CTD loading saves after visit to Solitude - nuking the playlist

[TheMalazan]

Summary: Attempting to load any save after my initial visit to Solitude results in CTD

 

The story... :wallbash:

 

I've been modding this game for years and consider myself knowledgeable enough to contribute assistance on several mod pages. I'd rather be writing about the glowing success I had with engineering an XL playlist than communicating my failure, but maybe someone will benefit from my experience.

 

I spent ~3-4 weeks putting together a list of 650+ mods with a total of 336 plugins, my intent being to use this playlist for a few months.

 

Every plugin examined and cleaned (if necessary) with SSEEdit. Every plugin checked for conflicts and custom overrides made for values I wanted to carry forward. Custom navmesh edits made to resolve issues between mods. Hours of testing and checking for problems. Once satisfied, I christened the vessel and set sail. Everything was smooth as silk. No mods were deleted or added. No changes in load order. Regular checks with ReSaver revealed not one problem. No broken quests. No problems with DynDOLOD or ENB. No problems with levelled lists or my bashed patch. After ~ 40 hours of gameplay, I decided to follow a questline which took me to Solitude for my first visit. In the city I went. Watched the execution, dropped by the Winking Skeever, talked to a quest target, headed to the Blue Palace, picked up two quests, fought a vampire that appeared in the streets, exited the gate and went about my business. Didn't see any problems while in the city.

 

So imagine my surprise when I attempted to open save the next day. After a few seconds of typical floating menu tidbits, CTD. Another attempt, same result. Looked at my last quicksave and tried to load--CTD. Autosaves--CTD. Digging deeper I found saves loaded ok if they were made before Solitude. So I went to the last save before Solitude and started tests. I could go inside the gate and immediately exit, save, and reload no problem. But if I went any further into the city, came back out, saved then tried to load--CTD. For three days I examined Papyrus logs (rarely helpful), SKSE and SSE crashdumps. Every log file for every mod that could produce one. Changed settings in mods such as SSE Engine fixes. Reinstalled mods. ReSaver showed no problems. Examined navmesh. yada yada....not one thing could I find.

 

So, splat, it happens. I've started another playlist test, with a few less mods this time. One thing's for certain, I'm heading straight for Solitude.