False "save corruption" during gameplay

[mtrjagamer]

One thing that is noticeable right away (the only one i guess...) is the effect on dialogue boxes, i know almost immediately when the bug appears, if i speak to someone. I start a conversation and some of the dialogue options disappear while i'm trying to choose. Sometimes i can't choose the option i want, but with a bit of luck and if i try it a couple of times it works.

 

For instance now i'm in the Dark Brotherhood quest line and i can start a dialogue with the NPC, but after choosing three or four options, the dialogue simply ends and the quest doesn't go on. I already know that it will only work and i will only have all the dialogue options, if i restart the game and reload the save.

 

In mods with new quests it's even worse, usually i can't even start a conversation with the NPCs, but after restarting everything is fine.

 

It also affects any popup message boxes, like some books, in-game mod settings, etc. Some of the text simply disappear.

 

Any clues on why something like this could affect the message boxes ?

[Ramagast]

Damn, I really thought that we dodged string problem at least. Well, here's hoping that "Bug Fixes" will be ported to SSE following SKSE release.

 

I'm pretty sure that we've compared enough modlists to say that they all have only USEEP in common. I even tried the game without Alternate Start just to rule it out.

Then there is question of intensity. I suspect that when the bug happens for the first time it actually break something in our saves. First encounter can be ours into playthrough and simply by reloading the game before it happens we can add hours to this time. But if you save your game after encountering the bug, it becomes much more frequent. Something breaks and stays broken.

 

I'm not running any ENB or such stuff. My system language set to English. Neither game installation path nor save path are using non-English characters. Game installation path, for example, is: E:\Steam Games\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition.

 

Regarding possible triggers: most common is crafting. Working with crafting menus for a period of time pretty much guaranties the break. However, you can do nothing of the sort. Couple of times I was in a dialogue and options just started to vanish before my eyes. Other time it happened while standing in a small cell doing nothing. I've checked and haven't found any correlations with weather change or enemy spawns. Accessing various menus and using configuration powers seem to accelerate the break.

[Ramagast]

One more thing I noticed. It seems that using SkyUI 2.2 seriously accelerates the break for me.

I mean, it's looks like scrolling through sufficiently long list of items - even if it's not in crafting menu - is enough.

That's probably why some of us thought it was SkyUI's fault in the first place - it's just making the problem more apparent.

[TheMadTemplar]

Damn, I really thought that we dodged string problem at least. Well, here's hoping that "Bug Fixes" will be ported to SSE following SKSE release.

 

I'm pretty sure that we've compared enough modlists to say that they all have only USEEP in common. I even tried the game without Alternate Start just to rule it out.

Then there is question of intensity. I suspect that when the bug happens for the first time it actually break something in our saves. First encounter can be ours into playthrough and simply by reloading the game before it happens we can add hours to this time. But if you save your game after encountering the bug, it becomes much more frequent. Something breaks and stays broken.

 

I'm not running any ENB or such stuff. My system language set to English. Neither game installation path nor save path are using non-English characters. Game installation path, for example, is: E:\Steam Games\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition.

 

Regarding possible triggers: most common is crafting. Working with crafting menus for a period of time pretty much guaranties the break. However, you can do nothing of the sort. Couple of times I was in a dialogue and options just started to vanish before my eyes. Other time it happened while standing in a small cell doing nothing. I've checked and haven't found any correlations with weather change or enemy spawns. Accessing various menus and using configuration powers seem to accelerate the break.

 

I think this is the important thing to note here. Once the corruption bug has first happened, it will inevitably continue to happen for the lifespan of that save game. Certain things definitely seem to accelerate it during a game session, but even if you stand in a cell doing nothing, it will still happen eventually. This means there's something going on behind the screen that's causing this, independent of player action.

[lethielnyrond]

So, it's something, presumably a numerical value or combination of values, that accumulates and is passed along in a save, and it's something to do with text strings (because that's largely what's affected) but probably not the actual string count. Is it possible that if you managed to save before the Bug actually manifested, every time, you could keep it from manifesting at all? That seems unlikely, unless there's some sort of tipping point, such that before you reach it the mystery value resets to zero and after you pass it it doesn't.

 

Another odd thought: does having subtitles on affect it? I have them on all the time, because I can't always be wearing headphones.

 

Thrashing around in a vacuum here. Maybe it is worth bothering the SKSE guys...

 

Lethiel

[mtrjagamer]

So, it's something, presumably a numerical value or combination of values, that accumulates and is passed along in a save, and it's something to do with text strings (because that's largely what's affected) but probably not the actual string count. Is it possible that if you managed to save before the Bug actually manifested, every time, you could keep it from manifesting at all? That seems unlikely, unless there's some sort of tipping point, such that before you reach it the mystery value resets to zero and after you pass it it doesn't.

 

Another odd thought: does having subtitles on affect it? I have them on all the time, because I can't always be wearing headphones.

 

Thrashing around in a vacuum here. Maybe it is worth bothering the SKSE guys...

 

Lethiel

 

I have subtitles on all the time too. Just now i tried to turn them off and was able to play for around one hour without the bug, when other times it usually lasts 10 or 20 minutes. After that i used an alchemy station and the bug appeared immediately. I saved just before using it, and as soon as i activated it noticed some text missing and after that confirmed that the save was already "corrupted".

Edited February 9, 2017 by mtrjagamer

[lethielnyrond]

O-kay. We know already, because our modlists are so different, that it's no specific mod or group of mods, but a problem with the game itself which is exacerbated by the presence of mods. Specifically, perhaps, the kind of mods which significantly increase the amount of onscreen text being processed, such as crafting-heavy ones, or ones which introduce a lot of new dialogue when subtitles are enabled. When we start a new character, the Bug doesn't show up for quite a while, but the more we play, the more likely it is to appear, and the more frequently once it has appeared. I'm currently getting about fifteen minutes gameplay at a time and dreading it getting worse, or, in the alternative, having to go back to the damn beginning again. My modlist is within tolerances, my saves aren't huge, this should not be happening!

 

Any volunteers to page behippo, or is it me again? :)

 

Lethiel

[lethielnyrond]

I've sent a message to behippo. We'll see what if anything happens.

 

Lethiel

[lethielnyrond]

On the point of starting again, because I can't even get halfway through a bandit cave without it going sproing on me, I just looked at my last save in ReSaver, and I found a string:

 

STRING

Value: " was misplaced at Bleakwind Basin. Deleting for safety.".

Length: 55

The string could not be found in the savefile. This may mean that something has gone VERY WRONG.

 

I haven't been to Bleakwind Basin, so there's no reason for this string to be in this save. I don't think I've ever encountered a string like this. Does anyone recognise which mod it might have come from?

 

Lethiel

[Ramagast]

I don't see such a thing in my save. I can only see a growing number of non-existent form instances, but Resaver does not explicitly states that they need to be removed.

I'd say that script affecting the location in which you never was probably comes from a quest mod of some kind. Or script-based encounter overhaul such as OBIS or Sands of Time.