Somewhat random CTDs.

[ThePopeKYA]

Apologize in advance for the block of text. Just wanted to be specific enough

 

Ran into a really frustrating bug recently that hopefully someone can help me out with. I'm one of those players who really likes to immerse myself in the game and so I never quick travel or use carriages. I always walk or ride my horse everywhere in game. This usually leads to a circle around the map as I travel to each hold capital to start or complete quests. My first issue came from Winterhold. I left the town and started heading west to Dawnstar (via a route similar to the one you take to Saarthal) and after traveling a specific distance the game Crashes to Desktop. After reloading with mods turned off and various other tweaks (lowered graphics, verified game cache, deleted ini and the like) the game still CTDs in that area. I can't really clarify because there are no visible landmarks in the area. I decided to ignore this hoping the it might iron itself out later. So I quick-traveled to an area closer to Dawnstar and continued without incident.

 

Later I had made it all the way to Markarth and was doing quests there. One of them is the main quest: Alduin's Wall where you travel to Karthspire. I stopped by Old Hroldan's Inn to deliver a sword to the ghost there and then began making my way to Karthspire. However, a few steps out of the inn and just past a couple of trees between me and the camp, the game CTD very similarly to before. Only now, I can't ignore it because it breaks the main quest for me. Have once again tried removing mods without any change. Always in the same area, just past the trees. Since I hadn't been back to Whiterun, I quick-traveled there to see if the CTD bug was still there as well, which it was. I also tried going to Karthspire from Markarth but get the CTD en route. I have a high end computer capable of silky smooth framerate with Ultra high settings turned on and AA off. I have the latest drivers for my Nividia Geforce as well. (going to try downgrading the drivers to see if that makes a difference. Will update with results).

 

Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

[ThePopeKYA]

Graphic Driver Down grade didn't help. Did discover that it didn't affect a different save, but that save was for a different character near the beginning of the game. if i start over, I may very well run into this issue again.

[Nubblecakes]

I also get random CTDs when I'm traveling on foot or by horse in the open world. I have a lot of mods installed though and I haven't tried narrowing it down or running with all mods completely disabled yet. It could be an isolated incident in my case so I can't confirm that this is a reoccurring issue or anything.

 

I was getting crashes near Whiterun and Riverwood. When trying to ride my horse to Dustman's Cairn to do a quest for the Companions, it just randomly crashed to the desktop with no errors or anything. Traveling to the south east of Whiterun also caused me to crash abruptly. I haven't really crashed anywhere else, though I haven't really explored much either. I had a couple of "player abode" mods installed but disabling them didn't help.

 

It could be an issue caused by the latest patch, but I doubt it.

[symphoni]

I also experience a lot of CTDs randomly when I'm in a dungeon or just exploring outside. It is very frustrating, and depressing, as there is no way to tell what went wrong.

I also have a lot of mods, but I am beginning to think that this might not be mod related at all. This is somethign I have not experienced before, so I can't really tell what the problem is.

Edited May 10, 2012 by symphoni

[ThePopeKYA]

I too get some of those random CTDs without warning when I enter a town or dungeon, but only on occasion. These crashes are weird because they are in a random location and after getting the crash one time, it happens 100% of the time in those exact locations whenever I reload the save. I've been through the area before, but after doing a ton of quests in other holds and returning, I just can't get close enough to karthspire to even see the little camp icon appear on the compass. While the other crashes and hiccups are annoying, re launching Skyrim allows me to proceed, but with this it just flat out breaks the game. Here's hoping some one comes up with a fix soon because its depressing that my favorite PC game is the only one that doesn't run properly.

[symphoni]

This my favourite game too too, but recently, it seems to be very often , and I can have like 2 CTDs in like 20 minutes, and if I'm lucky longer. I doubt it's got any thing to do with my pc specs, as they are well good enough for the game.

[ThePopeKYA]

I managed to fix half my issue. While I doubt this will help most people with CTD's, if anyone has trouble getting close to Karthspire, they can try this.

Basically what I did was quick-travel to reachwater rock. It was the closest place to Karthspire that I had discovered that I coud QT to without an immediate CTD. Its almost directly south of Sky Haven Temple and North West of Reachcliff Cave. I then typed " tcl " into the console and floated my way up to Sky Haven. Making sure to not activate anything but the door into the temple, I clipped through the entire building and past the foresworn. Miraculously, when I exited back into to skyrim through Karthspire cave, the game didn't freeze. What's more I left the cell completely after doing so and was able to quick travel back into the general area without CTDs. Plus I didn't hafta kill any foresworn or advance the quest. Unfortunately, this didn't fix my issue up near Winterhold, but that area was so remote that it can be easily avoided until the end of this playthrough. Anywho, if anyone else has an issue with the Alduin's Wall Quest, here's one more way to try and fix it.

 

Still unsure of what caused this. If anyone figures something else out, please let me know. I don't like knowing Winterhold is still bugged.