Followers won't follow in Extensible Follower Framework

[manchuligans]

Hi everyone,

My followers stop following.

I've tried the console commands listed in troubleshooting, but all they did was make Jenassa lose all her dialogue options and mumble soundlessly. Now and then a follower will get beaten down by a bandit or animal and start following again, but usually they just recover and keep not following.

I have about 5 followers, Jenassa and 4 more from Familiar Faces. I usually play until about level 20 and then 1 or more of them just shuts off and stops following. This time all of them did it. I haven't changed mod setup and the only other follower affecting mods I have are Familiar Faces and MHIYH (and Multiple Floors Sandboxing, I guess, and Wildcat Combat AI).

I've tried these actions many times:

- EFF troubleshooting console commands and EFF system cleaning
- disable/enable, resurrect, recycle actor, summon/resummon in Familiar Faces
- savegame cleaning / stop active threads with PDT Wrapper
- starting a new playthrough
- player.kill command to free memory
- using script-light mods
- and of course searching online for solutions

I don't know what else to do. EFF is one of the mods that make Skyrim worth playing, and if anyone has any fixes or solutions, I would appreciate it.

 

 

P.S. I've tried Amazing Follower Tweaks, which is a great mod, but I started having a lot more CTDs with it when I tried it to deal with this problem. I have also posted this issue in EFF's mod thread, but I'm reposting it here to reach more people who might know of a fix. Thanks!

[manchuligans]

POSSIBLE SOLUTION:

 

 

I may have found a solution.

This is so stupid, but it seems to be working. It's ok if you laugh.


Other posters have said nudging a follower with a shout or whacking them with a weapon with get them out of their non-following behavior loop. That generally didn't work for me. I pounded them into failure states with a variety of implements, but they just wouldn't budge.

I was out in the wilderness one day trying to deal with one follower and my intrepid band of adventurers got jumped by bandits, courtesy of OBIS. They beat the living crap out of us, but wouldn't you know it, the follower started following again after recovering from the essential bleedout state.

Curiouser and curiouser.

I confirmed this solution through spawning 10 high level OBIS bandits around us (my other followers were pretty mad, but tough sweet rolls). The trouble is, it's pretty disruptive to spawn a powerful bandit gang in the middle of a dungeon to have them pummel the living crap out of my intrepid band and who knows who else just to get one follower moving again. So, I finally hit on this solution and tested it successfully just now.


My solution, for anyone who might find it useful:

When a follower goes non-responsive, leave him there and do these steps when you have an opportunity. You can also use Jaxonz Positioner to pick him up and just keep him in your inventory until you're ready.

1. Find an area where you can isolate the problem follower and teleport him or her into that area. I'm using the livestock pen at Elysium Estate. Lead your other followers out of the area, and block the area so your followers can't get in and the enemy you're about to spawn in there can't get out. I use the console to lock the gates on the livestock pen. Another method is to use something like Jaxonz Positioner to move an object to block off the area.

2. Set your followers to Aggression > Passive in the EFF menu, and make sure they're set to Essential.

3. Place the problem follower in the isolation area by teleport (Jaxonz Positioner also works). Lead your functioning followers out of the area, then block it. Our problem follower in this case is the ever-recalcitrant Ciara.




3. Toggle God Mode in the console, enter the isolation area, and spawn a strong enemy using the player.placeatme command. In this case, I chose the ferocious Barbary Lion from the great mod Animallica.




Seriously, make sure whatever you spawn can't get out.


4. Jump out of the isolation area so the enemy goes after the problem follower. We'll watch from the loft while the ferocious Barbary Lion mauls his prey.

5. The antagonist should knock the problem follower into the essential NPC bleedout state. When the follower goes down, use the kill console command to kill the antagonist. Wait for the follower to recover, unblock the isolation area, and see if the follower will follow you out.

6. If the follower is working again, problem solved. If not, block the area again and use the resurrect console command on the antagonist for another round until it works.


Maybe this will work consistently, maybe it won't. I'm sure I'll get a lot of practice. I hope this helps anyone who is having this same issue.

 

 

Extensible Follower Framework (a truly great multi-follower mod)

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/12933/?

 

Elysium Estate (the player home I always come back to)

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/33939/?

Jaxonz Positioner (an incredibly useful utility)

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/52583/?

 

Animallica (100+ new animals, including the ferocious Barbary Lion!)

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/57413/?

Edited October 30, 2017 by manchuligans

[TheFeralDog]

Maybe this can help you, https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/5059720-followers-stuck-in-sandbox-ai/ as you can see by my comment what happened to me, but i also experienced what you did, i know this is years later, but just in case someone finds your post here like i did. occasionally entering combat/and or shouting at the followers did unbug them but it was not consistent. hence the link.