Steam is killing me!..

[Hoamaii]

New Steam stunt last night: I was fighting a hord of Draugrs when suddenly my game crashes to desktop. After so many hours in Skyrim, you develop a 5th sense about CTDs, you kind of know "in your guts" wether it may come from mods, from your settings, from the game itself or... simply out of nowhere. "Out of nowhere" being usually Steam from my experience.

 

So I immediately re-open Skyrim launcher, and what do I see: Steam completely redownloading from scratch half of my Workshop's mods as if I had never subscribed at all. I open the Workshop to check if by any impossible chance, this good half-dozen ooold mods had been updated the very same minute of the very same day by their creators - but of course not!.. :ohdear: what's become of my precious mod armors I've spent so much time tempering and enchanting?!..

 

And while Steam putters along its unnerving, endless process of downloading, checking and synchronizing, I dig through my game logs looking for a culprit. And the only logs I found registering an event at the same time as my crash is Steam's debug.log (in the Steam files, not in the Skyrim directory) reading endless lines of:

 

[0730/135555:ERROR:backend_impl.cc(2123)] Corrupt Index file

[0730/135555:ERROR:cache_util_win.cc(48)] Unable to move the cache: 5

[0730/135555:ERROR:backend_impl.cc(134)] Unable to move cache folder

[0730/135555:ERROR:backend_impl.cc(264)] Unable to create cache

[0731/211631:ERROR:backend_impl.cc(2123)] Corrupt Index file

[0731/211631:ERROR:cache_util_win.cc(48)] Unable to move the cache: 5

[0731/211631:ERROR:backend_impl.cc(134)] Unable to move cache folder

[0731/211631:ERROR:backend_impl.cc(264)] Unable to create cache

 

as well as the "GameOverlayUI.exe.log" reading:

 

mer. août 01 03:23:33 2012 UTC - Detected possibly crashed/killed game, exiting

mer. août 01 03:23:33 2012 UTC - Shutting down overlay

 

No error message at all in the Skyrim logs... Damn!

 

Meanwhile, Steam has finished its downloading process and seems fairly satisfied of its job (that usually makes me suspicious) - I check some more: of course, it has completely changed my settings again to a config that I know for a fact will make me crash, and also completely rearranged my load order in a way that cannot work at all... :wallbash:

 

So I spent another hour fixing my 80 or 90 mods load order manually twice (both with NMM and in Steam launcher - maybe I did not need to do both?) - and tweaking my settings for the hundredth time in a way that fits my computer specs.

 

When finally I am able to relaunch my game, I carefully reproduce the exact steps and conditions that led to the previous unexplainable crash but -- nope, this time everything goes perfectly fine.

 

All right then, I guess I only have Steam to thank for another night of "fun" gaming spent digging through my data files, logs and settings instead of actually playing!..

 

Trouble is if I disable Steam in-game synchronizing and damn auto-update, it simply won't let me launch the game!.. I really feels like I'm being taken hostage here and I hate the feeling!..

 

Truth is I'm more than willing to accept CTDs and bugs that come with modding - mod creators are not paid for their incredible work, they make my game a lot more fun and I am not expecting them to deliver 100% Skyrim-proof pluggins, they're not Bethesda after all. I'm also willing to accept Bethesda's endless goofs and bugs because they gave (well... sold) me a great game (and actually, mods do not bug more than the game itself). But I am not willing to accept Steam's stupid crashes and enforced errors!.. I did not ask for it, do not need it, it is nothing more than a brainless "Big Brother" watching everything I do, and it's been nothing but a complete pain in my game ever since I started playing Skyrim on PC!.. :mad:

 

Please, please, does any of you guys know a way I could bypass Steam's endless patrols in my game?..

 

Thanks a lot for any advice you may offer!..

 

Cheers to all from Paris :0)

 

PS. and if any of you understands what the errors in my Steam debug.log are, that might help me a lot too!.. Thanks again!

[sinnerman69]

If you had steam online your game could of updated in the last few days to patch patch 1.7 it went live a few days ago from beta and any mods in your game might be outdated and not work properly with the latest patch!..

 

right click on TESV and go to properties and then the detail tab and look in the meddle above the copyright words well be the patch version your exe is too

 

both skse and script dragon have been updated for patch 1.7

Edited August 1, 2012 by sinnerman69

[Hoamaii]

@sinnerman69:

 

Well actually yes, my game version is 1.7 but it had been updated 24 hours before I crashed. Plus I'm only left with "simple" mods from the Workshop, and the ones that Steam re-dowloaded in full after crash were just armor mods. I can't think of any reason why armor mods should need updating after the latest patch unless it fixes some crafting or tempering issues (I'm not an expert though, could be totally wrong about this...).

 

And yes, I've also experienced crashes when Steam downloads patches while you're playing, but I don't think that's what happend yesterday.

 

I don't use script dragon, should I?

[Rabbit1251]

If you set Steam to Offline Mode you can avoid unexpected updates to your game. Just go back to Online when you want to update again.

 

 

Rabbit

[Hoamaii]

@ Rabbit 51:

 

Yep, I've tried that, the thing is if I check the offline box, it blocks the launcher and won't let me start my game... I'll double check, thanks!

[Hoamaii]

Damn, it just happened again!.. :wallbash:

 

Can't launch the game without Steam redownloading my Workshop mods and rearranging my load order!.. Between downloads and resetting my load order straight in the Mod Manager, it takes me a good hour of fuming before I can actually start playing the game. This is making me crazy...

 

Please, please, can someone tell me how to force offline playing? When I uncheck the in-game synch in my settings, the launcher simply refuses to launch the game... I'm out of ideas here...

 

Thanks a million in advance!

 

PS. Yes, yes, I own a fully licenced copy of Skyrim (2 in fact, as I have the PS3 version too).

[Rabbit1251]

Tell Steam that you want to go offline. Let Steam continue to run in the background (it always starts up for me even though I do play offline). Then try starting your game. See if that helps.

 

 

Rabbit

[Hoamaii]

@ Rabbit:

 

"Tell" them I want to go offline? You mean write them an email or something like that? We are not given the option to play offline in their setting window? (can't find that option, I have to admit...)

 

Sorry if my questions sound stupid, but I really feel stuck here... How did you manage to play offline?

 

Many, many thanks for your help...

[sinnerman69]

Go to the top left hand corner of your steam application and look for the word Steam and click it and a pull down menu well appear and right after the word change user in the pull down menu you'll either see the option online or offline, my steam is in offline, choose one

 

If you still don't understand look for a youtube walkthrough on what to do, I'm sure youtube has a steam help video

Edited August 1, 2012 by sinnerman69

[Hoamaii]

@ Sinnerman69:

 

Yeah, I do understand (did I look so helpless? :facepalm:), it's just that I never paid attention to that part of the Steam menu (I'm only there for Skyrim, no intention of buying anything there) - I was looking for an offline option in the "properties" window of their "Library" page and in their settings boxes where you sort of config your Steam usage...

 

Thanks a lot for pointing that out to me, that's exactly what I'll do right now!

 

Earlier tonight, Steam released a new client update, stating it fixes errors and crashes with their "Game Overlay UI" - it now makes sense and looks pretty much like what I was experiencing... except their update did not fix a thing... I swear, when I see so many people in the forum only thinking modding or GPU issues when they crash, I feel like "come on, check Steam too!.."

 

Anyway, thanks man, you've just lightened my night!.. Cheers from Paris ;D