West Boston CTDs

[thunderclam]

Hi. I have been having some problems with CTDs in the Western side of Boston. Started near the Back Bay which I first thought was The Code (I had played my way through part of that mod and experienced several CTDs in its added worldspaces, which I believed was a problem with the mod itself) or a conflict between The Code and Tales from the Commonwealth (navmeshes).

 

I have tried monkeying around with load order and even disabling The Code and trying stuff out. Didn't stop the CTDs which happen at random now all over the west area from Hangman's Alley and the riverside there all the way back to Dartmouth Professional Building and the rest of Back Bay. The CTDs can happen any time but don't seem to happen in combat (lots of combat in that area).

 

Removing Tales from the Commonwealth (experienced CTDs on both 2.5 and 2.6) seems to have fixed the CTDs but it's not tenable for this save since I've done piles of the content and I'm sure something else will break if I keep it disabled. I ran around w/o crashing after disabling the mod. I re-enabled it and all the content reset (quests included) as if I'd never encountered them before. This also happens with The Code. I guess it's supposed to if you make a clean save and re-enable a mod. Anyway, testing an earlier save (before disabling either mod or creating "clean" saves without them) led to the same CTDs.

 

This is starting to seem like it's Tales of the Commonwealth related. I have a suspicion it might also have to do with the scripted encounter outside of Dartmouth. Three BoS soldiers spawn there and appear "red" in VATS even though I'm a Sentinel in the BoS. They seem to get aggro from faraway enemies. When I was running around with both mods disabled, they died and I thought that might be a factor in not having CTDs though Tales seems the far more likely culprit at present. Some conflict is happening there.

 

The CTDs are not performance related so far as I can tell. My performance isn't amazing (lots of FPS drops) but I have never crashed due to heat, overloaded hardware, etc. My specs, though, are:

 

i5 2500k (not overclocked)

GTX 970

16gb DDR3 RAM

Game installed on separate SSD drive along with NMM and all mods (I was around the forums complaining about space issues recently :tongue:)

 

This is my load order:

 

https://pastebin.com/raw/n6dMGjke

 

*EDIT TO ABOVE: I have subsequently changed it slightly by moving the three BoS affecting mods: Tactical Thinking.esp, SaveArcadiafromBOS.esp and FaceMaxson.esp above 3DNPC.esp and The Code.esp

 

I know these types of posts tend not to get many responses but I really need the help. This save has almost 250 hours on it and I don't want entire sections of the Commonwealth to be impassable due to CTDs I cannot solve. Especially when removing the big mods that edit the area will likely break other things anyway. I am hoping my load order is simply borked somehow that I missed.

 

EDIT: I still think this issue has something to do with The Code and/or Tales from the Commonwealth but I'm not sure. I have found this in FO4edit: http://oi65.tinypic.com/nunit.jpg and IIRC deleted navmeshes are a known cause of CTDs. Should I fix this anyway or is this one of those times where a modder does something that looks bad but is necessary?

 

EDIT 2: I ignored the problem areas and continued the BoS questline through The Nuclear Option. I am using Danse Dilemma and it seemed to work fine. After finishing The Nuclear Option I noticed Danse began acting as a regular companion again (which may be normal) and had re-equipped his power armor. I also noticed reliable CTDs in the Boston Airport worldspace. Uninstalling Tales from the Commonwealth fixed it but that solution is untenable.

 

I moved it below Danse Dilemma and received no CTDs in Back Bay and the Airport until I returned there by Vertibird (the ride had a glitch where my minigun disappeared and I couldn't enter my pipboy menu, the game CTD'd right as I was above the Airport... coincidence? not sure).

 

I then disabled a mod I had recently installed to make BA a full settlement. Doing so (or by coincidence) seems to have fixed the BA CTDs in preliminary testing. That said, I still have no idea why I was CTDing so much in the Back Bay or while playing through The Code.

 

EDIT 3: I spoke too soon. I am still crashing at Boston Airport and the Prydwen for some reason. No idea why and I don't understand how these CTDs started after playing with most of these mods for hundreds of hours with no CTDs. I feel like I am having cascading issues and every time I think I have it traced to a mod or load order issue, nothing seems to resolve it. Is there any way to reliably trace a CTD? Papyrus Logs? FO4edit script? FO4edit loads all mods without stopping so there's that...

Edited October 19, 2017 by thunderclam

[Urtho]

Deleted navmesh mod conflicts are an instant CTD in this game and any other Bethesda game with this engine and the navmesh system present (meaning yes for Skyrim but no for Morrowind which doesn't use navmesh).

 

Any mod that has deleted navmeshes is highly suspect to me and a sign of a mod author that either doesn't know about the problem - a serious red flag - or a mod author that is aware but doesn't care to fix the problem, a different but equally serious kind of red flag altogether. I would suggest that you reconsider using any mod with them present as such mods are virtually certain to cause instant CTDs whenever you get near to the modded areas in-game.

 

Removing mods is never the correct solution as there is no safe mod removal in these games since Skyrim which made engine level changes that preclude them. If you are so heavily invested in your save that you can't abandon it and you also can't live with the CTDs, you can attempt to repair the deleted navmeshes yourself. Here are some sources of guides and information to direct you if you decide to do this:

 

https://www.creationkit.com/index.php?title=Fixing_Navmesh_Deletion_Tutorial

 

[thunderclam]

Thank you. I understand removing mods is never a good solution (with some exceptions). The author of The Code has not yet responded to my remarks to them that they have deleted navmeshes present in their files. I have not yet discovered deleted navmeshes in any other mod. I believe this may very well be the reason for CTDs in The Code's content and affected areas. I think my CTDs in Boston Airport was a load order issue and has (maybe) been resolved. I will report again when I learn more and play CTD-less for a few hours in which case I'll be satisfied that I've fixed or stymied the problem.

 

I will also look into fixing the navmeshes myself but I have heard that this is an unreliable solution. Thanks so much for commenting. I have tried to be thorough and exhaustive with my info, as I always do when reporting in these forums, and I seldom get any kind of response.

[Valyn81]

I was going to say that fixing the nav mesh should be the first thing.

 

A few other things to try testing:

 

1. Loading only this problem mod in the CK and see if you get any popup errors.
2. Load problem mod and generate new navmesh data. Test.
3. Load all most you are using in the CK, if possible, you will need to enable option in the CK INI for loading multi masters. Then make a test patch with the problem area(s).

I should mention that if the mod changes buildings in the area you will need to generate new navmeshes for this mod. unless you like you companions and NPCs running into walls or getting stuck.

 

navmeshes are easy to redo, it take a few minutes.

 

I have to say, that mod author was either lazy or forgot. Let him know about that issue so he can fix it.

[thunderclam]

I was going to say that fixing the nav mesh should be the first thing.

 

A few other things to try testing:

 

1. Loading only this problem mod in the CK and see if you get any popup errors.
2. Load problem mod and generate new navmesh data. Test.
3. Load all most you are using in the CK, if possible, you will need to enable option in the CK INI for loading multi masters. Then make a test patch with the problem area(s).

I should mention that if the mod changes buildings in the area you will need to generate new navmeshes for this mod. unless you like you companions and NPCs running into walls or getting stuck.

 

navmeshes are easy to redo, it take a few minutes.

 

I have to say, that mod author was either lazy or forgot. Let him know about that issue so he can fix it.

 

The author had this to say:

 

Here's the thing, to get the door into Plum Grove to function I had to add some navmesh in by hand and then finalize the mesh which did alter some of the vanilla meshes. I didn't just go in and delete things, I'm aware of the issues that sprout up from doing so. There are records for neighboring cells in FO4edit that have been affected just by hitting the button to finalize in the one cell I did need to alter (since they connect to each other). There's no method I know of to avoid that issue when adding new mesh. I went back in several times to try to sort it out after having fully cleaned the cell in FO4edit and doing my best to touch nothing but the mesh I need to connect to the new stairs and doorway (which had to be adding back in each time as well). Could that record you posted cause an issue? It could I'm sure, especially if another mod alters that cell. Has it for me? No. Has it for the majority of people using the mod? Not as far as I can tell based on feedback. Unfortunately it's rare that anyone comes to make a post about having no issues at all so it's incredibly hard to judge.

 

 

Unfortunately I'm not knowledgeable enough to judge why someone would knowingly leave deleted navmeshes in a mod and not disclose that information to users up front. Maybe it's not a big deal, like they seem to think.

 

I will try out fixing the navmeshes on my own but I wanted to get a few opinions about it first. Thanks so much for your help, Valyn and Urtho!

 

EDIT: I am still crashing at Boston Airport. Not a problem caused by The Code. Can't see how it could be.

 

EDIT 2: Crashes are now occurring in random places throughout the Commonwealth. Not sure what's causing them but something big has gone wrong. They seem to occur near settlements, which reminds me that I moved my Better Settlers and patches below Scrap Everything quite recently. The BS author says that it should be below SE because SE makes changes to settlers. I'm not sure if this conflict is the issue because I seemed fine in Settlements for quite a while after making that change. Could there be some kind of settlement script not working? Is there any way to check? Every time I think I have this narrowed down...

Edited October 20, 2017 by thunderclam

[Valyn81]

Sorry I did not reply sooner. My mod takes up a lot of time doing the vis data, and it keeps breaking when I update, or so it seems.

 

As far as better settlers goes, I have it before SE and Never had an issue.

 

Well, as with any mod, there is always a chance it will have changes we can not avoid, no matter how hard we try.

 

You have so many mods I can not even fathom where to start looking. Also, it is possible that your save is corrupt, but the only way to test that is start a new game; give yourself levels, armor, weapons and a few supplies and start playing.