I've followed the latest guide and am playing the GOG version (1.6.659). I'm using an alternate crash logger and have not installed CACO because of the version, but everything else seemed to go smoothly so far.
I'm at the "performance tuning" part of step 4 and I've noticed two problems (at least):
loading via MO2 -> SKSE and starting a new game leads to a normal start, not alternative start. It's unclear to me why alt start is not working and if there are more problems and this is just one symptom.
I can load an old save (from game launch test after installing Extenders), but crash to desktop immediately upon hitting the escape key. I've attached two of the crash logs, the earlier one is before disabling QUI, second is after disabling QUI and trying again with same symptom.
I have verified that the game is running through SKSE:
Does anyone have any advice for me to get this fixed? Thank you!
crash-2022-12-11-17-55-07.log
crash-2022-12-11-18-36-11.log