Possible Fix for CTD with Dungeon Mods

[garghuul]

Initially I encountered a problem: It seemed that a number of dungeon-crawl style mods were conflicting with each other. That is to say I could only have one of them active at the same time.

On the ambitious thought I could fix the problem, I tried opening all of them together in the Creation Kit. The only mutual conflict I could find was an object called "00012fb4

Further exploration found the full name of the object to be NAVI(00012fb4).

The Creation Kit could find the object using search-for text, but usually encountered errors or locked up/crashed trying to manipulate the object.

Opening the .esp of each mod with TESsnip (Initially the FOMM version, now TESVSnip) I found the item listed under GRUP(NAVI) and thinking it was some sort of data-artifact I deleted it. This seemed to clear up the problem for most of the mods I had this conflict issue with.

 

I was later told (Thankyou Ghuanaduar) NAVI(00012fb4) is the formID which allows NPCs to use doors to transition from one zone to another, and thus not a data-artifact and is supposed to exist. Experimentation showed that if the altered .eps was loaded in the CK it would re-create the file when it corrected the file header. However the corrected file would still not cause a CTD or delayed freeze when loaded with any of the other mods when they were altered in a similar manner.

I believe the CK detecting NAVI(00012fb4) as an object is a bug in and of itself, and not directly related to the issue.

It may be that some sort of mis-match occurred between mods made before the CK was patched to 1.5 and those made after, as "refreshing" NAVI(00012fb4) by deleting it with TESVSnip and then having the CK re-create it does not appear to cause the problem to recur. Honestly this is only a guess on my part, I am simply not knowledgable enough about the CK and the timeline of patches to say with any certainty.

 

The mods I had the issue with were:

 

Gardens of Z-en

Obsidian Caverns

Ancient Eldergleam Sanctuary

The Bigger they are

Realms of the Daedra

Hall of Warlords

Terramis' Forgotten Dungeon

 

This "fix" did not prevent CTD/Freezing when the above were loaded with

Markarth Undercity

Waking Nightmare II

 

Strangely if I deactivate the Deus Mons player home, I can load Waking Nightmare II with the first list of mods after I alter the files. Dues Mons does not seem to conflict with the other mods, and I am not currently confident in editing an .esm like I do the .esps. For one the CK doesn't let me save changes to an .esm, even when correcting the file-header during load-in. Deus Mons does not otherwise seem to conflict with the first list of mods.

 

My general system specs were:

Windows 7 64bit Ultimate, 6 GB RAM, GeForce GTX570 video card with 295.73 drivers.

Over the course of the initial process of searching for conflicting mods I ended up deactivating all other mods except those mentioned.

As far as I can tell, deleting and re-creating GRUP(NAVI) does not affect custom navmeshing by mod creators.

 

If anyone can shed some light on the issue, or let me know the "fix" works for them as well, please do so in this thread.

 

Thankyou to Terramis and Ghuanaduar for discussion in a different thread on this topic,

[MShoap13]

When the CK recreated the object in all of the .esp plugins, did it give them all the same Form ID (00012fb4), or did it give each of them a new, unique, Form ID?

 

Either way, this sounds like it should be reported to Bethesda as a patch may be able to clear up the issue causing the CTD. There's a good chance they're already aware of this issue, but they may not be, so...

[garghuul]

When the CK recreated the object in all of the .esp plugins, did it give them all the same Form ID (00012fb4), or did it give each of them a new, unique, Form ID?

 

Either way, this sounds like it should be reported to Bethesda as a patch may be able to clear up the issue causing the CTD. There's a good chance they're already aware of this issue, but they may not be, so...

It gives them the same formID, but different subrecords. As it was explained to me this is as it should be, I presume skyrim adds additional subrecords to its Master Navi in the esm during the loading process. It is not like an Editor ID.

I'll take a peek at the bethsoft forums to see if there is mention of this.

[garghuul]

Took me long enough eh? Seems they are already aware of the issue.

 

http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1361767-navmesh-bugs-part-iii/page__hl__formid%2000012fb4__st__180

 

To reiterate the process that seems to "fix" a conflicting mod:

 

1) Get the CK and TESVsnip

2) Load the .esp of the conflicting mod into TESVsnip

3) Locate and select the GRUP(NAVI) entry in the main tree

4) Press Delete.

5) Save the file.

6) Open the CK and load in the .esp of the conflicting mod.

7) You should get a series of error messages, one of which will report the form count of a given file is different from the file header.

8) Select "Yes" to the message.

9) Save the .esp when you are able.

10) Disable the original .esp in your load order, and enable the file you saved instead.

11) Profit.

Edited May 7, 2012 by garghuul

[Ghaunadaur]

1) Get the CK and TESVsnip

2) Load the .esp of the conflicting mod into TESVsnip

3) Locate and select the GRUP(NAVI) entry in the main tree

4) Press Delete.

5) Save the file.

6) Open the CK and load in the .esp of the conflicting mod.

7) You should get a series of error messages, one of which will report the form count of a given file is different from the file header.

8) Select "Yes" to the message.

9) Save the .esp when you are able.

10) Disable the original .esp in your load order, and enable the file you saved instead.

11) Profit.

 

This is a good fix. I personally think, if every author of a dungeon/house mod did so, there will be less conflicts and crashes.

 

But let me say, that it is not related to the correction of the file header. Every time you add/delete anything in TESVSnip and then load it in CK, you will get this message, unless you correct the record count manually. If you delete the NAVI group in TESVSnip, CK will add it anyway.

 

One last addition to the authors who are forced to use a esm/esp combination because of the navmesh bug: I think it's better to keep the NAVI data in the .esp file and only move the NAVM, the navmesh itself, to the .esm. That makes it easier to handle possible load order issues. In my testings, the navmesh keeps working, no navmesh bug. Would be interesting to me if anyone else tested it.

[garghuul]

But let me say, that it is not related to the correction of the file header. Every time you add/delete anything in TESVSnip and then load it in CK, you will get this message, unless you correct the record count manually. If you delete the NAVI group in TESVSnip, CK will add it anyway.

 

So it doesn't matter if you click yes or no, so long as you load it into the CK and save?

Edited May 7, 2012 by garghuul

[Ghaunadaur]

But let me say, that it is not related to the correction of the file header. Every time you add/delete anything in TESVSnip and then load it in CK, you will get this message, unless you correct the record count manually. If you delete the NAVI group in TESVSnip, CK will add it anyway.

 

So it doesn't matter if you click yes or no, so long as you load it into the CK and save?

 

Yes, I believe that's the case.

[polynike]

Is it safe to hit 'yes to all' for all the other error messages that pop up?

[Ghaunadaur]

Is it safe to hit 'yes to all' for all the other error messages that pop up?

 

If the error messages are related to Skyrim.esm, yes.

But look at the warnings caused by your loaded mod(s), maybe it gives information about duplicated FormIDs or EditorIDs.

[shardiru]

Got a question to expand on this, as I believe you stumbled upon a fix for a problem I've been banging my head against for the last week. Think it would be possible to fix .esm based mods by using wrye bash to first copy the esm to an esp, making change in TESVSnip, loading esp in CK, then copying the fixed esp back into an esm with wrye bash?