Sneaking suddenly stopped working?

[MightionNY]

So, I'm playing Skyrim for the first time in a few days, and during that time, I didn't update any mods, nor did Skyrim patch. I'm still running the latest version.

 

Tonight, I go to sneak up to some bandits to work on pickpocketing... and even with a maxed Sneak skill, several items enchanted to fortify sneak.... the mobs are seeing me as soon as they look at me. I used to be able to sneak in the open under full sunlight and they'd never see me, but now, suddenly, if a mob has me in line of sight, they see me, pretty much no matter what.

 

I even loaded a way older save (but still with 97 sneak and some sneak boosting items), and they see me there, too.

 

Any idea what happened?

[Perraine]

Bugthesda happened ...'Nuff Said

[RedRavyn]

Like Perraine said ... "Bugthesda happened".

 

I'll bet that the problem is that you've buffed your Sneak higher than 100. There appears to be a bug in the game that when this happens the "bonus" is applied as a "penalty" and your Sneak skill will actually be much less than 100 -- possibly down to noob levels, depending upon your buffs. I understand this same bug occurs with Pickpocket, as well.

 

I've tested this on Sneak (inadvertently) and can verify that Sneak appears to stop working correctly (in version 1.4.x of Skyrim) if I have a Sneak of 100 and am using any sort of buffs (magic items, potions). I've never tested it with Pickpocket, or any other skill, but it wouldn't surprise me if it happens with others, as well.

[zekethefreak]

Whatever it's worth, I had the same issue. At first, I thought it was the keystroke binding on my mouse - it wasn't. I was stuck in sneak mode no matter how many times the sneak mouse button was pressed - nothing. I did find an answer. For some reason the game thought I was trying to do another action. I simply went to an object that would cause me to "stand". e.g. alchemy table, mining ore, etc. Issue was resolved.