Yet another CTD thread

[thejtgamer]

To be brief and blunt, I got back into Skyrim for the nth time and modded the heck outta it. I've been having a ton of fun playing it and so far I am half way through the game give or take and started the Dragonborn DLC. Everything was peachy until I started the quest where you get the bloodskaal blade and then my game would start crashing instantaneously upon saving, quicksaving, or autosaving.

 

Very frustrated with this I went to work and started trying to fix it myself and used two different save cleaners to at first take a look at what my problem may be. I used Fallrim and Skyrim Save Scapel (I used scapel to troubleshoot the CTD upon save section *I am very unfamiliar with that tool and hardly benefited from it because of my unfamiliarity* but I ended up just using Fallrim to clean my most recent save file by removing the 22 'undefined elements'). Fallrim detected 22 undefined elements and 1 undefined thread in my save (both programs did not find any orphan scripts whatsoever). Now I searched for about an hour to try and understand what this was and as you can tell I still don't. Simply put this is beyond me and I cant seem understand what my problem is after a few hours of searching and have come here to clog up the forum with another useless CTD thread.

 

Also note I scanned way earlier saves with Fallrim to find that these undefined elements and the undefined thread were not present in earlier saves. I so far have not tested loading an earlier save where the elements and thread still exist and try to save other than say maybe 3-6 saves earlier than my most current one. I also had tested loading an earlier save where the undefined elements and undefined thread weren't present and continued my playthrough past the earlier mentioned bloodskaal blade quest but ended up with the same save problem moments after finishing it.

 

I just hope I'm being a huge dunce here and these 'undefined elements' and the 'undefined thread' are no problem whatsoever and there is just a simple problem I am missing. From what I can deduce with my limited knowledge of how Skyrim modding works though I am most positive though that the issue lies within these undefined elements and the undefined thread.

 

This is my loadorder, https://pastebin.com/9qpCWFMr

Wrye Bash also lists all my saves as purple and TES5Edit if I recall loads no errors with my loadorder to speak of.

I almost forgot as well, I'm under the impression that my save game is not bloated as well, according to save game scapel a 'healthy' 600 hour save file is about 25mb whereas mine is approaching 30mb. I feel like it may be teetering on the edge of being bloated but I can't say for sure since there were absolutely zero problems before this in my game.

[Grospolina]

You have several things requiring attention:

• You're using SMIM-SE-Merged-All.esp, which is a Special Edition mod. Replace it with the Oldrim version. Also, make sure you're not using any other SE mods.
• You have three brawl bug fixes. Modern Brawl Bug Fix is all you need, so remove Brawl Bugs CE.esp and brawlbug-plugin.esp.
• Natural Lighting Vivid Atmospherics needs the assets from Vivid Weathers but not the plugins. Disable Vivid Weathers.esp, Vivid Weathers - Extended Snow.esp and Vivid Weathers - Extended Rain.esp.
• Since you have aMidianBorn Content Addon, disable AMB Glass Variants Lore.esp, Differently Ebony.esp and aMidianborn_Skyforge_Weapons.esp.
• Ultimate Follower Overhaul is somewhat unstable. You can replace it with Extensible Follower Framework, Immersive Amazing Follower Tweaks or Follower Live Package. If you currently have followers, there is an uninstall procedure for UFO (in the mod description).
• The Dance of Death is somewhat buggy and no longer supported by its author. Instead, you can use VioLens, which has similar features.
• You have two grass mods - Verdant and Unique Grasses. You should choose one and make sure you have the appropriate Skyrim.ini settings (especially required for Verdant).

As for CTDs, the usual fixes:

• Make sure you have the SKSE Memory Patch set up.
• Install Crash Fixes and be sure to read the description.
• Install Bug Fixes. Not absolutely required, but it has some nice fixes that aren't covered by USLEEP.
• Install Load Game CTD Fix. It fixes a thread race condition when loading save games.
• ENBoost - This gives you the memory management features of ENB without the visual effects processing. Not needed if you run an ENB.

[mcgreggd]

Did you install the XP32 skeleton? I had problems with CTDs and narrowed it down to this mod. When i stopped using the crashes stopped.

[thejtgamer]

Going to get on that right away. I do have the SKSE memory patch, ENBoost and Crash Fixes but I was not aware of Bug Fixes use along with USLEEP. As for those inconsistencies in my load order I believe I haphazardly enabled mods I previously downloaded either for SE or a previous playthrough with my MO.

 

Thank you so much for the fast reply but what exactly are those undefined elements and the undefined thread? I haven't tested your above post yet / spiffied up my load order to see if thats really the issue but if possible I'd still like to understand what those are.

[thejtgamer]

To be brief and blunt, I got back into Skyrim for the nth time and modded the heck outta it. I've been having a ton of fun playing it and so far I am half way through the game give or take and started the Dragonborn DLC. Everything was peachy until I started the quest where you get the bloodskaal blade and then my game would start crashing instantaneously upon saving, quicksaving, or autosaving.

 

Very frustrated with this I went to work and started trying to fix it myself and used two different save cleaners to at first take a look at what my problem may be. I used Fallrim and Skyrim Save Scapel (I used scapel to troubleshoot the CTD upon save section *I am very unfamiliar with that tool and hardly benefited from it because of my unfamiliarity* but I ended up just using Fallrim to clean my most recent save file by removing the 22 'undefined elements'). Fallrim detected 22 undefined elements and 1 undefined thread in my save (both programs did not find any orphan scripts whatsoever). Now I searched for about an hour to try and understand what this was and as you can tell I still don't. Simply put this is beyond me and I cant seem understand what my problem is after a few hours of searching and have come here to clog up the forum with another useless CTD thread.

 

Also note I scanned way earlier saves with Fallrim to find that these undefined elements and the undefined thread were not present in earlier saves. I so far have not tested loading an earlier save where the elements and thread still exist and try to save other than say maybe 3-6 saves earlier than my most current one. I also had tested loading an earlier save where the undefined elements and undefined thread weren't present and continued my playthrough past the earlier mentioned bloodskaal blade quest but ended up with the same save problem moments after finishing it.

 

I just hope I'm being a huge dunce here and these 'undefined elements' and the 'undefined thread' are no problem whatsoever and there is just a simple problem I am missing. From what I can deduce with my limited knowledge of how Skyrim modding works though I am most positive though that the issue lies within these undefined elements and the undefined thread.

 

This is my loadorder, https://pastebin.com/9qpCWFMr

Wrye Bash also lists all my saves as purple and TES5Edit if I recall loads no errors with my loadorder to speak of.

I almost forgot as well, I'm under the impression that my save game is not bloated as well, according to save game scapel a 'healthy' 600 hour save file is about 25mb whereas mine is approaching 30mb. I feel like it may be teetering on the edge of being bloated but I can't say for sure since there were absolutely zero problems before this in my game.

I did everything you had said with the exception of removing UFO, (going to start that now b/c I initially did not want to remove the mod) but I have a feeling it may possibly be something else I'm missing? My loadorder was pretty messing from the start with all those inconsistencies but I feel like it's either bloating (unlikely since its just whenever I save there isn't any ingame freezing or lag) or I'm just not cleaning my game correctly.

[thejtgamer]

Also wanted to say this, wouldn't removing those mods (Differently Ebony, UFO, and the brawl bug patches) regardless of them being unnecessary cause more CTDs? So far all the 'fixes' I've tried were cleaning the save, and then fixing my load order like you suggested. The explanation that makes the most sense for far is that I have added / removed too many mods in my load order and the game can't handle it. (This is according to the analysis / survey section of save game scalpel)

[thejtgamer]

I looked into my loadorder a bit more thoroughly and noticed I have no BSAs for files that should probably have them as well? I've read that MO can unpack BSAs and have the loose files be handled by the ESPs for their respective mods, would this cause any problems? It seems really odd to me and I'm bewildered that I didn't even notice this before. I'm going to assume it really isn't a problem but nonetheless I am worried and just looking for anything to save my playthrough at this point. Also starting to just be open to restarting a whole new game at this point haha.

[Grospolina]

The problem with uninstalling mods during a playthrough is that scripts may be left over in your save file. So it really depends on whether the mod has scripts or not.

• For SMIM, you'd just be replacing it with the correct version. I don't think it has scripts anyway.
• The brawl bugs fixes do have scripts, but I believe that they're just modifying vanilla scripts.
• Vivid Weathers has scripts, but you're not disabling them. There's a small chance that it could cause problems, depending on whether NLVA uses those scripts or not.
• With aMidianBorn Content Addon, you're not removing the scripts. The content addon ESP essentially merges in the other ESPs.
• For UFO, there's an uninstall procedure. The purpose of an uninstall procedure is generally to make it safe to uninstall by stopping the scripts.
• I don't know about The Dance of Death. You could leave it, as it's not too bad.
• I doubt the grass mods have any scripts.

The purpose of a save game cleaner is to cut out any leftover scripts. Sometimes this can cause problems too if you cut out data that's required by another script but is marked as unused/unknown. Since you've already removed mods and used a save cleaner, it might be too late.

 

As for BSAs, MO's mod extractor is disabled by default. You can toggle it through Settings > Plugins > BSA Extractor. It should ask you if you want to extract a BSA if it's on. Which mods do you think should have BSAs? You can check your BSAs by going to the Archives tab in the right pane.

 

Extracting BSAs in MO would be very similar to enabling the "Have MO manage archives" option checked (found in the Archives tab). If you're not deleting/hidden loose files in individual mods, then I doubt it would cause problems. It's more likely to cause problems if you're using NMM or installing manually, because it's much harder to keep track of what files you're overwriting.

[AlexZander40]

With Mod Organizer, I have made it a habit that my plugin load order in the right pane matches my install order in the left pane. Especially since I have MO manage archives. This ensures files are loaded in the correct order with their plugins and has helped me eliminate some issues.

 

I only use LOOT as a reference for my load order. Too many times LOOT wants to put mods in an order that does not work for me. Instead I will take a look with TESVEdit and determine what mods I want to win override conflicts.

 

And I would not recommend using Dragon Combat Overhaul if you want to play the Dragonborn DLC. DCO severely glitches the final battle with Miraak to the point you can't properly complete it.

[thejtgamer]

Hi! thank you for so many replies everyone, I got back after vacation a while ago and was able to sit down and take a look at my issue and play around with it. I still have and intend to hopefully use the saves from my mentioned playthrough but over this time I had created another playthrough to replicate the issue and managed to do so after about 15-30 hours of gameplay. This is the new load order ect ; https://pastebin.com/Afnc7FEV I mostly got rid of smaller stuff and some things such as Civil War Overhaul and my race mod to lighten things up. My saves in comparison produced somewhat smaller filesizes thankfully. This playthrough was incredibly stable and I was under the impression that it may have even fixed itself, also note I had not uninstalled or installed anything at all during this playthrough and what you see in that pastebin is what I have been using the entire time. However I eventually ran into the problem once more, so far I've only played around with it for all of 15 minutes but assuming its a similar issue there are similar issues with undefined elements and threads. There are also no orphan scripts ect. I plan on working on it a bit more tomorrow or the weekend, and once again thank you for the replies, they are much appreciated!