[LE] Newest version of my mod causes freezing near cities

[JKalenad]

I've been working the past few months on a new version (i.e. 6.5) of my mod Relics of Hyrule, and finally finished it.

 

Somehow, a game-breaking bug slipped through during the development of 6.5, and I have not been able to figure out how to fix it. I've been working at it for a few days now with no results or clues.

 

Every time I or any of the mod's users try to start a new game or approach a town or city, the game will enter an infinite loading screen or simply freeze. The issue around cities is also so precise that you can essentially dance around near an invisible border around the city, but as soon as you get closer, the game freezes. The issue affects every town and city, as well as Hearthfire homes, but not military camps or other small settlements.

If users roll-back to the previous update, 6.49g, everything goes back to normal.

 

The older versions of the mod don't cause this issue, and I have done my best to compare them to 6.5 to figure out what is causing the issue, but nothing I have tried has worked. I've checked quests, scripts, location data, NPCs, dirty edits, and have cleaned the mod with TESVEdit. I've checked missing scripts, Creation Kit logs and Papyrus logs, and I've experimented with the issue dozens of times, but have found nothing other than that it is easily replicated.

 

I first thought it was caused by something related to the courier, but couldn't find any proof. It may also be related to LOD somehow, but I don't know how to check or fix it if that is the case.

 

 

Does anyone have any suggestions about how to either check for the error(s) causing the issue, or how to move forward? If anyone wants to take a look at the problematic .esp file I still have it on the Relics of Hyrule mod page. You'll find it in the miscellaneous files section. 6.5 and 6.5a (the first attempted fix) have virtually identical .esp files, but 6.5a just contains the .esp file, while 6.5 has meshes and such.

 

 

[nerdofprey]

I had a mod update go sour on me once and I'm pretty sure the plugin got corrupted somehow. Like I hadn't made any changes that should have caused the crazy stuff that was happening. I rolled back to the stable version and completely redid my work, exactly the same way as far as I know, and never had problems again. Whatever the cause, it might ultimately take less time to redo your work than to endlessly troubleshoot a potentially unfixable issue.

 

What you're describing could be caused by a bugged mesh, though. Have you tried dumping all your meshes in a test cell or anything?

[agerweb]

I have had bugged meshes before, in your case it would have to be a new mesh you had used everywhere because it is usually when you enter the cell with the bad mesh. Seems unlikely.

I have had similar issues in the past and like the previous poster it was easier to go back to the last good save. Nowadays i never spend more than 2 hours in the ck before testing in game. With the ck paranoid is good.

[Di0nysys]

Narrow it down. Make sure it's cleaned of ITM's, UDR's and errors in Xedit. If that's done, then u can narrow it down to a custom nif ur using in that vicinity.
Run your meshes through Nifscan. U can grab it off nexus. Usually it's a badly named node (duplicate name) or bad collision. Unfortunately if it's a collision issue Nifscan won't pick it up. So make sure u fix any newly added collision.

If u need tips on that, lemme know.

[JKalenad]

Thanks for the help, everyone. I think I may have to follow the rebuilding approach. I figure I'll copy in stuff from 6.5 bit by bit, testing frequently and keeping backups every test. If I run into anything that repeats the issue, I'll be able to identify what it is, if anything.

 

Like nerdofprey said, it's probably going to take less time to redo the work than try to fix an issue that may or may not be resolvable. Since it's affected every town and city, it's gotta be something invisibly corrupted. I just can't find it and don't want to go crazy looking for it.