False "save corruption" during gameplay

[Gothpunk4Christ]

Well, at this point, my install seems to now be a little more stable. I removed excess armors and stuff that bloat up the crafting stations, and now don't scroll to the bottom of the list as quickly as possible, and everything SEEMS to be currently OK. Gotten several hours in per session without getting the issue yet, unfortunately I'm not running any of the TERA armor or weapons stuff, removed weapons of the third era, got rid of a few odds and ends crafting additions. For those having issue with the crafting system causing the issue, please try and duplicate using this method if it's not too much effort, and report findings.

 

*edit* I did remove Warzones:AA and Genesis to try and narrow down some random CTD/lockup issues, but still running SoT/OBIS/More bandit camps without issue. Said extras were used previously on a new save without issue using my previous method, and after removing, a new game was started and leveled to about 30, without issue as well. currently, after removing a few, at 231 plugins, was around 240 prior.

Edited February 14, 2018 by Gothpunk4Christ

[zumma]

Hello! I followed like the first 20 pages or so ... Did you found a 'fix' for this?

 

I only encountered this ... annoyance ... later in my playthrough ... at over 120 level in game, over 10 MB save game, over 40.000 strings in save game ... i only played one character for SSE, and just continue playing, it's not a game-breaking bug. My guess is that this has nothing to do with the save game (displaying them 'corrupt' and not being able to load them ... is just another symptom) ... the game load engine just runs short of ... memory in which to load stuff ... in Oldrim you would have most likely get a CDT instead. As the strings occupy the least memory ... they go off first ... but if you continue playing long enough ... you will see even meshes not loading ... or textures ... and that can only mean that the game memory blocks have gone overbord and the game prioritize what to load in the memory and what to eject without Crashing (and i pretty much prefer this method ... to Oldrim's unannounced crashes ... it gives you fair warning) ... when i see objects missing ... i just 'qqq' the game ... and one minute later i'm already back in the game. As a rule ... if i go in a new worldspace ... let's say Falskaar ... which has like 1/10 of Tamriel's Memory Load complexity / stuff (not only the landmass, but flora, fauna ... npcs so AI load, visuals and weathers ... if not using patches) ... i proportionally expand 'the time before memory bug' from 30 minutes to 3+ hours. This also depends on what do i do in that time ... if i participate in intense battles that will shorten the time, as much more demanding resources will be loaded and remembered in the game memory stack ... while if i play a mod like Forgotten City ... which is composed of mostly low demanding resources like string-dialogues, and is composed of low graphical intense interior cells, and no intense fighting the AIs ... i can play indefinitely (i guess ... i don't remember this bug occurring in FC) ... without encountering the bug (but remember to load a save inside after restart ... previously loading the worldpace of Tamriel then entering FC will greatly increase the memory usage ... and decrease the time you have pre-bug). This behavior and all my in game experiences ... make me believe this is a memory thing (which is a sum of resources ... strings, scripts, objects, globals ... which ALL of them ... create the 'bug' ... of wasting the memory). Also ... if so ... i don't see how it can be fixed ... even with 64 bit ... engine ... the memory runs out. Betsheda designed this ... to be used ... without mods ... at least as far as memory is concerned ... i guess you will not get this ... bug on vanilla (but who plays vanilla). And they left just enough memory to accommodate several official DLCs ... but they took leeway and put them mostly in their own worldspaces ... they don't really have supports for mods ... and deal with the problems generated by mods ... perhaps this can change in the future, if ask nicely? ... :smile:) As it stands ... we just have to manage the game load memory vs mods we are using. The mods that are coming with their own worldspace ... and don't add too much stuff to Already Enormous ... Tamriel Worldspace ... have the less impact on the memory ... and getting this bug.

Edited March 3, 2018 by zumma

[lethielnyrond]

Hi zumma. An excellent summary, and I think (and have always said) that you're right, it's a game engine thing and nothing to do with any mod or mods going wrong. As far as I know we haven't found a fix (which would seem to corroborate that conclusion), but the consensus in here seems to have been that there's no point in asking Bethesda to fix it because (as you say) they would really prefer everyone to play without mods, or only with the mods they sell through Creation Club, plus everyone wants them to be working on new games and not trying to fix this old one. I don't agree, or at least I think they could probably afford to do both, but that's just me.

 

So I've largely given up hope and, as with my chronic fatigue syndrome (which this bug rather resembles) I just try to manage it. When a book turns up blank, or a dialogue option that should be there isn't, or Whiterun starts to look blurry and low-res, I just save, quit and start again, and it goes back to normal. I'm on the esp limit now, and till someone is kind enough to explain to me how Mator's Merge Plugins thing actually should be used, I can't add anything more, so my game is stable now for certain values of. I can live with it.

 

It would still be nice if someone could persuade Bethesda to look into it. It only started happening to anyone after a certain update to the game, way back now last year or the year before, so it wasn't a problem with the game engine till then, which I still think means it's something they broke in the process of fixing something else. And that suggests to me that it should be something they could fix in another update if they tried, though of course that might break something else again. I know that with Oldrim it didn't happen, and while as you say there were crashes, they were usually traceable to some specific mod or other, which this bug isn't.

 

Anyway, thank you for your succinct restatement of the position. It helps.

 

Lethiel

[zumma]

Yes ... i know ... whatever Bethesda planed to do with TES V, from the technical / engine pov ... stopped with releasing the Remastered Edition. I hope that for the next titles in the series ... TESVI, VII ... they will design their load engine and memory system to be a lot friendlier to MODS. And especially if they get a lot of ... input from fans ... in this regard. They did so in the past ... they created the survival mode for SSE ... they corrected in TES V ... many mistakes they made with TES IV,... I know that this can be done ... but from the factory design. MODS are a big part of this franchise ... it is what make some average-good games ... actually great. I always believe that the end product ... is not actually released by Bethesda (that's only the first / basic release) ... but by the modding community. And the game ... is being judge or should be judged after ... the final release.

 

Our 'little bug' ... doesn't have a classical ... escape goat, unfortunately ... that would had been so much ... better! The mods, enbs, are as much to blame as the game itself ... they all add resources, or change resources to demand more memory ... more so as you unlock the Tamriel Map, discover new locations and interact with the world (especially exterior world) ... everything is loaded and retained in the memory ... even changing the position (x, y, z axis and angles) of a lantern. And i think it is reseted at 30 days. The game retain several cells in memory (the City Cell are also very demanding) ... if you load a cell like this and then you go in a different cell ... then came back ... the cell is loaded instantly ... because it is retained in the load memory ... they sacrificed the load memory ... to shorten the load time between cells (more to SSE than Oldrim i noticed) ... and with things like this it's always a trade off. Crafting menus and Merchant menus are pure 'memory death' ... especially with the way SkyUI designed his later version 5+ ... to get as much stuff on your screen as possible ... provided you have IA and other crafting recipes loaded ... with their ground meshes ... ALL loaded upon opening the crafting menu, some high and very high-res ... i don't have the lag from Oldrim ... which is good, but this is the trade-off ... the fact that you can see the image of every item in player and crafting inventory to high res, even enlarge it ... is very memory heavy ... and most ppl would have used 2k - 4K resolution for mot of thise items by now. It is a nice feature ... but i would prefer the Morrowind's inventory for this ... which meant ... small icons for every item ... because i can see them full size ... when i wear or on the ground. Also the Book of UUNP came with a much better method ... of using crafting books instead, inspired from Lorecraft.

 

As for what mods are most to blame for this ... logically the mods that add the most resources to the worldspace of Tamriel ... Interesting NPCs (which is actually the best Quest / NPC mod that i played (and i played a lot) ... no way i'm giving this up in any playthrough), but came with hundreds of npc and thousands of edits to Worldpace of Tamriel, 6.907 Scripts (!) so thousands of quest-conditions and strings ... then SMIM and you choice for High resolution Graphic Overall, Wet and Cold and Footprins for the number of decals, Frostfall of course, who is using Open Cities (Bethesda ... intentionally put the cities in their own worldspace ... to avoid this specific issue ... add 5-6 major cities to the Tamriel worldspace ... and you are asking for memory trouble ... compatibility issues aside). And i'm sure i forgot a lot of other culprits ... very heavy on adding new resources to the same Worldspace ... these resources are competing for the same finite memory along with the vanilla game resources. the Characters' AI are very heavy as well.

 

I don't see how SKSE64 will help ... they just expand the scripting capability and functionality of mods ... which means that even more complex (so demanding) scripts are able to run ... if so ... they most likely will expedite the 'memory bug' ... not delay it. I'm also a little subjective, here ... i'm not using it for SSE ... not wanting to make the trade-off to stability ... maybe in the future ... for my next playthrough and a stable version ... if that happens.

 

I avoid mods ... that make ... inconsequential changes to game ... inconsequential npc, populated cities, etc ... expanded cities, the extra kids from TK, birds, dogs and cats everywhere, etc ... in an ideal gaming environment ... i will use everything ... but so ... i have to prioritize ... and only use the mods that add resources that serve a purpose and a functionality. So between Interesting and Inconsequential NPC ... i choose ... iNPC ... because i now i cannot have both ... unless i want to make another trade-off. Just an example. The AI in Skyrim ... is different from other other games (ex. Witcher) ... even a NPC ... that apparently serve no function ... just to show in numbers ... will have basic AI package and default sandbox ... Bethesda would had loved ... to fill the cities with hundreds of NPC ... but they wouldn't had been able to put any other resources in those cells ... the AI are consuming a lot ... so my advice is to be samrt about this ... and choose the NPC that are interesting and functional. Immersive Citizens ... came and made the AI even more complex.

 

Please consider ... that SSE is not the same as Oldrim ... it came with a lot of stuff ... from factory ... including the 4 DLCs (the textures one as well) ... the plant and foliage is almost double in vanilla SSE than in Oldrim, i didn't count it ... but i think there are more trees, more landcape objects as rocks and stuff, the number of random encounters i think is a lot bigger ... water shaders and godrays, and most importantly ... LODs ... these are very heavy and memory demanding. They took advantage ... of the 64 bit engine ... and made the game look nicer from factory. So i wouldn't be very surprised ... if the available free memory left for mods ... is smaller than in Oldrim ... speaking in percents. Then ... came the modders and took advantage ... releasing ... many 4k and even 8k textures ... i still recommend keeping to 2k ... for a most stable playthrough.

 

For me ... Oldrim was working very badly ... especially after i upgraded my specs ... to i7 4790K (but not overcloaked), 16 RAM and GTX 970, w7 64 bit ... i was able to load more graphical demanding mods ... but i lost a lot to stability ... from my old i3 setup and 2 GB VRam. It may not be for everyone the same ... but the skyrim 32 bits engines had problems running stable ... on a 64 bit engine ... both software and hardware. Even without an ENB ... Oldrim was constantly crashing ... to 6-7 cell loads (i don't think ... i ever reached consecutive 8 cell) ... and more than 10 NPCs / Cell ... and this with the memory patch ... which they released ... expanding the memory stack from 256 to 512 ... i would reach 512 ... in no time ... even quicker in exterior world ... traversing a hold ... and then crash ... so i was able to trace 80% of my CTDs ... to the memory getting full ... with a SKSE plugin, not to mod conflicting and scripts ... i'm ocd ... when it came to mods playing well with eachother and what every script do ... i download manually every mod ... rearrange it to a file structre that is MO's suited ... re-packing it in 7z and install it manually from MO ... i also prefer lose files to bsa ... if using MO1,2 ... it is no downside to using the loose files. So ... i was already obsessed with this memory shortage ... SSE was a god-send i switch right away ... and test it ... As i was able to fit in a cell, the same cell 4x more objects / NPC than in Oldrim ... i said ... problem solved ... but apparently not ... entirely. Anyway ... i have easy 1000 hours on this character ... the memory bug didn't resurface until 600+ hours ... it is not that bad.

 

I also activate mods ... on need to play basis ... i don't activate all the mods from the start ... for Falskaar which makes like 3 edits on Tamriel Worldspace ... i guess is not a big problem ... but for something like Helgen Reborn ... which makes hundreds ... it is better you activate when you are ready to play it, not from the start. Memory thing aside ... your save will also get bigger and bigger ... when it reaches 65.000+ strings (the integer limit) ... it will corrupt for good ... and you will not be able to load it ... at all.

 

Excuse ... my long ... rant! As a conclusion ... i would be very surprised (and very glad) to be another culprit for this 'bug' ... than memory shortage. I was intrigued by ppl saying they didn't encounter this at all ... because it will happen sooner or later ... under the right circumstances ... and modding conditions ... they probably didn't taxed the load engine and memory system ... heavy enough. When the engine cannot load something as small as a dialogue string ... it stand to reason that it cannot load something as big as your save game ... and give you the default 'Save Corrupt' message ... but as you already saw that the symptoms and problems are game world related ... it has nothing to do with the integrity your save file!

[BlueGunk]

@ zumma, I haven't been on this thread for a while. but I read your two replies (above) summarising events with a lot of interest.

 

I'm been having a problem with my game freezing on save, which is different from corrupt saves. I have tried to find the cause of the problem for some time. I know not many people get the problem.

 

But reading your posts above, I think you pinpoint the problem exactly: too much going on in the game, leading to the freeze. For example I completed Bleak Falls Barrow, and started freezing in Riverwood.

That's only one quest done! But I have 60,619 strings, 187,084 Script Instances, 8115 scripts (3 of which are active).

What happens is interesting: I start the game, open the save, start playing. If I make a new save within one or two minutes, it will work. But if I leave the game running unsaved for around 10 minutes, the next save will freeze.

 

I've checked mod conflicts, disk permissions, everything I can think of. What happens in the ten minutes of play to make the game freeze on saving? A build up of strings and data too great to save?

 

I think you have provided the answer. Too many strings, too many scripts, too many textures, too much AI, the game simply exhausts the memory.

I found evidence of this in checking the Windows System Log Files and several times found the trio of Skyrim SE, AVG and Mod Organizer setting off a low virtual memory alert. That is when my game save freezes.

 

Thank you for your summary of what has been going on here in this thread. :thumbsup:

 

I'm going to rebuild my game using your advice.

[tonycubed2]

Since not all strings can be accounted for from just the save file, you are for sure over the 65,535 limit. Sound thinking.

[BlueGunk]

Since not all strings can be accounted for from just the save file, you are for sure over the 65,535 limit. Sound thinking.

 

Thanks. Exactly my thought. I have a suspicion the false "corrupt save" and my freeze on saving have a similar source. The fact my save freezes develop over the space of 10 minutes or so strongly suggests my strings / scripts / memory are being blown out.

I'm now rebuilding the game and watching the string count as I test.

 

I wonder what the safe "resting" level of strings would be for a modded game? The base game (no mods) seems to hit just under 30,000 strings. I'm now up to @ 49,500 strings in my new game save. At this point, I'm beginning to feel uneasy....... :sick:

[Moksha8088]

Now notice that it have two Oldrim mods: 3DNPC and Amorous Adventures.

Load Order.txt

Best to use the SE version of INPCs found at the 3DNPC website. As a general rule, quest mods will generate the most strings and you have quite a few quest mods.

 

Sometimes mods misbehave with scripts that wouldn't shut off. I have experienced an overload because of that. In Oldrim, the mod The Hairstyler had a previous version that worked fine, and a 2.0 version that could bog everything down in short order. The solution was to remove that mod, run Save Game Scalpel (now the Fallrim Tools linked above) then reinstall the previous version.

 

Mods that change game mechanics have also been known to misbehave. The OP also has many of those mods as well.

[freemanisdead]

Hi,

 

I read a lot of this thread and of course hoped for some kind of a solution because a skyrim not modded to death isn't skyrim to me... Well I'm exaggerating but it is hard to me to cut mods so...

 

In my case, I followed most of "Lexy's LoTD STEP guide" with some changes and additions and... was having this bug.

In fact I can't really fine tune my game because of this so I get random CTDs but can play around an hour before having problems. The strings thing is interesting, in fact my last saves are about 66-67000 stings at start and load just fine. And the first LAL save from the cell is around 65000 LOL ! (without some recent huge merged armor/weapons/creatures/artifacts and companions mods).

 

So I kind of give up (see first sentence) but I have one different and more disturbing bug that I can't find a solution anywhere. I didn't see someone in this thread having it but I don't have read all of it, and can't really tell when it first started :

I can't start a new game ! When I click on NEW, the game do the usual sounds but stay on the start screen with the music and don't load anything, I tried some solutions find here and there with no luck. So I'm wondering if someone has an idea other than too much mods, and if this can be somehow related to the "false save corruption" bug...

 

I hope I was clear enough as English isn't my native language but hope this can help anyhow...

[BlueGunk]

Hi,

 

I read a lot of this thread and of course hoped for some kind of a solution because a skyrim not modded to death isn't skyrim to me... Well I'm exaggerating but it is hard to me to cut mods so...

 

In my case, I followed most of "Lexy's LoTD STEP guide" with some changes and additions and... was having this bug.

In fact I can't really fine tune my game because of this so I get random CTDs but can play around an hour before having problems. The strings thing is interesting, in fact my last saves are about 66-67000 stings at start and load just fine. And the first LAL save from the cell is around 65000 LOL ! (without some recent huge merged armor/weapons/creatures/artifacts and companions mods).

 

So I kind of give up (see first sentence) but I have one different and more disturbing bug that I can't find a solution anywhere. I didn't see someone in this thread having it but I don't have read all of it, and can't really tell when it first started :

I can't start a new game ! When I click on NEW, the game do the usual sounds but stay on the start screen with the music and don't load anything, I tried some solutions find here and there with no luck. So I'm wondering if someone has an idea other than too much mods, and if this can be somehow related to the "false save corruption" bug...

 

I hope I was clear enough as English isn't my native language but hope this can help anyhow...

 

Is this a new game using all the mods and the high string count? If it is, it is probably just too big to fire up. The drawback is, going over the 65,500 string limit means the game progresses, but the string table apparently "wraps around" and starts overwriting itself at the beginning. You won't necessarily notice this. Eventually the whole thing dies a horrible death. :sick:

 

As a test, it would be worth starting a new completely unmodded game (totally vanilla) and make sure that works. If it does you know your game files are OK.

If that does not work, then do the usual stuff like verifying the game integrity though Steam and clean the masters with ESSEdit and try again.

(I keep a clean backup of the whole original Skyrim files so if I get a damaged ESM I can simply drop a new one in).

 

Once you have a working vanilla game, then whatever comes after through modding you will know is your fault! :happy:

 

I have just rebuilt my over-blown game and my fully modded starting string count is @47,500. This will rise steadily as I play but I should be good for 200 hours+ with that (so I gather from others who know better). I stripped out a few mods I like, but realise were too heavy. 3DNPC adds 2000 strings alone.

The basic Skyrim SE with the DLC is about 28,000 strings alone.

 

Good luck!