steel.esp

Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch - Point Lookout.esp

Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch - Mothership Zeta.esp

NoWeaponArmorDegrade.esp

All Companions Essential.esp

1PipboyPDA.esp

agcTARDISf3.esp

DSClothingStorageSystem.esp

Apocalypse Armory.esp

Apocalypse Armory - Optional Historical Names.esp

DIM CUSTOM RACES V2.esp

13eyes27hairsucanplay.esp

eyes_hairpack_en.esp

eye_hair_en2.esp

Faff.esp

DIM TYPE3 conversions.esp

DIM TYPE3clothesRETAIL.esp

bzArmour.esp

LNC StealthSuit.esp

QApplebysOutfit.esp

QToughChickArmor.esp

QToadletVaultsuit.esp

QNeverclockVaultsuits.esp

99+2.esp

FalsSexyT3Conversions.esp

Arcade'sNightwear.esp

AsharasFormalClothing.esp

FrenchMaid.esp

Ladyoutfit1.esp

PEDress.esp

MicroBikini.esp

K2_GirlieGirlLeather.esp

K2_GirlieGirlLotusSpike.esp

K2_LadyDeath.esp

K2_Bubblegum.esp

K2_GirlieGirlRaiderWitch.esp

Ghostbodysuitv3.esp

stockings.esp

Dark_Temptress.esp

HY_direwolf_type3.esp

blackrock_shooter.esp

Persona_and_Secret.esp

SomeClothes.esp

Trooper_outfits.esp

Scrap_Metal_Armor.esp

TeslaForGirls.esp

SwampfolkOutfit.esp

Lookout Outfits.esp

Black Puppet Armor for Fo3.esp

Koukaku_Armor.esp

TombRaider.esp

DeeDee_AdultBooks1.esp

Mysteriouswoman_clothesaddon.esp

Mysteriouswoman_corsetntrousers.esp

FatherandNun.esp

 

Total active plugins: 66

Total plugins: 74

Edited July 26, 2011 by GreatDestroyer

[prensa]

GreatDestroyer - Hello!

 

Most of your mods are clothing ones & you wouldn't expect much trouble from those.

 

I notice the Weight.esp comes before other .esm files, that's normally a no no.

 

I don't know what mod Weight.esp is, were you advised to put it there?

 

You could use BOSS to help with load orders:

 

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10193

 

Once you install BOSS & it is run, it will autosort your mods.

 

"Also a new problem has cropped up. After my last save (in Lesko's Lab) I have been unable to save, as that will also cause the game to crash."

 

Try blowing yourself up with a grenade or Fatman, wait for the auto reload & then save.

 

Some people have trouble with the Fallout 3 saves & use CASM:

 

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3729

 

I've never had that trouble so I've never used CASM but others swear by it.

 

Are you running Fallout 3 on a multi core?

 

Is your game sort of freezing before the CTD?

 

If so, it could be the Fallout 3 multi core bug.

 

Fallout 3 has trouble with multi core computers, mainly with ones that have more than two cores & use hyperthreading.

 

You need to edit your .ini, the one you want to change is in:

 

For XP:

 

My Documents\My Games\Fallout3\

 

For Win7:

 

Documents\My Games\Fallout3

 

& change this line:

 

bUseThreadedAI=0

 

to:

 

bUseThreadedAI=1

 

& insert this line under it:

 

iNumHWThreads=2

 

Save & close your ini.

 

If you still get the CTD issues after that, try just Fallout 3 & the DLCs.

 

If you don't get the CTD problem with vanilla Fallout it must be caused by a mod so use that troubleshooting method I mentioned in the first post to track the culprit.

 

By the way, that's a lot of individual clothing mods, you may want to combine their .esp files into one big clothing .esp to ease loading & save your mod slots (there is a limited number of mods that Fallout 3 can use).

 

You can use FO3 Plugin Utility to merge those plugins:

 

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5104

 

- Run FO3 Plugin Utility.

- Go to - File - Open & select the first plugin you want to merge.

- Go to - File - Merge Plugins & select the second plugin you want to merge.

- Go to - File - Save As & name your new merged plugin.

 

A really easy way to cut down on the number of mod files you have.

 

I'd only recommend merging simple plugins like the clothing ones & only once you've made sure none of them are the culprits for your CTD issues.

 

Hope this Helps!

 

Prensa

Edited July 26, 2011 by prensa

[GreatDestroyer]

I have already tired using BOSS (I should have mentioned that before), though I'm not sure if it is truly optimizing my mod order, since a fair portion are not recognized by BOSS.

 

I have just now downloaded CASM and will try using that in the future. Also, dying will also sometime trigger a crash.

 

I do have a multi-core CPU, but it's only a dual-core, would the edits required be the same?

 

Running FO3 just vanilla seems to fix the problem, or at least delay it. As I said, after the first occurrence I did an [abeit rushed] check through all of my mods, looking for one that caused the crash. I'd thought I had located the problem mod, and thus disabled it and was actually able to play from the entrance to Marigold Station in Grayditch all the way to the entrance of the Queen's Nest with no problems at at all. Then, later, when trying to enter the Nest my game would crash, every time, again. Further prodding revealed the Save and Death crashes as well.

 

After that (and my last post) I went back through and checked all the mods again, much more thoroughly this time. Again I thought I had found the culprit, a different mod this time. Further checking even seemed to indicate that this was the real culprit, causing the game to crash even when loaded by itself, and that without it all other mods worked fine. I disabled it and was once again able to play without error. I was able to complete Those!, fast travel to Megaton, sell my loot, fast travel to another metro, make my way through the metro all the way to the GNR Station. After talking to Three Dog and starting the GNR quest I hit a loading crash again, but I was simply able to boot the game back up and continue playing fine. I completed the GNR quest, traveled to Rivet City, talked to Dr. Li, then complete the second part of the Those! quest. And then I stopped playing.

 

When attempting to play the game today, I have once again run into this awful crash error. I have noticed an oddity I somehow missed before: part of my game appears to be in a foreign language (French?). The only bit that appears in this language are the 'area names' that pop up when you're looking at a door. Everything else is still in English.

 

Oh, and the Weight mod changes your max carry weight to like 2,000,000 or something ridiculous like that.

[BlackRampage]

I have noticed an oddity I somehow missed before: part of my game appears to be in a foreign language (French?). The only bit that appears in this language are the 'area names' that pop up when you're looking at a door. Everything else is still in English.

This can happen if you've got a mod that adds something (like a piece of clothing) to that cell and it's author has a different language version of the game.

 

Have you tried running FO3 edit in masterupdate mode?

[prensa]

GreatDestroyer - Hello!

 

"I do have a multi-core CPU, but it's only a dual-core, would the edits required be the same?"

 

Exactly the same:

 

Change this line:

 

bUseThreadedAI=0

 

to:

 

bUseThreadedAI=1

 

& insert this line under it:

 

iNumHWThreads=2

 

Refer to my other post about getting the right .ini because editing the wrong .ini will have no affect on the game.

 

My old dual core was fine but other dual core users have had problems.

 

My new quad core was really affected & that's when I had to use it.

 

It's worth trying as it could fix the problem & at worst, if it does nothing for you, you can just change your .ini back again by reseting the one line & removing the one you added (iNumHWThreads=2).

 

CASM seems to help people with the saving troubles so is worth trying.

 

"Running FO3 just vanilla seems to fix the problem, or at least delay it."

 

If you still get it without mods I would definitely try that .ini fix.

 

Do you get frame skipping at all? Not so much the stuttering that you can get when loading a busy are but more like a film with missing frames?

 

Fallout 3 on my quad core is affected by this & I fixed it with this excellent mod:

 

http://fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8886

 

I'd recommend FSR_4-0-7 as that's the one I've used the most & had the best results.

 

It does require FOSE:

 

http://fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8606

 

I would try that .ini fix first though as that may be all you need.

 

"part of my game appears to be in a foreign language (French?). The only bit that appears in this language are the 'area names' that pop up when you're looking at a door. Everything else is still in English."

 

Like BlackRampage said it happens when mods are made with other language versions of Fallout 3.

 

It won't actually break anything, though it can be annoying.

 

It's easily fixed in FO3Edit by dragging the original place name over from Fallout3.esm into the other language version in the offending mod.

 

I once had to do that to multiple entries in a german mod.

 

Hope this helps!

 

Prensa

Edited July 27, 2011 by prensa

[GreatDestroyer]

Edited the .ini.

Downloaded FSR.

Used FO3Edit to fix the foreign names.

 

Still getting this blasted crash error.

 

A new development though, upon further inspection it may actually be the saving which is causing the crash, not the loading. I suspect this because while my in-game menu has always shown the same savelist, FOMM and the actual saves folder show many more saves. Failed saves, perhaps? There appears to be one for at least each attempted save that ended in a crash (if not every crash). I tried deleting them to see if that would make a difference. It did not. I don't know why they don't show up in game. I'm not sure what this means, but the failed saves show up as TMP files, while the other saves show up as FOS files. There are also three autosave files, one a FOS, one a TMP, and one a BAK. Any chance this illuminates my problem?

 

Also, are there any tips on ways of checking the mods for errors/conflicts? Because I've tried loading them sequentially (+1 each time) and individually (only 1 each time), and neither seems to show me what's causing this.

[prensa]

GreatDestroyer - Hello!

 

The save - autosave.fos.bak is a backup version, I think it's the last autosave before the one that was just written.

 

If in need you can remove the .bak & have a funcitonal autosave.fos.

 

That's perfectly normal.

 

Saves that end in .fos.tmp, I believe, are saves that have been interrupted.

 

The game makes a .tmp as it's trying to save & if all goes well it removes the .tmp after it's done.

 

Delete the .tmp files. Or if you want to play safe place them in a temproary folder out the way.

 

Try making a clean save of your game, go into you Megaton or Tenpenny house & wait 4 game days.

 

Exit the Fallout 3, turn off all your mods, go back to Fallout 3 & reload.

 

Save your game again & exit Fallout 3.

 

Turn all your mods back on & continue with the last save you made.

 

Sometimes this can sort things out.

 

Try out CASM as soon as possible as it seems to help people with saving issues.

 

Question, do you only get the crash on saving/loading in certain areas?

 

If it is area specific, where?

 

"Also, are there any tips on ways of checking the mods for errors/conflicts? Because I've tried loading them sequentially (+1 each time) and individually (only 1 each time), and neither seems to show me what's causing this."

 

FO3Edit is the best tool to look for mod conflicts but unless the saving/loading is area specific it would be hard to know what exactly to look for.

 

Culprits in causing CTD problems are any mod that deletes or removes something from an area in Fallout 3. Fallout 3 can be very sensitive about certain things being removed.

 

That was what was at the heart of the bug in Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch - Broken Steel.esp, it had disabled some radioactive dust clouds near Rivet City & for some reason Fallout 3 threw a fit about that.

 

You could check your mods for red higlights in the Cells & Worldspace headings in FO3Edit.

 

But I would have thought if it was a mod you'd have found out when turning them off one at a time.

 

Hope this helps!

 

Prensa

Edited July 29, 2011 by prensa

[GreatDestroyer]

"Question, do you only get the crash on saving/loading in certain areas?"

 

It doesn't seem so. When the crashes first started that was my suspicion. And indeed in the beginning it seemed that the game would crash only when trying to enter the Metro station I mentioned in my OP. However it later appeared that it was just that the aforementioned area would immediately cause a crash, in other cases it would take two or three loading screens to cause it.

 

Of note is that, not counting turning off mods, I've been able to 'plow' through the issue before. Going back to or finding an area that loads without an immediate crash seems to temporarily (at least for that game session) solve or at least put off the crash error. I've been unable to reproduce this in the latest instance, however.

 

Also, if I assume that the mods were not the cause of the crash, then what has been causing an affected file to temporarily work would be the constant moving/loading/saving of an unaffected file. I've been unable to extensively test this possibility (or your similar suggestion) as I've been short on free time the past day or two.

 

As for 'red' conflicts in FO3 Edit, the only mod(s) that come up with red markings in the Cells and Worldspaces categories is the Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch. Which has one red Cell and several red Worldspaces in conflict with both the original files as well as any mods that mirror the original files. Should I be loading the Unofficial Patch last? Should I have the mods mirror the Patch instead of the original file? Does this mean anything?