100% Crash when walking near or fast traveling to Lost Knife Hideout

[andros2733]

I have a quest o kill a bandit chief in the Lost Knife Hideout and every time I walk near

 

the area (literally, if I take one step too far in it's direction it's a 100% CTD) or fast travel there, I get a CTD.

 

I was there before as the area is marked as "clear" and I did manage to fast travel there once, but once again as soon as I took one step I got a CTD.

 

I also tried using the COC lostknifehideout console command to no avail.

 

Here is my mod list attached to this thread.

[bben46]

First guess, Some mod you removed had something critical to the game in it. And when it was removed, The game is still looking for it in that location.

 

To see if this is the problem, Try backing into the area - Don't look until you are well passed where it usually crashes. If, as soon as you look in that direction you get a crash - then the game is trying to load something that no longer exists. This doesn't always work, especially if whatever was removed is some landscape change that affects the entire cell.

 

If a mod is made properly, it should uninstall and remove all references. However, not all mods work properly, and some have what are called 'dirty references' that the maker accidentally put in - usually without even knowing they did it. A mod can change all of a particular object in game when the mod maker only intended to change one particular object in one location.

 

Example, there is a sword that only appears in 3 or four places in game. A mod author makes changes and replaces that sword. Then later decides he doesn't like what he did with that sword and removes it from his mod - not realizing that when his mod loads, it removes ALL instances of that sword from the game. Then when you get to where that sword is supposed to be located - the game attempts to load it - and cant. Most of the time on a small object like a sword, the game is able to recover. (not always)But what if the change was to part of a building that is used in a quest? or a door to a cave?

 

In my first mod, I copied the floorplan of a shop. The new shop worked fine. It was over a week before I had a reason to enter the original shop that I copied the floorplan from. There was no floor and I fell through. It took me longer to fix that problem than to make the original shop. :blush: What I had done is make changes to the floorplan, then erased the original from my mod thinking it was only in my mod.

 

Sometimes the game fixes itself if you wait a long time before going into that area - 3 days to 3 weeks game time should be enough. But anytime you peek, the timer resets.

 

Does any mod you have right now affect that cell? Does any mod you have removed affect that cell?

[andros2733]

Hmm interesting. Out of all the mods that I have listed above I do not know if one of them specifically targets the "Lost Knife Hideout" cell.

 

The only mod that I know for certain would cause CTD's was "Better Villages" and I disabled that a couple of weeks ago.

 

I have installed and disabled other mods as well but I have no idea what those would be and which one would be affecting that cell.

[andros2733]

First guess, Some mod you removed had something critical to the game in it. And when it was removed, The game is still looking for it in that location.

 

To see if this is the problem, Try backing into the area - Don't look until you are well passed where it usually crashes. If, as soon as you look in that direction you get a crash - then the game is trying to load something that no longer exists. This doesn't always work, especially if whatever was removed is some landscape change that affects the entire cell.

 

If a mod is made properly, it should uninstall and remove all references. However, not all mods work properly, and some have what are called 'dirty references' that the maker accidentally put in - usually without even knowing they did it. A mod can change all of a particular object in game when the mod maker only intended to change one particular object in one location.

 

Example, there is a sword that only appears in 3 or four places in game. A mod author makes changes and replaces that sword. Then later decides he doesn't like what he did with that sword and removes it from his mod - not realizing that when his mod loads, it removes ALL instances of that sword from the game. Then when you get to where that sword is supposed to be located - the game attempts to load it - and cant. Most of the time on a small object like a sword, the game is able to recover. (not always)But what if the change was to part of a building that is used in a quest? or a door to a cave?

 

In my first mod, I copied the floorplan of a shop. The new shop worked fine. It was over a week before I had a reason to enter the original shop that I copied the floorplan from. There was no floor and I fell through. It took me longer to fix that problem than to make the original shop. :blush: What I had done is make changes to the floorplan, then erased the original from my mod thinking it was only in my mod.

 

Sometimes the game fixes itself if you wait a long time before going into that area - 3 days to 3 weeks game time should be enough. But anytime you peek, the timer resets.

 

Does any mod you have right now affect that cell? Does any mod you have removed affect that cell?

 

Any suggestions?

Edited May 6, 2012 by andros_forever

[Xotana]

Try to run it in windowed mode to see if it gets past that area, tried it a couple of times on dumb crash areas and it worked. Also, if you have a quad core, try to set core affinity to core 0 and 2 and then try to load and play. This 2 cores only thingy is the only trick that makes my Skyrim load Whiterun saves and others without the eternal load game screen.

[andros2733]

Try to run it in windowed mode to see if it gets past that area, tried it a couple of times on dumb crash areas and it worked. Also, if you have a quad core, try to set core affinity to core 0 and 2 and then try to load and play. This 2 cores only thingy is the only trick that makes my Skyrim load Whiterun saves and others without the eternal load game screen.

 

None of those worked for me unfortunately. After MUCH testing as I have 120+ mods installed right now, I was able to find the CULPRIT mod!

 

It was none other than TYTANIS. After unchecking it I was once again free of instant CTDs around that area.

 

So glad it was that mod and not other population/wander mods like Wars in Skyrim or Warzones, Populus and More Wanderers.

 

Right now my Skyrim world is filled with interesting events between newly generated NPCs, and I also recommend the Interesting NPC's mod that are fully voiced. GREAT work on those characters and it's nice to see them around in different places. For example I met one NPC in Morthal right after finding a cure for Vampirism, then I met him again inside the thieves guild as he apparently was dealing in stolen goods.

 

I find Tytanis to be almost non-affecting to my gameplay of this game, and it hasn't gotten an update in ages. Good riddance I say! Now, I can get back to enjoying this game again stress free :P

[Xotana]

That's good news, have fun.