[LE] Crash caused by incorrectly filtered dialogue at statue activators - but how and what?

[WhiteWolf424242]

Hello,

 

There is this thread:

https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/3678745-alternate-start-live-another-life-crash-after-trying-to-activate-the-shrine-of-mara/

 

Where they detail that it's possible to make the Mara shrine activator added by Alternate Start, and also other daedric shrines and such, to crash the game when activated, if a mod "filters dialogue incorrectly".

 

And now it's been brought to my attention that one of my mods does exactly that, and I can confirm the CTD, yikes.

 

I backtraced the problem to a single Quest in the mod. Apparently if this Quest contains ANY branches, it will make the statue CTD. It doesn't even have to contain any dialogue at all. It just has to contain a branch.

 

My method of finding this out:

It had several branches, I removed all but one, also removed topics but one, leaving with just 1 reply Test: CTD.

Then removed this reply too so that the quest still has a branch, but loads no actual dialogue: CTD!

Then I removed the branch, so that the Quest is just there doing noting: NO CTD.

Tested again by leaving another branch there, but still empty with no dialogue: CTD again.

I even tried this: remove everything from the quest, then add a completely new empty branch. Take it for a test: CTD!

 

Thus I conclude, if the Quest contains a branch, it will CTD. It's not about the dialogue, it's not about the branch, it's something about the Quest.

 

(If the Quest loads the branch, but the Quest itself is not running ingame, no CTD though, but that makes sense.)

 

 

I do not understand how this is possible. It's... a Quest. A regular Quest like any other. What makes it special?

Its info:

- Start game enabled: true

- Run once: false

- Allow repeated stages: false

Contains just one stage, 0 with no fragmens.

Quest attaches 3 scripts.

Contains Player dialogue, and nothing else.

 

 

I have other quests in the mod with dialogue (and I have other mods with dialogue...) with similar conditions, all working great and not causing issues with the Mara statue. But apparently it's not even about conditions, because it will still CTD if this one quest even just contains an empty branch.

 

I'm dumbstruck. I checked in xEdit if something is perhaps off about the Quest... and nothing. It looks normal, regular values what you'd expect for a quest.

 

 

Does someone perhaps know what the solution for the other mods mentioned in the linked topic was? Or what dark wizardry am I overlooking here?

Or if it's a weird CK or engine bug and there's not much to be done about it...?

 

Thanks

 

 

 

EDIT:
In the meantime, I did it the arduous way, and created a new quest and moved all my dialogue over to the new quest.

It now works, there is no CTD.

 

CK bugs are awesome.

 

If a poor soul has a similar issue in the future and finds this topic - tough luck, you'll probably have to move all your dialogue to a new quest, as the existing one that's giving the CTD is probably cursed.

Edited April 26, 2021 by WhiteWolf424242