thunderclam

No worries. I did figure out a way to solve the problem that I hope will be applicable when/if it manifests again. I really want to trace it to its source, though. I think it would be beneficial in many ways to understand why this is happening even if it isn't going to derail my experience due to workarounds.

@Sparrow: if you can help me figure this out, I'd be terribly obliged. @Kyl: Yeah but I'm pretty sure the issue isn't caused by Helgen Reborn. It's something else. Have encountered versions of this bug in the MQ and unrelated adventuring before ever starting Helgen Reborn. Also I can't be hitting the mem limit while using SKSE and Enboost can I? I also don't have the mod he mentions. I'm pretty sure the author wrote that FAQ before modders got around the 3.1 memory limit.

Yeah. If we can figure this crap out someday, I think we'll be helping a lot of people. I google stuff like this and only see people who never find an answer and many of whom probably end up uninstalling and reinstalling Skyrim until they eventually quit with frustration. I've done that twice since I found out about STEP. I made a deal with myself to let some things go this time around and it's working out pretty well.

Good to know, thanks guys. I'd be interested in an alternative to SRO due to its weight on RAM/VRAM more than anything. But that said, what a beautiful dang mod.

I've never tried PCB but I may do that if need be. That said, I resolved the Skywatch CTD by simply waiting 24 hours before exiting Skywatch Crypt (Helgen Reborn) and then successfully exited Skywatch Pass without CTD. I never thought waiting just 24 hours would work in a million years, but it did. I will try that again if this problem occurs somewhere else. If it doesn't work, I will try PCB.

Being that your work has mostly been STEP plus many other mods, I figure this might be the best place to try and troubleshoot a reoccurring problem I've been having. I made two threads about this issue, when I thought it wasn't the same thing, on the General Troubleshooting forum. The most recent one is here: https://forum.step-project.com/topic/7899-reproducible-ctd-when-exiting-reeking-cave-during-diplomatic-immunity/ Please check that thread for my Load Order as well as my Mem Blocks Log the most recent time I experienced the crash I described in the thread. I have no idea why exiting Skywatch Pass should tip my Mem Blocks usage so far over the edge that the game CTDs. If I teleport away from the area from within Skywatch Pass via console, I cannot return to the general area in the Tamriel Worldspace without another CTD. I have poked around in TESVedit to see if there are any weird issues, but mostly it's just ELFX Enhancer and I've tried running this stuff with that mod disabled and still experienced the CTD. My current theory is that it's a rogue script. No idea how to check that out. What I'm looking for here is some guidance based on TESVedit and my load order in how to approach sourcing this issue. I have rigorously tried different approaches to the area, but the problem seems to be trigger when inside Skywatch Crypt and fighting the bandits added by Helgen Reborn. I've killed some and successfully exited back to the Skyrim worldspace. However, killing them all and doing the same has led to CTD every time. I have no idea why, since the last time I encountered this issue it was caused by aggro'd but unreachable (without console cheating) Thalmor Guards at the Embassy. Retrying that quest and using the console to walk through the necessary walls to kill those guards is what fixed it for me then. I have tried similar methods in Skywatch Crypt to no avail. So I'm desperate for some help here because I don't want entire regions of Skyrim to be inaccessible due to CTDs. UPDATE: The radius of the issue extends pretty wide around South Skywatch Pass (the tower area). This means using the road North of Helgen is impossible without CTD. Fast Traveling works because you are deposited on the East entrance of the town. This time my memory Block Log was under 300 on Block 1 and Under 200 on Block 2 which I think is okay, right? So I don't think I'm hitting a memory bottleneck. The CTD seems less straightforward than that. So what kind of problem can cause an entire chunk of the worldspace to "corrupt" and cause CTDs? UPDATE 2: So I tried simply waiting 24 hours on my test save just before exiting Skywatch Crypt. After waiting, I exited the Crypt and then the Pass and then fast-traveled between the two entrances (North and South) and then walked around outside of Helgen and on the path to South Skywatch Pass (tower). Unbelievably, the problem is gone. I'd still really like to know what causes this so I can avoid it in future. Hopefully if I get it again, I can do the "wait 24 hours" to fix it!

Speaking of which, this may not be the time nor place, but I never understood STEP's attitude toward torrents. Is it a guilt by association with piracy thing?

So. I have encountered this bug again and I am starting to think I've seen it before, with this build, at least twice besides now and the Thalmor Embassy incidence. Now the problem is occurring when doing the Skywatch portion of Helgen Reborn. I have rigorously tested various stages of the quest, including the area around it to see if anything is triggering that might cause CTD in the region affected (same thing... a whole chunk of the world surrounding the problem area cannot be approached without CTD). It seems that at some point in the Helgen Reborn-added part of Skywatch Pass, whatever bug is causing this gets triggered. I believe it's some kind or rogue script so I'll be checking papyrus to find out if it shows there. I believe I had this problem with other characters on this MO profile, though. Once at Driftshade Refuge and once near Halted Streams Camp. It seems that some kind of script gets triggered in wildlife or NPCs in that area and the game will CTD if you get close. I am not sure if some in-game time passing will resolve this, but since the regions affected are pretty large, I'm not eager to find out. I checked my Mem Blocks log and saw these higher than normal values. No idea what could be causing that unless leaving Skywatch Pass is supposed to trigger a Helgen Reborn-related event... couldnt' find any info about this.

That's bizarre. I don't think any of my mods explicitly add potions, is the thing. I mean, unless it's some extraneous part of one of the larger content mods I have? Does anything stand out from my load order?

Any ideas, TechAngel? Could it be a SkyUI problem of some kind? Too many potions in my inventory, kind of thing?

Sorry about all the troubleshooting posts lately, but I don't seem to have much luck in more general topics so I am trying to be specific to any problem I encounter. This one is weird, but I consistently get reports that I do not have any Grand Soul Gems in my inventory when trying to capture Grand Souls from creatures like Master Vampires, certain Dragur, etc. I have 17 empty Grand Soul Gems since I've noticed this problem. I have tried dropping them and picking them back up but the game still insists I don't have them in my inventory. I have definitely filled Grand gems before, including Black Soul gems, so I am not sure what could be causing this except for Acquisitive Soul Gems. The only other soul gem mod I use is Soul Gems Differ but I use one of the default color packs instead of the STEP recommended. I also made them weightless and can't recall just now if STEP recommends that or not. I checked out the Nexus thread on Acquisitive Soul Gems and didn't see anyone having this issue. Only other place I saw it after some google-fu was Steam user forums, but no solution was ever found. Load Order

Just what it says on the title. I tried figuring this out on my own since it only happens very infrequently with no consistent trigger that I can detect. I don't believe I have any mods that affect potions except for the STEP Extended mods, but here's my load order anyway:

I have had a similar problem every time I've done a STEP install, with or without additional mods. The way I handle it is the console command "player.kill". I have given up trying to source or solve this issue, and have instead learned to live with it. This is how it goes for me: 1. All quicksaving and autosaving functions are disabled. I only manually save, and I frequently make "hard" new saves. 2. I always make a hard save immediately after booting up the game. I then load that save and save over the file. 3. I will CTD any time I perform step #2. Occasionally if I forget, after playing for a while this will not happen but in the past I have lost a lot of time/progress by forgetting. I remember 99% of the time now to do the next bit: 4. Upon starting Skyrim and loading my save, I immediately console command "player.kill" and then perform Steps #1 and #2 and I no longer crash when saving for the entirety of the play session. If I turn the game off or CTD, I follow the same procedure without exception just to make sure. I have never been able to figure out what causes this issue. In the old days, the only bug known to do stuff like this was during the Vaermina quest in Dawnstar and that is a well known bug that may even have been fixed by now. Other than that, I cannot help you figure out what causes this. I doubt that it's the big game overhauls like Perma or SkyRe as I have always had this issue without ever using those mods.

My response is contingent on the country you live in, I expect, but: Unlike Nozzer (and no offense intended here), I don't think torrents are anything to be scared of. The people who go after you for "piracy" are almost universally content providers and their lawyers. No one will go after you for a torrent that is not tied to an illegal use of an IP ("stolen" music, for example, is a target... free stuff like public domain ebooks or legal game modifications are not targeted). With regard to the client program itself, I would use QBitorrent or another lightweight client. They are less likely to install malware or adware on your computer when you install the program, and they do not use ads which can also lead to malware/adware. I would avoid uTorrent for these reasons. These clients are perfectly legal in North America. It's one of those "not what you use but how you use it" sort of things. If this is about file safety... well, torrents in general have always been generally safer than P2P programs like Kazaa or Limewire from way back in the day. That said, you have to rely on the community to vet stuff you may be interested in downloading. When it comes to legal stuff like public domain books, music, movies, and legal game mods there is not much incentive for putting viruses, malware, etc in the files being downloaded. In this case, STEP vets the SRO mod fully as does the Skyrim modding community at large. The only reason it's a torrent is because the file is so big that other methods of downloading are unreliable at best. It is not the only mod out there where this is the case.

Thanks. It's good to have this confirmed. I have a few friends who also use STEP nowadays (I converted them) and things like this are easier for them if I can answer 'em. Not everybody will ask trivial questions like this on the forum.