CTD On Specific Character Saves

[Arcfell]

I've modded Skyrim following the STEP guide back in March. I've played multiple characters/saved games since.

I currently have a Character with 4 saves that for the most part crash to desktop(log attached) on loading the save:

• One is a quick save
  • This is in Bleak Falls Sanctum
  • I've managed to load the quick save once which promptly CTD when I tried to save again (still in Bleak Falls Sanctum)
    • This only happened once and I cannot replicate this.
• The other three are auto saves
  • One in Bleak Falls Sanctum
  • The other 2 in Bleak Falls Barrow
     
• I have some very early (level 1) saves on the above character that still work, however I'd prefer if the above could be recovered.
• This crash is isolated to these saves, as all other Characters/Saves still work.
• No new mod installs or updates have occurred since the first STEP installation in March
• I've ran LOOT and tried sorting plugins

Any help recovering these saves would be appreciated.

crash-2022-05-18-12-23-25.log

Edited May 18, 2022 by Arcfell

[z929669]

Looks like a race condition may have kicked in that is incompatible with something in you LO. Lore0Corrected Races and Faction Fixes are last to load if I interpret the crash log correctly.

Do you have a pure Step 2.0.0 install and config, or do you have anything additional/altered in your Step install?

[Mousetick]

Can you provide crash logs for the 3 autosaves so they can be intersected.

In the crash log you provided, it's crashing when loading an NPC record, possibly a dynamically spawned Thalmor Mage. Have you done something that could have upset the Thalmor and caused a squad to be sent after you?

Apparently there's something or someone named 'Livia' in your save. Is this your character or an NPC? There's no NPC named Livia in Vanilla nor in any of the STEP-added mods, as far as I know.

The chances of recovering a corrupt save are quite slim.

There's a group of unknown DLLs loaded with the game process, one of them being actively called: OWClient.dll, the others are OWExplorer.dll and OWUtils.dll. It'd be a good idea to remove/disable any 3rd-party "crapware", especially when troubleshooting. I have no idea what these are or what they do, it's up to you to figure it out.

[Arcfell]

z929669

• It was a pure STEP 2.0.0 install, nothing additional was added or altered.

Mousetick

• I've linked 2 more of the autosave crash logs.
• Livia is my character name.
• OWClient.dll.. etc is gameplay recording software, I'll disable while troubleshooting in future.
• In the save, I've not had any interaction with the Thalmor nor started any major questlines involving them.

 

• Similar to as I said in the OP, I've just managed to load the quick save without it crashing, and left Bleak Falls Barrow/Sanctum and saved outside. This save appears fine now, however the autosaves inside the dungeon remain broken.

While the problem appears to have been overcome somewhat, it'd be nice to find out the root cause to avoid in the future if possible?

crash-2022-05-18-14-39-23.log crash-2022-05-18-14-41-07.log

Edited May 18, 2022 by Arcfell

[Mousetick]

All the crashes appear to occur while loading NPC records, but a completely different NPC each time, without any relation to Bleak Falls Barrow (Thalmor Mage, Mountain Snow Predator, Forsworn).

Since the crashes occur while loading a save and are not 100% repeatable, this points to data corruption somewhere in the save or in the ESP/ESM plugins. But you said you can successfully load the saves of other characters just fine with the exact same load order. So it's probably data corruption in the save of that particular character.

Impossible to know the root cause from the information we have gathered. Try posting a copy of your crashing quick save here, in a .zip or .7z file and we may take a look at it.

The fact that you were able to load the quick save and re-save it this time are no guarantee that there won't be any more crashes later on, if the corruption is still present within.

Tip: You appear to be have 'Save on Travel' turned on in your Skyrim settings, which creates an autosave whenever you enter a new zone. By default Skyrim keeps the last 3 autosaves. You can increase the number of autosaves kept so that you can go back further in time. This gives an additional safety net in case you don't create full saves regularly. In BethINI, go to the General Tab and change 'Max Autosaves' to whatever you like (see screenshot). It won't slow down the game by saving more often, the autosave will only occur during zone changes as usual, it will just keep older autosaves.

[Arcfell]

Thank you for all your help and really detailed answers.

• I've unfortunately played the game since, and the auto saves have been overwritten.
• As you've suggested I've increased the Max Autosaves, this should hopefully allow me to keep playing the character despite the potential corruption.

If the issue crops up again, I'll definitely backup those saves for investigation if needed.

Thanks again.

[EvilBob773]

Hi, I'm having the exact same issue, I've provided my last three crash logs, exact same scenario (Crashing when loading a save whilst in bleak falls barrow, and only in bleak falls barrow).

Crash_2023_1_23_2-11-50.txt Crash_2023_1_23_1-47-54.txt Crash_2023_1_23_1-33-16.txt Crash_2023_1_23_1-28-26.txt

[z929669]

1 hour ago, EvilBob773 said:

Hi, I'm having the exact same issue, I've provided my last three crash logs, exact same scenario (Crashing when loading a save whilst in bleak falls barrow, and only in bleak falls barrow).

Crash_2023_1_23_2-11-50.txt 99.49 kB · 0 downloads Crash_2023_1_23_1-47-54.txt 99.47 kB · 0 downloads Crash_2023_1_23_1-33-16.txt 99.81 kB · 0 downloads Crash_2023_1_23_1-28-26.txt 100.15 kB · 0 downloads

As these logs indicate, you probably need to be certain these plugins are still in your LO and that no new mods are overriding them differently than before you made changes to your LO and mod list.

• TSR_TeldrynSerious.esp
• FEC.esp
• Ryn's Karthspire.esp
• Ordinator - Perks of Skyrim.esp
• JS Emissive Eyes SE - Johnskyrim.esp