STEP: Crashing on Loading a Save Using ENB

[Sarcasm]

Hello,

I have just finished installing all of STEP Extended and all was well in my world. However, I then set out on my own modding adventure away from my STEPparents and started by shopping for an ENB to use. In order to do this I need to reverse two of the STEP instructions for ENBoost: 

 

 

[GLOBAL]
UsePatchSpeedhackWithoutGraphics=true
UseDefferedRendering=false

With these two settings this way, ENBs do not work as the graphics injector is turned off. However upon reversing these values to false and true respectively to make ENBs work, the game now crashes constantly on loading a save game. I don't even get to see a loading screen, I press enter to load, enter again to confirm, and now I'm looking at my desktop. 

 

Strangely, turning off DynDOLOD fixed the crash. Then I installed Alternate Start - Live Another Life to start a new character without having to coc or sit through the 20 minute intro, and I find more complications. DynDOLOD seems to now causing the game to crash anymore, but having both DynDOLOD and Alternate Start active simultaneously causes the game to crash on loading a save. Loading one or the other works, but both does not. Even so, with only one or the other active, upon activating a few more mods I'm back to crashing on load. 

 

However if I set the two ENB settings quoted above to their STEP values of true and false, the game loads just fine. I cannot explain this. Obviously this is a problem as I cannot play Skyrim without an ENB, and one cannot play Skyrim with an ENB using those settings. It may or may not be relevant but I have an old 2.2.9.2 version of STEP laying around, and that works just fine with ENB active. Tips on how I can progress would be by me appreciated, thank you.

[TechAngel85]

First, you should install the DirectX Runtimes to ensure you have everything you need to run the full ENBSeries suite.

 

Second, once you make the switch, redo the DynDOLOD process to ensure any changes made are captured and patched.

[Sarcasm]

I've done as you commanded and it seems to be working. I'm not sure why, since I installed the DX9 runtimes back at the beginning of STEP since it is part one of the ENBoost install. Thanks for this suggestion, I'm not going to mark it as solved yet though since I have a feeling the crash may return.

 

On a related note I should point out that DynDOLOD kept failing with an error when I tried to run it with the Bashed Patch active. I found this strange since the STEP install for DynDOLOD does not mention disabling the Bashed Patch.

 

edit: Okay, nevermind. It's back to crashing.    I reinstalled DX9 runtimes, reinstalled DynDOLOD from nothing, and the game was working. Then I came here to write this post. Now 30 seconds after posting, I start the game up again and it's crashing on load. I have no idea what to say about this...it was just working 2 minutes ago and I've made no changes in the meantime.

Edited December 14, 2017 by Sarcasm

[Sarcasm]

I decided to experiment by copying my mods\ and profiles\ folders from the STEP 2.10.0 install into the Mod Organizer for my STEP 2.2.9.2 install. The game works just fine this way. I can save, I can load, and I can quit to main menu from in-game (which also caused a crash previously). It doesn't seem to be an issue with system files like DX. It seems to be a problem with the installation itself and what is inside the Skyrim folder. I've already verified cache to no avail.

 

Any suggestions on how to proceed? I'm about to simply go back to 2.2.9.2, but I'd very much like to use the updated order.

[Greg]

If this is the case, use BethINI to verify you have solid INi files and that your enblocal.ini is configured correctly. If you still  have issue, go into your 2.2.10 profile and uncheck everything in the left pane so you're left with only Skyrim.esm and the vanilla DLCs to verify you have a stable game. If this works, enable the cleaned Update.esm and DLCs and test again. If this works, enable all mods in the first section of the guide ad test again. Keep going one section at a time to narrow down the issue. Note that you should use LOOT so sort the load order after enabling each batch of mods.

[Sarcasm]

I've done as you said. I repeated the BethINI and ENBoost parts of STEP. I'm not sure why, but despite the fact that I did exactly as specified originally, my BethINI settings were totally different from what was recommended. Still it made no difference.

 

So, I anticipated problems like these and I made sure to carefully organize my installation by making a profile for each section of STEP and using empty mods as section dividers. I thought it would help me isolate a problem, but the results are confusing to say the least:

• Every profile crashes upon returning to the main menu from in game, even the default profile with no mods active.
• Every profile can load old saves from other profiles, but when creating a new save on that profile (using coc qasmoke to skip intro) the game crashes on load every time even on the default profile with no mods active.
• Upon activating Alternate Start - Live Another Life, the game crashes while loading old saves as well when DynDOLOD is active.
• Edit: I should add that the same holds true when starting the game up through Steam without MO. Can load old saves, crash loading new saves, crash on return to main menu from in-game.

Based on what I see, it seems the problem is with Skyrim itself, probably in the base common\Skyrim folder. Alternate Start and DynDOLOD crashing when active together is a mystery to me but I would think it is related to whatever is causing even the default, unmodded game to crash when loading saves or returning to the main menu. However this is a guess based seeing something that I have never seen before. Has anyone seen something like this before?

Edited December 15, 2017 by Sarcasm

[Sarcasm]

ENBoost is causing this to happen. If I delete d3d9.dll then everything works fine. Having followed the directions for it twice now, I'm not sure why this would happen.

[TechAngel85]

Are you sure your antivirus isn't being overly zealous? You can add the entire Skyrim directory to your exclusion list.

[Sarcasm]

I'm using old fashioned Windows Defender, nothing fancy. I added common\Skyrim\ to the exclusion list anyway. It can't be that because if I rename my old 2.2.9.2 folder to Skyrim, then the game works with its old files. It's the new 2.10.0 folder that doesn't work with its new files, and the ENB ini's have the same names in each folder.

Edited December 16, 2017 by Sarcasm

[Sarcasm]

Hello again, 

this is caused by the ENB 0.319 d3d9.dll binary file. My old install uses the binary file from 0.262; if I copy this d3d9.dll into my STEP 2.10.0 install folder then the game works fine. If I restore the 0.319 binary then the crashes resume.

 

I downloaded some of the ENB binaries from the dev site. The two latest versions, 0.319 and 0.292, causes these crashes in the same way. 0.262 had no problems. I downloaded an even older version, 0.236, which also had no problems. I didn't go through the rest of the older versions but I assume they work. Something in these newer binaries is causing a serious problem. I don't know much about this sort of thing, so hopefully someone reading this does.

[Greg]

Hello again, 

this is caused by the ENB 0.319 d3d9.dll binary file. My old install uses the binary file from 0.262; if I copy this d3d9.dll into my STEP 2.10.0 install folder then the game works fine. If I restore the 0.319 binary then the crashes resume.

I'm confused by this because the enboost files should be in the Skyrim folder, not in the Mod Organizer folder.

[Sarcasm]

It is. I have two Skyrim folders in the common\ Steam folder. An old version using STEP 2.2.9.2 and the new one using 2.10.0. By simply renaming the folders I can switch between the two.

[TechAngel85]

Are you using the latest ENB files? (v0.325)