Instant crashing with combined mods and interiors not loading properly

[yaqqay]

I wanted to ask a quick question. Are you also having problems with loading multiple major mods at the same time for example Dovahkiin Hideout and Tytanis. And also since the latest patch Interior cells often don't load correctly and the ground is missing. And sometimes i am able to fix that by loading the save again after I restarted skyrim but sometimes like now inside the white castle it doesn't work.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 19, 2012 by yaqqay

[chilewile007]

I had the same problem occasionally before the patch, and now a lot after. Skyrim seems to frequently CTD if I load a save that's in combat and then run until (I can only assume this is what happens) the engine attempts to load another area.

[Galacticat42]

Good lord I have this problem... And only now? Weird. Seeing as this thread is the only hit from Google that fits my problem, would anyone have any suggestions other than quitting completely and reload?

[gsmanners]

Old mods need updating. If it's older than June, it probably won't work with 1.6. Especially those mods that change something in the world, like house mods.

[Hoamaii]

I only have 3 mods that add new cells to the game - house mods, and they've all been carefully updated by their creators after 1.6.

 

Still I get these loading problems a lot too, in Vanilla places only - particularily my Vanilla houses. If I have to give up my mod houses, I'm left with no functional house at all... :facepalm:

[kingrayen]

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/8333

^turn that mod off for now, it bugged me.

[Hoamaii]

Hi to all,

 

In case anybody's still interested in this topic, I did manage to get rid of all my issues and restore a smooth, clean game without having to disable all mods or start a new game. Here's how. (Beware, people who do not read... this is for readers only!... ;0))

 

My problems were various, as mentioned in this thread: CTDs entering specific Vanilla cells (mostly caves, ruins and mines) or sometimes just walking nearby those cells, as well as other cells not loading properly (as in the pix posted by Yaqqay).

 

Though problems happened all at once, it turned out they were more related to a combination of mods and mistakes on my part, rather than specific mods for the most part.

 

 

1. Clean your quest log as much as you can: when the game has too much info to load, it crashes. In my case, I had neglected some quests like delivering bear pelts or frost salts somewhere, a letter or a message somewhere else... These side-quests over-encumber your quest log and they're fairly easy to get rid of, even with a buggy game.

 

Once you've done that, do a quick game reset: that's sleeping for 31 days (cells take 30 days to fully reset) in a non-respawning cell - Breezehome is the easiest one if you've bought the house. Make a new save, don't overwrite an old save. Then check the cells that were troublesome before - see if you've gotten rid of some problems. For me, that simple step helped solve many exterior CTDs, not all - some cells were still not loading properly, but again, not all.

 

 

2. Disable all mods that could introduce a potential change in the CTDing cells:

 

- sometimes it's just a mini-quest that will add an item (key, container, armor) in that cell - once you've retrieved that item, the game may still be looking for it to load, can't find it and you crash.

 

- at other times it may be a graphic mod that edits the meshes of that cell (in my case, a fog remover that edited many caves meshes)

 

In order to understand how exactly your mods affect your game, it is important to check the mod's files contents, they give you a lot of information. If you've downloaded them with NMM, you can still check that by redownloading the files manually and extracting them to your desktop. Also read carefully the mod makers' directions, You don't need to be an expert at modding to do that (I certainly am not), it's a matter of logics most of the time, and a bit of paying attention.

 

Do another "quick" (so to speak, it takes about 30 minutes) reset by sleeping 31 days in Breezehome. (If you have followers, don't forget to dismiss them before you do). Though I could not explain why or how, disabled mods' effects can still linger in the affected cells unless they have fully reloaded. So that step is still necessary. Again, new save. And again, check if you've gotten rid of a few more problems. In my case, I had: caves affected by mini-quests or graphic mods were now loading properly and CTDs were mostly gone. I still had problems with missing textures or items in some Vanilla places: Vlindrel Hall and The Ragged Flagon were the worst.

 

 

3. Examine your remaining mods:

 

At this step, I still had some 50 mods enabled.

 

a - crafting mods & texture replacers: in my experience, crafting mods are the safest, especially standalone items - so I decided to keep all the ones that had never ever bugged once. Replacers are somewhat different as they can affect all NPCs in the game and, again, can cause crashes when the game has too much to load at once. I use UNP, Better Males and No More Blocky Faces but had never had the slightest glitch with them, so I kept them too.

 

But even for those, it's important to check what goes on with the mod and where it comes from. Steam Worshop's mods are auto-updated and of course, may introduce new variables in your game without you even knowing it. So I checked these first - and found out that one of them now required another file to work properly and a couple more had developed into quest-mods. I unsubbed from these - which is not to say that they don't work, only that in the process of cleaning my game, it was not a good idea to let Steam enforce new changes and more potential conflicts I did not have before.

 

All the ones I no longer used or only used a couple of times, I uninstalled them - the least it does is clean your data - and discovered in the process that some Steam's mods can still remain active even after complete uninstall (Argh!..), changes have been saved in your save-games. Not big harm done it seems if it's a hood, but you never know. Have not found a solution to this yet... But that made me decide to uninstall all Steam's mods that had had the slightest glitch before.

 

b - small graphic mods (shadow fix for instance): disabled them all, as they're fairly easy to reenable afterwards.

 

c - AI enhancing mods: I kept them, but only because I could not logically see how they could affect Vlindrel or the Ragged Flagon's textures. I mostly use Amazing Follower Tweaks, Dovahkiin Relaxes Too and Followers Can Relax which have never bugged once in months - but I was still taking chances there, I guess. All anim mods, even the smallest ones like Pretty Weapon Idles for instance, I disabled.

 

d - "small" gameplay mods: a new enchanting table there, new vendors, new perk stones, more smelters, mannequins fix, unlimited bookshelves, automatic items storage, etc. I had many. The changes they make in the game are very targeted, so it is somewhat easier to isolate their potential side-effects than it is with mods that "do it all". My problems remained with enchanting room in Vlindrel not loading and containers or furniture (beds, tables, bookshelves, chests, etc.) missing both in Vlindrel and the Ragged Flagon, as well as entire pieces of walls. Mannequins fix, items storage and unlimited bookshelves are scripted mods from what I understand, they do not add any new item to the game - so I kept these. Every other mod that targeted enchanting tables, I disabled. Also disabled all mods which had not been updated after patch 1.6. But still no change in my game.

 

e. - finally, I was down to house mods. Having disabled all quest mods in the first place, I was only left with 3 houses, all of which were carefully and regularily updated by their creators, especially after patch 1.6. And all of them had, of course, enchanting tables and containers and furniture. I disabled them one after the other, and at some point, Vlindrel Hall reloaded fully. Chances are the "culprit", so to speak, is one of these house mods having copied Vlindrel Hall's enchanting table, which was marked as modified in the CK and overwrote my Vanilla Vlindrel. (I'm completely indebted to SKU11M0nkey, the creator of Breezehome Fully Upgradable for explaining this to me even though I was not using his mod yet - meaning his mod was absolutely not the "culprit"). And since I was the only one to encounter this problem among the many users of that "culprit" house mod (that's why I'm not gonna name it), chances are my problems came from the combination of that house mod with another mod I had which affected enchanting tables.

 

Having finally narrowed down the origins of my problems, I then did a new complete reset of my game and slept again for 31 days in Breezehome (with still about 40 mods enabled - though I would not recommend it), made a new save and deleted all the other saves I made while disabling and reenabling various mods. After which, I verified integrity of cache - be careful to check your game settings after Steam's synch, in my case it keeps resetting shadows and specularity on high which invariably makes me crash. And somehow, all my remaining issues were gone. How it affected the Ragged Flagon, I'll never know I guess but all missing items and textures are now back and fully loaded.

 

Since, I did all this, I've been playing over for 20 hours without a single crash or loading problem. With still my 50 favorite mods running.

 

 

What I've learnt in the process is that in many instances, problems cannot be attributed to one single mod (unless of course, it is notoriously buggy which never fails to be mentioned by its users in the related threads). And when you're not a modding wizard - which I am absolutely not, you're only left with logics, reading (that's the easy part!) and closely monitoring your data and mod files, not to forget always check what Steam's been auto-updating "behind your back".

 

Basically:

- be aware of your own gaming mistakes: don't clog up you quest log, clear it up regularly.

- don't overwrite buggy saves. Erase them.

- regularly reset your game with the 31 days sleep in a non-respawning cell. It fully resets Vanilla cells and most of the times, fixes quest progression issues.

- regularly verify integrity of game cache.

- before installing a new mod or uninstalling another, make clean saves.

- when trying several mods in the same time (I know I do), always do a clean save first, and once you've decided which mods you want to keep, erase all your "try-out" saves, go back to your clean save and install the mods you've chosen one by one.

- download mods manually, check their files, what they do, where they'll go in your data, and what they're called (many files have names that are completely unrelated to the mod's name they come with!). If you can't remember, keep a log of your mods. Always read (and follow) the mod creator's directions.

- uninstall mods you do not use (so easily forgotten!) - double-check your data files when you do, make sure the related files have been deleted (even NMM can let some slip through...).

- be particularly cautious with mods that "do it all", modifying quests, textures, graphics, navmesh, sound, voices, anim, meshes... they intricate so many variables they make it really hard to pin down what has gone wrong.

- be aware that old mods, not monitored by their creators for months can become buggy with new game patches. In doubt, check their related threads.

- don't forcibly try to keep mods that keep bugging - sometimes it's a hard decision, but it still is better than having to start a fresh game...

- understand your load order (thanks Gopher!) and double-check it before launching the game

- if you crash right after one of Steam's synch (happened to me a dozen times at least), chances are Steam changed your settings, make sure to reset them to fit your specs.

- and last but not least: always double-check Steam's auto-updates, mod creators may modify their original mods in a way that will conflict with some other mods you already have. After unsubbing from a Worshop mod, make sure you delete the associated files in the launcher and double-check in your data that the files are really gone - if not, delete them manually (NMM does remove the files 90% of the time, Steam does not).

 

 

Sorry guys, for the loooooong post, I guess non-readers have really been put to a test!.. ;0)

 

But truth is most of our problems cannot be solved in one quick, simple move - or one quick, simple, direction.

 

I just hope this can be of some help to a few of you guys... (and sorry, for the "strange" English, not my native language).

 

Cheers to all :0) I'm happily back to playing smoothly...

[gsmanners]

For resetting cells, it's probably faster if you do:

 

setgs iHoursToRespawnCell 12
setgs iHoursToRespawnCellCleared 12

 

Then wait in some interior location for 13 hours. Then to get the settings back:

 

setgs iHoursToRespawnCell 240
setgs iHoursToRespawnCellCleared 720

 

Or just save, quit and restart your game.