[STEP 2.2.7] Mining ores doesn't give anything

[lrtcl]

Hi everyone !

 

First, thanks a lot for this amazing compilation of mods, the result is really amazing and definitely worth the time spent in the installation process.

 

As stated in the subject, my question is about STEP 2.2.7, installed with Mod Organizer, in the Baseline configuration with all mods (except a few of them, list below).

After playong for a while, without any noticable bug, I decided it was time for my character to begin mining. And here appeared the problem: whenever I try to mine (for now, it's been iron and clay), my character seems to enter an infinite mining animation loop, but nothing gets in my inventory.

After having spent the last day trying to fix my game (I will develop the process below), it seems that I don't have the necessary knowledge so here I am...

 

 

System:

- Intel Core i7 920 @ 2.67GHz

- 6GB RAM

- ATI RADEON HD4890

- 1GB vRAM

- Windows 8.1 pro x64

 

Skyrim:

- Legendary Edition (all DLCs), v1.9.32.0.8

- No auto updates in Steam

- SKSE 1.6.16 rel44

- BSAs decompressed into loose files and textures optimized with DDSopt

 

Mods:

All mods of STEP 2.2.7, baseline version, except

- [Core] Nitpick

- Disease descriptions for the immersive adventurer

- Dungeon quests awareness

- Interface key tweaks

- Lore-based loading screens

- Spinning skyrim emblem

- Better bards

- Dragons shout with voice

- Sounds of Skyrim (the three of them)

 

In addition to that list, I used the french version of the five Unofficial Patches (which are for the moment based on the USKP 1.3.3b, UDGP 1.2.4, UHFP 1.1.1, UDBP 1.0.4a, and UHRP 1.1.1). I will come back on that point later.

 

Tools

- Mod Organizer 1.0.4

- Wrye Bash 304.1 (for the crime radius fix)

- BOSS 2.1.1

- ESP-ESM Translation 2.11

 

 

For the game and the mods, I followed the guides by the letter. After that, I translated the strings added or modified by the mods, with ESP-ESM Translation found on the Nexus. Everything went really fine until the discovery of the mining problem.

 

 

Now comes the (fixing) process I followed :

• In order to know if it was a skyrim core bug, I used the amazing profile functionality of Mod Organizer to get back to an (almost) vanilla game (only SKSE was still installed), and created a new character. I played until I found one of the ores I tried to mine previously, and it worked.

• Considering the fact that my USKP version is a translated one, and based on an old version (1.3.3b), I read more carefully the changelog of the "official" USKP and found a few mentions of ore bugs. So, I went back to Mod Organizer, activated only the patches (the french ones) and ran BOSS to be sure.

  I then created a new character again, rushed and tried the same iron ore (the one between Whiterun and the river): it worked.

• In order to know if the source of the problem was one of the mods, I kept trying with this character, activating a few mods between each attempt, and it worked again and again.

• Maybe the problem was a corrupted save ? Since I only had one save left (too bad), I tried to make a save cleaning of my completely modded character by following the mod troubleshooting guide. This seems to have had a little effect, since the iron ore (always the same) I tried to mine gave me some minerals, so I thought the problem was solved. BUT, the next one (clay), was still buggy and hasn't given me anything regardless of the time spent mining.

  Morevover, it looks like the iron ore will not respawn, even after having waited 62 days.

 

So here I am, not knowing the source of the bug nor the way to fix it, and I am not sure if it's worth the try to start over with a new character, because as far as I know, the bug could have always been there in my save, or have appeared after a while.

Maybe someone amongst the modding experts here has a little idea about this bug ?

 

 

Thank you in advance, and sorry for the (probably numerous) language mistakes !

[EssArrBee]

Turn off Ars Mettalica and see if mining works, that mod makes mining give xp and is the only one I know of that would affect mining.

[lrtcl]

Thank you for your reply EssArrBee !

 

I uninstalled Ars Mettallica as you suggested, and followed the save cleaning protocol again. Sadly, the bug is back, and it acts exactly like when I first noticed it: I can't mine anymore the iron ore that had been mysteriously unlocked.

That is really weird...

[rootsrat]

How old was the original save? Did you installed/uninstalled/reinstalled many mods whilst playing the game from that save?

 

It may be a corrupted save, as you suspect.

[lrtcl]

The original save was approximatively 2 weeks old.

In order to avoid any problem (though as you can see, I haven't been really successful here ^^), I did install the whole STEP collection before beginning the game (edit: and didn't touch any mod after that).

Yesterday I checked again a few things like the load order, mod compatibility patches... and launched a completely new game... Sadly, exact same problem, so my suspicion nows turns to an error during my translation process, or maybe a bug in one of the translated mods I downloaded.

 

So, in order to be completely sure of the mods, I decided to revert to a vanilla installation, perform a complete step download / install with only the original language versions of the mods, and test it.

I can't give you the results right now, as I am still doing it, but I will be back on this thread as soon as possible.

 

While I'm here, just a little question: could the translation of the strings contained in an esp/esm mess with other things like strings scripts or anything else ?

[rootsrat]

I have absolutely no idea about the translation stuff, never done it myself and I don't know anyone that would do it either. But if that's the ONLY non-STEP action you took while setting up your game then it could be the possible bug cause.

 

P.S. In fact, I've never seen anyone mention such a bug with mining when I think of it now. I did countless STEP and non-STEP installations using various mod set ups and I myself never came across this.

[lrtcl]

None of my friends have been touched by such a bug either, and considering the tests performed, it seems more and more that the translation caused it at some point.

I will ask about it on some translation sites, and will post the answer here, as it might be useful to someone.

 

Thanks a lot for your commitment, i really appreciate that !

[rootsrat]

No worries and good luck! Keep us updated too :)

[Aiyen]

Well if a script is linked to a variable in english, and its in some other language, then the script will no longer function.

Then it should say so in your papyrus log however.

[halfisglassfull]

For what it's worth, I've come across the same bug with an all-English installation of STEP. Doing some research, I found this thread on the Nexus Forums which suggests that the "Mining Makes Noise" optional file for the "Traps Make Noise" mod is causing the issue: https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/1084328-can-no-longer-mine-ore-help/

 

I'll try it out and report back.

 

EDIT: Clarified that Mining Makes Noise is an optional file, not an option during installation.

[Glanzer]

I had the same problem with Mining Makes Noise and it was cleared up by removing it. Have you tried actually striking the ore with a pick manually? That should work as a workaround.

[SolitudeBliss18]

I just started having this issue last night while I was playing! I do have that optional file from the traps make noise mod so I hope that removing it will do the trick as this problem has really been bugging me! (no pun intended)