22hrs in and Lvl 18 - now trying to save causes a crash

[dunc001]

I am having a very frustrating problem.  I am around 22 hours into my playthrough and currently Lvl 18.  I am working my way through Beyond Reach at the moment.  In arnimamainquest2 (Malacaths March) I had an issue with one of the quest stages not completing (Talk to X - talk to them and just get generic answers rather than stage complete) which I have used console to SetObjectiveCompleted and then setstage to move on to the next stage.  I was able to carry on and complete the quest with no issue so I don't think my current problem is caused by that.

 

Now I am halfway through the next main quest and have made several saves in the process all of which load me into the game fine, but when I then try to make another save even immediately after I have just loaded in without moving or doing anything at all Skyrim crashes.  And it's not just in the most recent location.  If I go right back and try on each of the last five or six saves the same thing happens - load in, try to save, crash.

 

If I go right back to prior to accepting the latest quest, or having accepted the quest but not completed any stage of it, I can load that save and save again, but as soon as I speak to the next required NPC and carry on any attempt to save (even if it's not as far on as I got before I first had the problem and started trying to track back to where it starts, so I have previously made saves further through the quest) it crashes.

 

I haven't added any new mods.  The only thing I removed was Continue Game No Crash, but that was a while back, and like I said I (and my son who is playing on the same profile with a different character) can make saves elsewhere without the crash occurring.

 

I read in some of the threads with similar but not identical issues that playing right through the quest to completion and then travelling away to make the save may work, but the problem is as soon as I sheath my weapons after combat AutoSave Manager attempts to autosave and it crashes again.  And that's with ALL the condition based autosave options in Autosave Manager and the main Skyrim settings turned OFF.

 

It doesn't appear to be a memory issue as SPM doesn't show any spikes on saving.

 

Anyone got any suggestions?

Edited November 29, 2016 by dunc001

[maedrhos]

I don't know why a CTD on save happens. But I'll get it every 20 hours or so of gameplay. I deal with it by going back to a previous save (found by trial and error) in which the CTD on save does not occur. Just load the save and try to save. A corrupted file will crash immediately. Once I have found a file which doesn't CTD on save, this is where I begin playing the game again. Everything since then is lost due to the corruption of the file which keeps a new save from being made.

[dunc001]

I don't know why a CTD on save happens. But I'll get it every 20 hours or so of gameplay. I deal with it by going back to a previous save (found by trial and error) in which the CTD on save does not occur. Just load the save and try to save. A corrupted file will crash immediately. Once I have found a file which doesn't CTD on save, this is where I begin playing the game again. Everything since then is lost due to the corruption of the file which keeps a new save from being made.

Yeah, that's my experience so far.  When this happened on the previous quest I did exactly that and managed to complete the quest and save, now it's happening again on the next main quest stage (and I'm certain it's not related to this particular mod/quest).  It's just a major pain in arse.  On a plus point I've found a setting in Autosave Manager I'd missed which has now disabled all time based autosaves as well (which were set not to fire if in combat, hence the save/crash whenever I sheathed my weapon) so I should be able to carry on playing and just try not to die before the end of each quest until this resolves itself!

 

Still, it would be nice to identify the cause/solution so if anyone else cares to chip in...

[TechAngel85]

Run BethINI and add in Crash Fixes.

[dunc001]

I have had both in use since release :D  I run BethINI on High with textures on Ultra, windowed mode, etc.  CF I have UseOSAllocators=1, CustomMemoryBlockWhatever=1, AlignHeapAllocate=0 (better performance and load times for me), custom memory block size currently at 136 which gives me highest block usage of 80-95%, script latency tests at below 0.1 generally (usually around 0.08).  GPU does show in SPM as running almost permanently at 100% (GTX 970 4Gb), but SPM doesn't show any spikes causing the save crash.  As an experiment I decided to revert to an earlier save prior to completing the final 'Talk to' stage of the previous main quest leg, and instead continue on through what I know of the next main quest (so without actually completing arnimamainquest2 and starting the next one) and I am able to play through the areas in which the save crash was happening and can save with no issue.  So weirdly I can play the quest areas and save OK as long as I haven't officially started the quest, but as soon as I start the quest I then can't save!

[TechAngel85]

And there isn't anything in your Crash Fixes logs?

[dunc001]

Nothing useable, just the memory address

[TechAngel85]

I'm going to guess isn't not the same memory address every time. That would be the problem, if it were.

 

Honestly, this just sounds like your save is corrupted from any number of various possibilities, including over modding or a bad mod. If "Continue Game No Crash" had scripts, you need to clean them from the save using Save Game Script Cleaner. Also, try removing Autosave Manager. Honestly, I'd removing anything to do with saving or autosaving in terms of mods or tools since this is your issue.

[Quahogs]

• If the character dies, completely exit the game and reload the last save. The automatic load erroneously retains data it should not from after the save.

The above is from NEO's SRLE guide.  I don't have any specifics to help you with sorry but it seems autosave(neo recommends turning off) or autosave mgr( not recommended) is frowned upon for SOME reason.   I religiously exit the game and load up again. A major PIA for sure since I suck and die alot.  I'm currently L12 with full SRLE_LOTD September v. and have yet to corrupt anything - although I've just started the main quest.  

 

[TechAngel85]

Bug Fixes is suppose to correct the save issue on reload from death.

[dunc001]

It's nothing to do with reloading from death. The crash occurs as soon as I attempt to make a save. There's a save .tmp file created but never a.ess or .skse file. And it's not save file size related either - my saves are around 22mb, my son's saves are 65mb and still saving with no issues at ask on his game on the same MO profile.

Edited December 2, 2016 by dunc001

[mikegray]

In my experience these bugs come from one or more mods getting out of kilter - quite often it's two mods that have somehow ended up stepping on each other's toes. Horrible to trouble shoot because neither papyrus logging nor even the save game cleaners show any sign of what's wrong. My best with this bug have come from halving my mod list, opening the latest save and trying to make a save. Obviously, you shouldn't play the game in this state, but you SHOULD normally be able to make a save.

 

If you CAN n make a save, you now know that the problem mod is one of the ones that you deactivated. Close the game AND DELETE THE TEST SAVE! Then reactivate half of the deactivated mods and try again until you crash on save.

 

If you DO crash on save, halve your mods again and retest.

 

Eventually, you should be able to establish which mod (or combination of mods...) is causing problems. At this point, load the game with everything BUT the problem mod, make a save, exit and run a save game cleaner on the new save. Then reactivate the problem mod and see what you get...

 

No promises, but this approach worked for me a few months back. (In my case it was some kind of kerfuffle between iNeed and CA CACO.)