[LE] Mod testing works fine until one specific area

[TheGhostFollows]

On firing up the game with a new save and starting my mod (it's a new quest and new custom worldspace) everything works perfectly fine. I can even COW to the area that usually crashes, but only if I do it when I first begin the mod.

 

However, If I play through normally and then get to this same area that causes issues I get a CTD. To give some context, here is what is supposed to happen:

 

1. The player goes through roughly half of the mod and then comes to a river which requires a ferry to cross.

 

2. The script for the ferry moves the player to the new location using an XMarkerHeading and PlayerRef.MoveTo(XMarker). This script works perfectly fine and it has been tested dozens of times.

 

I get as far as the load screen, but after a few seconds it crashes. As I said before, it will work FINE if I go to this area at the beginning of the mod. Also, the ferry can take the player to more than one location and that works fine as well. Traveling to the other area works, it is just this one spot and I can't pinpoint why.

 

Also, during testing I have noticed that this area goes through some slow down so maybe that has something to do with it.

 

Is this a memory issue of some kind? I have checked my saves and they don't seem to be bloated, as they barely break 3MB. I am going to try a new script that fades to black and then try to .TranslateToRef instead of .MoveTo which triggers the load screen.

 

If anyone has run into this issue or has suggestions on how to resolve this, let me know.

[maxarturo]

This is a tricky one...

It could be a number of reasons why this is happening.

I had the same exact issue with one of my massive cells in the mod i'm working, whenever i "coc" to do some testing everything were just fine, but whenever i "load" a save after installation, every time i tryed to enter that particular cell the game would immediately CTD.

I spended about 3 weeks searching for the cause and at the end it turn out to be a mesh from a "modders resources"... the nods where all f***k up and the npcs standing right bellow it would get some very weird distortion, causing eventually the CTD.

If in your case this is not the issue, then the next immediate thing that comes to my mind is that you might have set 2 locations sharing the same cell or their borders are overlaping (this has also happened to me in the past).

* Also, try to test your mod without any mods loaded, just your mod, to eliminate the possibility of another mod causing it.

Most probably an animal - npc - monster mod.

Edited May 23, 2019 by maxarturo

[agerweb]

Also, you are testing this with a clean save (as well as no other mods apart from any vanilla DLC you need) aren't you? You can't do anysort of bug hunting unless you are. And have you 'checked for errors' in TesVEdit?

 

If it's not a dodgy modders resource as suggested above another reason for CTD's in specific cells is Skyrim running out of memory because of too much to display.

[TheGhostFollows]

 

This is a tricky one...

It could be a number of reasons why this is happening.

I had the same exact issue with one of my massive cells in the mod i'm working, whenever i "coc" to do some testing everything were just fine, but whenever i "load" a save after installation, every time i tryed to enter that particular cell the game would immediately CTD.

I spended about 3 weeks searching for the cause and at the end it turn out to be a mesh from a "modders resources"... the nods where all f***k up and the npcs standing right bellow it would get some very weird distortion, causing eventually the CTD.

If in your case this is not the issue, then the next immediate thing that comes to my mind is that you might have set 2 locations sharing the same cell or their borders are overlaping (this has also happened to me in the past).

* Also, try to test your mod without any mods loaded, just your mod, to eliminate the possibility of another mod causing it.

Most probably an animal - npc - monster mod.

 

This particular area doesn't use modder's resources and I am only using a single mod which I have integrated into my mod (it hasn't caused any issues anywhere else). Everything else that I am using is simply Skyrim assets. But I do have a question about 2 locations sharing the same cell. How can I tell if a location is doing this or overlapping?

 

 

Also, you are testing this with a clean save (as well as no other mods apart from any vanilla DLC you need) aren't you? You can't do anysort of bug hunting unless you are. And have you 'checked for errors' in TesVEdit?

 

If it's not a dodgy modders resource as suggested above another reason for CTD's in specific cells is Skyrim running out of memory because of too much to display.

Yes, I am using a new save each time I make changes to the .esp. I haven't checked for errors using TESVEdit yet, although I have been using that all along to generate .SEQ files. I just figured that once I boot it up it automatically did that.

 

Thank you both for your time and input. I will use xEdit first to see if I can find the cause and will post it here once I have pinpointed it.

Edited May 24, 2019 by TheGhostFollows

[maxarturo]

If you mean how to accurately see the limits - borders of exteriors cells, i don't know, i didn't spend too much time searching for it, especially since i suspected what the issue was.

When i faced this issue, i just moved one location away from the other.

I selected first the location i didn't want to move, then i choosed a "wilderness" near - close to it, but not too close, and moved the second location.

After this all FPS drop and CTDs stoped.

* You can see the cells borders with NavMesh, you'll see a fat green line at the end - start of each cell.

* As agerweb pointed out, check your render window in CK for the memory used in that particular cell.

[TheGhostFollows]

I have figured out at least one piece of the puzzle since I last wrote here. A highly scripted monster appeared to be causing the CTD issues. That was the only variable I changed and it seemed to do the trick, however, I am now getting CTD in another area which never had the monster in it. *long hard sigh*

 

I don't understand why CK does stuff like this. It's very discouraging, I have been working on this mod for 7 months and now have absolutely NO IDEA how or if my mod will work for other people now.

 

I have checked memory usage in the render window and none of my cells ever break 12%.

 

Maxarturo - to see cell borders, click on the render window and press "b" on the keyboard. This will bring up yellow lines showing the borders of every single cell. This will only work when you are working in a world space though, and they can be hard to see on some types of terrain. I hope this helps for future reference.

Edited May 26, 2019 by TheGhostFollows

[maxarturo]

The only advice i can give you is to do what i do. I'll test every time the cell i'm working after i've finished working in CK, so this way if any bugs appear i'll know that is something that this particular day was added to the mod (narrows it down by far the bug searching process).

Hope your bug hunting does not takes you too long... Thanks for the TIP.

[TheGhostFollows]

I decided to take a look under the terrain to see if there were any objects that I had accidentally pasted en masse and I found something VERY strange. Whenever I looked under the normal terrain, there was ANOTHER terrain that looked like LOD terrain that roughly matched the normal terrain. Is this supposed to happen? Maybe that is eating up resources?