Freezing When Choosing a Perk Upon Level Up (with a twist)

[darkfox85]

Okay.

 

So I have a classic Fallout 3 bug: the game crashes when choosing a perk on the level up screen. I choose the perk I want and the game freezes forcing me to cnt-alt-del out of the game.

 

But after searching about it on google I think my situation is a little different to most others.

 

See, I know (know) it’s my own personal mod that causing the crash (or is at least party responsible.) When trying to level up without my mod installed, all is fine. I need to know what my mod might be doing to the game so I can amend my mod and see it doesn’t happen again.

 

But the freezing might also be a case of save file corruption. A few days back I had the other classic problem where trying to quick save or provoking an auto save would cause a CTD. And yes, killing myself actually worked (a common solution to that problem – stupid, but effective.)

 

The official DLC and my own personal mod are the only mods I have running (so there shouldn’t be a mod conflict.) I’ve just hit level 14.

 

And I don’t want to start another file without a somewhat decent guarantee that I won’t encounter this problem again. I’d quite like to post this mod someday.

 

Thank you for reading this.

[prensa]

darkfox85 - Hello!

 

". I need to know what my mod might be doing to the game so I can amend my mod and see it doesn’t happen again. "

 

FO3Edit is the best tool for looking at what a mod changes in vanilla:

 

http://fallout3.nexusmods.com/mods/637

 

Make a Backup of your mod BEFORE you make any changes with FO3Edit as you don't want to break it & find out there's no way back. :)

 

Run FO3Edit with your mod ticked & wait for it to load, scroll down to your mod & expand it's details by clicking on the +.

 

Now work your way through the headings under your mod & look for changes you may have made by accident.

 

Things that you may find suspect you can left click on & they will be displayed in the right hand window of FO3Edit. There will be a column for each of the mods/vanilla game making changes to vanilla assets.

 

You may be able to spot a change you made by accident & remove it either in FO3Edit or load your mod up in GECK.

 

Hope this helps!

 

Prensa

[darkfox85]

snip

 

Hiya Prensa!

Thanks for getting back to me.

 

Okay. So I took an extra close look in F3Edit.

 

I look through everything and all the stuff I’ve edited in my mod all seems to be highlighted green and not in any trouble. New stuff I’ve added is just in white and seems to be in order. If there is an error in my mod, the editor isn’t telling me about it. And, more importantly, I’ve made thousands of changes and added a ton of new stuff. Going through every tiny thing manually trying to figure out what’s causing the freeze error would be impossible. Not to mention impossible to tell if there's been a fix without some heavy playing.

 

But then I do find some errors. At least I think they’re errors. They’re highlighted in red which always gets my attention. But they seem to be related to Broken Steel.

 

They are:

 

FormID List

RepairFalmer, RepairGattlingLaser, RepairScoped44Magnum (I have no idea what’s the problem with these.)

 

Quest

MQ11 Take It Back (seems to be a minor problem involving GNR radio. I don’t get it.)

 

Actor Effect

WithdrawalAlcohol (seems to be related to the party boy/girl perk, but I can’t tell what (if anything) needs to be fixed)

 

Weapon

Col Autumn’s laser pistol. (DNAM is highlighted in red: I don’t know what this means. And Attack shots/sec also seems to be having some sort of problem.)

 

World Space

DcWorld10 L’enfant Plaza. Something called “Object Bounds” has been highlighted in red.

 

I’m not sure what I need to do to fix these things (if they do need fixing.) I don’t know if everyone gets these errors? I can take screenshots if that’s what needs to be done?

 

Oh Prensa! If you were a God I’d offer you a virgin sacrifice.

Why doth my modeth hateth me so? :(

[blove]

Take a look at FOOK 2 Level Up Freeze Fix 1-3 by Phil26 and level up freeze fixes for FWE MMM OA DLC ver 2 by delamer. They might help to pinpoint your freeze.

[prensa]

darkfox85 - Hello!

 

"But then I do find some errors. At least I think they’re errors. They’re highlighted in red which always gets my attention. But they seem to be related to Broken Steel."

 

In FO3Edit Red is not necessarily an error, it means "Conflict loser". What it means is that record is being overwritten by another mod lower in the load order.

 

This can be intended, for instance if you change the Chinese Assault rifle into a daisy in your mod but another mod loading below yours also changes it, your Chinese Assault rifle record will show up Red.

 

So not all Red records are bad. They are worth checking out as you may be changing something that was unintended.

 

Green & yellow can also mean changes to the vanilla content, they may be intended or not.

 

It may seem painful to go through the so many records but you'd be surprised how many accidental changes you can spot & correct.

 

You can use the FormID that is at the Far left of FO3Edit to help spot vanilla content changes fast.

 

Your mod added content will have it's unique items numbered with it's Mod Index number, say your mod was 6F then all it's unique stuff would be 6F007136 or the like.

 

Any modified vanilla content would stand oout as it will be their Mod Index number like 00 for Fallout3.esm. You may have intended the changes but it's worth checking to make sure.

 

Just remember to always make a backup of your mod first. :)

 

As to trying to further narrow down a cause...

 

I know you said you were sure it was your mod but as blove mentions, FOOK did indeed had a freeze bug on level up.

 

It was reportedly caused by scripts being attached to either the Power Armor Helmet or the Outcast Power Armor Helmet.

 

I can't confirm that as I've never used FOOK, but that seems to have been an issue with that mod. The fixes in the links blove gave remove the scripts from those items.

 

So if you use FOOK or if your mod is adding scripts to power armor helmets would be worth checking to see if removing them fixes your trouble.

 

I also know that an old version of MMM used to have a level up freeze, 6.0 I believe but it was. It was fixed in 6.1/6.2 so it would only be that if you are using an old version.

 

Hope this helps!

 

Prensa

[darkfox85]

Hi.

 

Sorry I’ve not responded for a while. There’s a part of me that’s soooo sick to look at Fallout 3 and in trying to load it up for the umpteenth time.

 

snip

 

I tried playing with those two file packs, but it just caused the game to crash on launch. I really should’ve known it would – I’ll have a closer look at the files one day and hope for the best. Thanks.

 

snip

 

I’m really not sure if I can look through all the changes I made. It’ll take a very long time and like I said I’m kind of sick of Fallout 3. I think my F3 days are over. And no way am I starting that mod AGAIN. I’ll go through everything one day; one very tiring day.

 

But then again, if FOOK (which I still don’t know what it stands for) had a problem with scripts attached to apparel, it’s made me think.

 

I have a perk that allows the player to disguise as certain factions [regulator, talon, commie and enclave officer.] With this perk, apparels have certain scripts attached to them [in object effect.] Maybe I could try deleting them. I suppose it’s worth a shot?

 

But then again, why has it started crashing now? Why not earlier? Maybe I'll ask again someday.

 

If it doesn’t work, 645 hours clocked [not counting an unknown number of hours played offline.] Maybe it’s time to get a life?

 

A big thanks for your help. If there’s anything I can do for you at all, let me know.

[Purr4me]

Hi.

 

Sorry I’ve not responded for a while. There’s a part of me that’s soooo sick to look at Fallout 3 and in trying to load it up for the umpteenth time.

 

snip

 

I tried playing with those two file packs, but it just caused the game to crash on launch. I really should’ve known it would – I’ll have a closer look at the files one day and hope for the best. Thanks.

 

snip

 

I’m really not sure if I can look through all the changes I made. It’ll take a very long time and like I said I’m kind of sick of Fallout 3. I think my F3 days are over. And no way am I starting that mod AGAIN. I’ll go through everything one day; one very tiring day.

 

But then again, if FOOK (which I still don’t know what it stands for) had a problem with scripts attached to apparel, it’s made me think.

 

I have a perk that allows the player to disguise as certain factions [regulator, talon, commie and enclave officer.] With this perk, apparels have certain scripts attached to them [in object effect.] Maybe I could try deleting them. I suppose it’s worth a shot?

 

But then again, why has it started crashing now? Why not earlier? Maybe I'll ask again someday.

 

If it doesn’t work, 645 hours clocked [not counting an unknown number of hours played offline.] Maybe it’s time to get a life?

 

A big thanks for your help. If there’s anything I can do for you at all, let me know.

---------------------------

Provide me with both the last save game you had, when the CTD occurs, and the mod in question, Via PM links, I'll see what I can find out for you.

Kitty.

[darkfox85]

His nibs!

It bloody worked!

 

I don’t know if it’s a case of causation/correlation fallacy because I did tinker with some other things, but I’m 80% sure that removing my new scripts from the apparel cleared up the error! I don’t know how or why but apparently that worked.

 

A big thanks to everyone! It looks like my modding days aren’t quite over yet!

 

Also, cheers Purr4me. It’s good to know there’re folk like you who have our backs.

 

I’ve got some serious work to do and then another long play test. Hopefully I won’t need to bother the community again.