Mass Freezes And Crashes

[ArchAngelAlien]

I've done a few hours of in game play to test my mods to see if it's obviously unstable. Not sure if this is due to my dirty edits, or UDR (or w/e) I have not cleaned yet but I am encountering CTDS when loading certain areas. My Log file that documents the scripts is basically in another language, and I cannot pinpoint the issue. I am under the suspicion it's due to a corrupted save, but I never removed or installed anything. They sure do make this hard don't they? Why can't they make things easy?

[DemongelRex]

Claralux is a ctd monster. You should remove that mod.

Any overhaul mods should be installed with a new game.

Make sure two different mods do not overwrite the same things, they cause lag, crashes and ctds.

If it is a location based ctd, papyrus logs do not help. In that case, you must try the process of elimination, and trust me, it sucks.

A quick way to discover location based ctds is to use the flyable broomstick mod and fly around skyrim very fast to see if any ctds occur.

Try again. If you keep crashing at a certain area, start removing mods.

[ArchAngelAlien]

I removed Claralux a while while back because I was using it in conjunction with Lanterns of Skyrim, (lol) and had no idea. I am getting alot of wierd errors lately. In the process of cutting some mods and doing another stability test. Nearly a month of work, and still have no done a serious play yet.

[ArchAngelAlien]

I think these CTDs may be caused by dirty edits, or UDRs so I have decided to clean my files and make a level list batch pack. Last time I cleaned my files I did it incorrectly. What is the proper way to clean your files without damaging them?

[Jason2112]

You said your new to modding then show a list of 100 mods.

Building a mod list is like building a card house. You have to go slow step by step.

Edited February 12, 2013 by Jason2112

[ArchAngelAlien]

If by going slow you mean starting a game and adding more mods as I go, then that is even more time consuming than what I am doing now. I've done extensive research on all my mods. Most of them are in fact texture mods, with only a select few scripted mods that should all play nicely with each other. One of the issues I am currently facing is cleaning my mods, and cleaning up reproccer. I get alot of errors on missing animations for reproccer that I need to set manually. Trust me, I have been doing this for weeks and have yet to even enjoy the game.

 

One thing I noticed is BOSS does not include a list of Dirty or UDR files for unrecognized plugins, but the mod authors say to leave them in the bottom of your list and I never thought about cleaning them. The game in the outside world for a few hours is stable. It's when I go into a building (with dirty edits and UDRS) that I crash when it cannot find something specific. You can look on the outside of the problem, and say I have too many mods, but finding the issues and incompatibilities with a large load order is easier by disabling items and seeing what conflicts. Alot of mods I have selected require fresh saves. I don't want to restart my game for another 2 weeks searching for incompatibilities by starting off slow and building my house of cards. I build my house, then look for weak joints and remove them.

[ArchAngelAlien]

I am currently having an issue of this:

 

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/TwRA6Tm.png

 

 

 

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/nceKKzQ.png

 

 

Also all my refined silver weapons are grey and missing information.

Edited February 12, 2013 by ArchAngelAlien

[ripple]

1) Don't clean the compatibility patches (ReProccer and Bashed Patch). Do rebuild them every time your load order changes.

 

2) Three steps to cleaning plugins in TE5Edit: load all plugins, apply filter for cleaning (wait), remove identical to master entries, undelete/disable deleted references. For recognized plugins, clean only those flagged by BOSS as containing 'dirty edits.' For the unrecognized plugins, clean all of them unless the mod author specifically says otherwise (and even then, I would want to verify the reason they do not want it cleaned). Clean a plugin only once, do not repeat cleaning.

 

3) If you really insist on a large load order and a (relatively) stable game, you will need to make your own compatibility patches. Load orders do not resolve conflicts, they only mitigate them. The only way to truly resolve conflicts is to merge the different changes in a conflicting record through a compatibility patch (although some conflicts cannot be merged, because they are actually 'true conflicts), which you have to do manually via utilities like TES5Edit. For example, the bottom of my load order looks like this:

 

zMy Different Race Different Bodies.esp
zMy Sorting and Weight Adjustiments.esp
zMy ArmourEdits.esp
zMy Merchant Modifications.esp
zMy Level List Edits.esp
zMy Wildlife Edits.esp
zMy Character Settings Edits.esp
zMy NPC Edits.esp
zMy NPC Compatibility Patch.esp
zMy Weapons Compatibility Patch.esp
zMy Race Compatibility Patch.esp
zMy Effects Compatibility Patch.esp
zMy Armour Compatibility Patch.esp
zMy Perks Compatibility Patch.esp
zMy Leveled List and Containers Patch.esp
zMy Lighting Patch 2.esp
Bashed Patch, 0.esp
Automatic Variants.esp

The first few are my own personal mods, and some contain records that override the other mods in my load order. My compatibility patches make merges for conflicting records not covered by a Bashed Patch, or in cases of 'true conflicts', I use my compatibility patch to prioritize the edits from the mod whose changes I would like to see if the mod is loading early in the load order and being 'overriden.' The ReProccer is supposed to automate the merging of some records not covered by the Bashed Patch, but it does so only with those relevant to SkyRe's changes. Manually made compatibility patches cover the gap.

 

You really need only one personally made compatibility patch to cover all the conflicting records not merged by ReProccer and the Bashed Patch. I have like 8 of them because 1) I don't use SkyRe, and has no need of the ReProccer, which in any event is not yet mature enough to do the things I want; 2) I want to keep my patches modular, so it will be much easier to update them when it become necessary--for example, when the mods I use are updated. But to do all of this, you'll need to become much more familiar with reading records in TES5Edit.

 

4)

One thing I noticed is BOSS does not include a list of Dirty or UDR

files for unrecognized plugins, but the mod authors say to leave them in

the bottom of your list and I never thought about cleaning them.

Never let a plugin not recognized by BOSS load at the end of the load order, after your compatibiity patches (Bashed Patch and dynamtically generated compatibility patches from SkyProc utilities like AV, ASIS, and the ReProccer) no matter what the mod author says. If the mod contains conflicting records and override the compatibility patches, it makes the compatibility patches useless. If it doesn't contain conflicting records and won't override the compatibility patches, then it doesn't need to load after the patches. So either way, it shouldn't go after a compatibility patch.

Edited February 12, 2013 by ripple

[ArchAngelAlien]

You never cease to bring new information that makes me just want to steer clear from using mods Ripple. It's just problem after problem.. after problem. Now I have to make my own compatibility patches? Seriously, when does this end? Are mods seriously this hard to use? This is getting extremely ridiculous.

 

All I know how to do, is install mods and click play. I've spent the last 4 days trying to figure out Reproccer and why alot of my weapons are grey and missing animations. This is just getting to the point where it is not worth it anymore. This is the one of the hardest things I have ever seen done. Why can't they streamline this process? Why do I have to jump over 355 fences to load the game? Did they not think of all of this before hand?

 

I need to make compatibility patches, and I don't even know how to make a batch patch. It seems this was all designed for only the mod makers in mind, because this is not all setup for the casual gamer to enjoy. I've spent nearly 1 month working on this, and have gotten nowhere. Now I need to make my own ESPs? Seriously when does this end?

 

I am stuck. I am awaiting responses from mod authors on why I am seeing errors occur in TES5Edit for many things. All I want to do is enjoy an enhanced version of Skyrim, and I feel like I have to program the game myself to enjoy it. I can't do this by myself. I need hands on help with somebody not on a forum who is willing to help me straighten this out, or just move on and forget about Skyrim. I can only read so many readme's.

Edited February 13, 2013 by ArchAngelAlien

[ripple]

ArchAngelAlien, on 12 Feb 2013 - 19:46, said:

You never cease to bring new information that makes me just want to steer clear from using mods Ripple. It's just problem after problem.. after problem. Now I have to make my own compatibility patches? Seriously, when does this end? Are mods seriously this hard to use? This is getting extremely ridiculous.

 

All I know how to do, is install mods and click play. I've spent the last 4 days trying to figure out Reproccer and why alot of my weapons are grey and missing animations. This is just getting to the point where it is not worth it anymore. This is the one of the hardest things I have ever seen done. Why can't they streamline this process? Why do I have to jump over 355 fences to load the game? Did they not think of all of this before hand?

 

I need to make compatibility patches, and I don't even know how to make a batch patch. It seems this was all designed for only the mod makers in mind, because this is not all setup for the casual gamer to enjoy. I've spent nearly 1 month working on this, and have gotten nowhere. Now I need to make my own ESPs? Seriously when does this end?

 

I am stuck. I am awaiting responses from mod authors on why I am seeing errors occur in TES5Edit for many things. All I want to do is enjoy an enhanced version of Skyrim, and I feel like I have to program the game myself to enjoy it. I can't do this by myself. I need hands on help with somebody not on a forum who is willing to help me straighten this out, or just move on and forget about Skyrim. I can only read so many readme's.

 

Skyrim for PC is intended to be modded. It's not intended to be 'heavily modded.' Think about it....Bethesda didn't do anything to support modding Skyrim other than releasing a stripped down version of the developer tool that crashes more often than a heavily modded Skyrim. All you have to do is look to the pinned messages in the technical forum to see all the 'work arounds' modders has had to come up with because official update version X has broken game feature Y and messed up mod NPC dialogues, dragon soul absorption, or engine script Z.

 

It may seem like there are a lot of Skyrim mod users, but we constitute a tiny minority of the total number of Skyrim players from PC to consoles--we barely matter. Every tool we use to maintain the stability of load orders has been made by players, not Bethesda. Compound this with the fact that a 'modder' can range from a professional game developer modding Skyrim part-time to any monkey who can save an esp in the Creation Kit, and you have your answer about why the process of maintaining a large load order is so time consuming. As BBen's signature says, we often spend more time troubleshooting mods than playing.

 

Now, you don't -have- to make your own compatibility patches. That was just a suggestion. Programs like xxxxEdit and Wrye Bash were suppose to displace manual patches with dynmatically generated ones based on the plugins in our individual load orders. They did that for Oblivion and Fallout 3. Unfortunately, these tools had to be rewritten for Skyrim, and they are simply not mature enough yet to displace the need for manually made compatibility patches (or at least edited merged patch, which is the method I was going to recommend).

 

Think of my suggestion as the 'next step' (if you ever get past this step...). Nothing more. It's what I do to mitigate and prevent random CTDs in my own setup. It took me days, not hours, to make those compatibility patches. But that's days I am -not- spending tracking down inexplicable CTDs. However, if you think just by loading a ton of conflicting mods in a particular order will magically resolve mod conflicts and ensure a relatively CTD-free experience.....well, that might be a bit 'ridiculous.' If you are running, say, 6 mods, it would be overkill to use BOSS to manage such a load order. If they were small mods that did entirely different things, a Bashed Patch wouldn't be necessary. Even if you didn't clean them in TES5Edit, if probably wouldn't matter.

 

But you didn't install just 6 mods, you installed 60 or so. So now you are trying to get mods made by 60+ different people to play nicely with each other, so yeah, it's going to take some effort to make everything run (relatively) smoothly and (hopefully) stable. But you are close to covering all of the steps (although I am not sure why you still haven't cleaned your plugins yet)--that is, as much as you can do to mitigate game instability resulting from using many mods. Only you can answer whether this is a worthwhile 'time sink.' I don't think this game is worth it, but the fantastic things being done by the modding community? Hm...maybe.

 

If you really feel you need some 'real time assistance', we can always use the Nexus chat (I don't know if we can set up private 'rooms'). I use to have MIRC....use to...don't have Skype on my desktop PC. Well, if you think of something that doesn't require additional download.

Edited February 13, 2013 by ripple