Missing Characters (NPCs)

[oscar718]

Is anyone else having to scrap quests or restart the game from the beginning due to characters missing during quest lines which prevents progressing with the game. If so, does anyone know of a resolution. I've checked some of the message boards, one even points to Bethesda acknowledging the bug, but i havent been able to find a resolution. This is really concerning as i never had this issue in the original game

[LeddBate]

I know this is posted in the SE section but I have to ask, is your game SE or LE? What I specifically mean is, do you have a version that has the DLCs, specifically, Dawnguard?

 

The reason I ask if because once you reach a certain level (9, I think, I'm not sure) random vampire attacks start occurring in cities, towns and even villages. These attacks often kill quest givers before you can stop them. Also, dragons can end up killing quest givers even in the vanilla game. If this is what is happening to you, then the following mods will greatly help alleviate your NPCs dying on you.

 

When Vampires Attack

Run For Your Lives!

Timing is Everything - Quest Delay and Timing Control

 

Hope this helps.

[oscar718]

SE with all the DLCs. the latest character i had issues with was the leader in stony creek cave. the marker showed correct, but no character there. this was one of the tasks in the companion quest. also had florentius missing in a previous game which rendered dawnguard unfinishable (i was at level 51 at the time). Now wary of investing the time in a new game

[LeddBate]

That's a bit weird, I'll admit.

 

Well, before starting over, I would recommend nuking from orbit. Clear your cache, re-download the game and (if you're willing to put up with all the work) re-install NMM AND all your mods. Also, I recommend manually downloading mods and installing them with either NMM or MO.

 

Here's a general purpose stability and troubleshooting guide by Darstyler. Give him a kudo if it helps you.

 

/// Useful informations :

• Dangerous mods list.

• CTDs troubleshooting page on Reddit very usefull informations concerning CTDs...

• Verify gamecache.

/// Load order / mods conflicts :

• Use L.O.O.T once and click on the "sort plugins buttons".

• Create a wryebash patch including leveled lists.

• Create a merged patch with Tesedit excluding leveled lists

/// Settings / memory :

• Have you installed the skse patch ? >> memory blocks log.

• Backup your ini files and delete the files. Skyrim.ini / SkyrimCustom.ini / SkyrimPrefs.ini found in C:\Users\Utilisateur\Documents\My Games\Skyrim then use your vanilla launcher to autodetect and use best settings for your computer.

/// Cleaning and correcting potential bugs :

• Clean your master files to eliminate potential problems.: Gopher's videos cleaning your masterfiles on the Nexus Tesedit page.
  Start Tes5edit, simply untick everything, (right-click/select none) and add only a tick to the esm/esp you want to check + update.esm, Tesedit knows what to do and will load all the dependencies automatically.
  - Begin with loading only Skyrim + update, ITM / UDR + save ctrl +s and close.
  - Then load Skyrim + update + Dawnguard, ITM / UDR + ctrl +s and close.
  - Then load Skyrim + update + Hearthfire, ITM / UDR + ctrl +s and close.
  - Then load Skyrim + update + Dragonborn, ITM / UDR + ctrl +s and close.

• The method above can be used to clean mods. If I'm correct LOOT should tell you which plugin you should clean. You may load all your mods with Tes5edit and use the (right-click in the left pane) apply filter to show conflict losers. Wait till Tes5edit has finished. Caution : don't try to modify anything while using this filter, it's not intended for.

• In the left pane, Expand the subsections and examine conflicts. Once an entry is expanded to the bottom and selected, the right pane shows which mods modify the entry. The last one on the right is the last loaded in your load order and the conflict winner.

• Expand the following subsections, depending on where the problems occur. Cells for CTDs inside buildings, grottos, etc... and worldspace for exterior. The goal is to target mods that edit the same places and conflict. Open the bloc note and write those mods.

• Once done, close Tes5edit and open each mod with Tesedit, one by one and use the UDR cleaning procedure (Gopher's videos cleaning your masterfiles on the Nexus Tesedit page) to ensure all the deleted references will be transformed in disabled references = no CTDs from this point.

• If you suspect a mod in particular, using the conflict looser / winner method above, you can decide to change its load order or uninstall it.

/// Save game :

• Don't uninstall mods at mid-game, there are no clean save in Skyrim but using save script cleaner can help removing orphan scripts.

/// Meshes healer :

• Read here, this is potentially a cause of CTD that you can resolve by following the mod procedure on this page.