New Report Exit to desktop = game freeze

[John Lock]

Same issue here. The only difference being that the freeze only happens once I take my first settlement (for me that's Sanctuary). I do have Sanctuary removed from the settlement pre-build list. There are only 2 settlers to deal with during the raid.

Any attempt after that point to Save/Exit to Desktop results in the game freezing. I have let the game even run several hours in the hopes it might sort itself out, but with no lu

which settlements do you have selected for pre-building, I found that if zamoja, Jamaica plain & kingsport have vanilla enemies still in them & seem to cause this exit freeze, as with them included the freeze happens, without them selected for pre-build no freeze.

 

[kinggath]

This is almost certainly being caused by the Exit Save, which as far as I know, you can't disable.

When this happens, it means your save is likely in a bad state. I would assume everyone running into this has used the prebuild feature, it is likely that you need to reduce the number or levels of the City Plans you are using as your system probably can't handle it with the load order you have now.

Another potential common thread between you all might be hardware related, for example, are you all using standard hard drives as opposed to SSD drives?

 

[aspekt]

My game and mods are both on an SSD, my system is running a Ryzen 7 1800x 3.6GHz, 16gb DDR4 RAM, and a Radeon 580 8gb DDR5 video card.

However, my load order has been overly heavy until this began happening with my mod number running at max plus a few ESL versions. I was running the prebuild feature and while I did wait quite a while before leaving the Vault and then Sanctuary area when the install window asked for my graphics level I did select High as the result.

Since then I have reduced the mod load and while I have not yet run Conqueror again, I have run SimSettlements with no issues (aside from user error). I will try and run Conq again with this lower mod count and let you know if that does change things on the Exit Save issue for me. I agree with you that this is probably what was happening, ie., more user error on my part.

 

[aspekt]

So I reduced my mods to well below the max limit. Ran Conqueror. Used Start Me Up proceeded to Vault 111 and stayed in the Vault till Stage 1 Placing Items was complete, then proceeded to Sanctuary. Took and completed first two missions. Went to Lex to do 3rd mission. Tried to spend a lot of time running around exploring and leveling. Returned to Red Rocket to leave salvage and to upgrade items.

Did a 'hard' save and then an Exit Save.

Game locked up and used Task Manager to End Task.

I'm not sure this helps any, but I hope it does. Let me know if you think I should drop all mods but Conqueror and Start Me Up to test again.

 

[MrCJohn]

I have same issue. I thought perhaps something else was affecting it. With Conqueror/Sim3n1/addon packs, about 20 game play mods/clothing/hair beards etc/companions/workshop rearranged and another 20 build mods to add in... 176 plugins total... not counting what ESL's there were, but even with that, sitting at 213 mods installed...

Installed in steps... checked save.... closed. No problem. File size is definitely bloating and wondering if that is an issue.

Here is breakdown (rolling total - not per category):
Base game plus core mod game fixes / visuals / sound / valdicil's / etc 4.417mb
Add my gameplay stuff 5.059mb
Workshop Rearranged and building mods 7.273mb
Sim Setttlements 3-in-1 plus about all the add on packs 27.273mb (WHOA!)
Companions and custom settlements (Red Rocket / Evan's way, etc) 27.909mb

Up to this point, I could exit, save, save then to menu... exit to desktop … no problem. Normal game behaviour

Conqueror - settlements all except exclusion list. level 1 start. 30 to 70% population.
final size - 34.649mb

I have had other runs trying all top levels so I could see what I would get... I have sat at around 40mb...

I think the game doesn't know what to do with all that...

I have all my mods so I can play conqueror while along with the rest of the game. I am not playing conqueror only for the quest line.

So... this isn't the 1st night. I have spent all weekend frustrated and debugging this.

I have an idea though... does Conqueror need to write to an "External File" ? Can it? It should.

I can provide an example of a program that wasn't writing to an External File and causing CTD's and corrupt save files... they switched and have it in the main ini file (EDIT: the line for external file saving)...Animated Animation Framework (AAF) …

Just a thought. Otherwise, it is apparent this is what happens with Conqueror. Exit save is fine and not corrupted, but game does freeze when exiting game to desktop. Not to mention some crashes like John Lock's molerats. Mine would crash the moment the deathclaw in concord would crash through the hole cover and attack... I could go back to museum and do the scene again... deathclaw crashing out of the ground.. CTD. Jammer is in that area, btw. On the roof! Or in the playground at that point...

The roof. The roof. The roof is on fire. (where's uituit with a wall of blue flaming hell??? )

John

 

[Whitesacha]

i am runnning on SDD drives, and have a large load order.

 

[kinggath]

If I can ever replicate this, I can look into it as a potential Conqueror issue. My Let's Play save is creeping up, I'm at about 140 plugins with more being added every week and I used the city start-up system.

One of the reasons I've fallen so far behind on bug reports, is that Sim Settlements has become so common a mod that we seem to get blamed for every issue now, so it takes a long time to sift through the reports and figure out which ones are actually related to my mods. The only way I can really act is if I'm able to reproduce an issue.

Couple things we can try here:

1. Try disabling Sim Settlements and see if the exit crash continues, as removing it will eliminate all of its forms from your save.

2. Try a half-split - removing half of your mods, test for the issue, if it doesn't occur, renable half of those mods, and continue like this until you find the culprit.

3. Upload some of your .fos save files to dropbox.com or drive.google.com and PM me a link so I can see if it occurs for me. I won't have your exact load order, so it won't be a perfect test.

 

[MrCJohn]

If I can ever replicate this, I can look into it as a potential Conqueror issue. My Let's Play save is creeping up, I'm at about 140 plugins with more being added every week and I used the city start-up system.

One of the reasons I've fallen so far behind on bug reports, is that Sim Settlements has become so common a mod that we seem to get blamed for every issue now, so it takes a long time to sift through the reports and figure out which ones are actually related to my mods. The only way I can really act is if I'm able to reproduce an issue.

Couple things we can try here:

1. Try disabling Sim Settlements and see if the exit crash continues, as removing it will eliminate all of its forms from your save.

2. Try a half-split - removing half of your mods, test for the issue, if it doesn't occur, renable half of those mods, and continue like this until you find the culprit.

3. Upload some of your .fos save files to dropbox.com or drive.google.com and PM me a link so I can see if it occurs for me. I won't have your exact load order, so it won't be a perfect test.

When I did my test, conqueror was the last mod I added while I was still in the prewar bathroom. And this was with standard 3-in-1 Sim Settlements... no problem with the game. In my load, SS is not an issue with any mods. Add conqueror and pre-builds, that's when it occurs.

I had thought I found the culprit but then the error popped back up.

The suspected culprit was I built conqueror pre-builts, but I left out all the settlements of far harbor. Then I went to work, so I had 10 hrs on the save before I left bathroom. I was able to save / exit to desktop just like normal. I was giddy and thought I had found the issue... but then it popped back in... crash on exit. So, I didn't mention it.

I did notice though on Task manager that my RAM usage was at 38% or roughly around 3.3gb... of 32gb... not sure if this has anything to do with Fallout 4 base game as it is... if somehow the RAM is locking up.

The only other "oddity" I have noticed is that since with the last update, and installing the next F4SE, when my game is loading... my computer screen seems to be flipping around... as if it is changing resolutions or something... and I am getting the blue load circle too...

I had validated before doing this latest install (Tuesday night) of any mods. Starting from Steam and normal play, no screen issues... directly to a black loading screen and start as normal. Install F4SE, black screen flickering...

Not even sure if this even matters at all... just reporting "interesting" things I have noticed.

John

 

[kinggath]

Not even sure if this even matters at all... just reporting "interesting" things I have noticed.

That's probably the best way to go about this until we find a pattern between everyone having the issue.

 

[aspekt]

First, I am sorry if you and your team have perceived any of this as blame or fault finding. I had narrowed my possibilities down as far as my understanding could take me and was hoping that other players might have had similar issues and found a resolution.
I will be uninstalling all mods possible and build back from there to see if I can come up with anything.

 

[MrCJohn]

So I tried the disable sim settlements/conqueror/addon packs. Saves back to desktop fine. Tried initially to do so with Conqueror as it was fine till it was enabled and pre-builds done. This alone did not clear it...

So uninstalled all my mods tonight, complete blow up of the fallout folder and re-install of fallout 4, validated all files, xEdit cleaned all my DLC files. Started from beginning... I have been working on this all night... and after 247 mods and about 30 restarts, reloads, mod sequestering, I found three (3) violators that affect Conqueror run.

Realize these (3) have been in my load order …. for years? Basically... there was no accusation that it was intended SS was at fault, merely, taking a load order basically … years old (except updates)... doesn't work with Conqueror. My apologies King if I came across that way...

The three (3) that don't work - load order nor will xEdit relieve these problems:
1) RetroDaddy Ultimate Kit for FO4
2) Quieter Settlements - All-in-One with recommended settings
3) Settlements - Lights Out - Settlements - All DLC - Lights Out

So taking out these (3) in various categories, I am back up to 254 with lots ESL's(ESL tagged ESP) and working fine...

Hope this helps others. Take a look at older mods and those that touch a settlement in some form...

John

EDIT: I am just glad I didn't have the dilemma of choosing between Conqueror or my Pink Princess outfit... My OCD would have exploded!

 

[kinggath]

No offense taken, I was just letting you all know that it's near impossible to tackle a report like this. Things like crashing and save game corruption aren't a bug that a mod can easily cause. It's more like, the mods do something, and in combination with your load order and everything else going on in the save, the game engine chokes.

So I need pretty specific repeatable scenarios to try and make any meaningful change.

 

[aspekt]

For those of us who want to keep hammering away at it until we find the repeatability KG needs here's what I've got.

So here are my findings so far using MO2:

With the load order in the first attached file I had no Exit/Save issues at all. The game closed immediately.

I then proceeded in increments of about 10 mods. Each time I was able to Exit/Save with no issues until I hit 130 mods. At which point Exit/Save locked up and FO4 became unresponsive according to Task Manager.

After this I backtracked by about 5 mods all the way down to 81 mods with no success. Each time Exit/Save caused the game to lock up. It's now 2am and I'm tired and as there doesn't seem to be a correlation between a specific mod or its dependencies and the game locking up I'm going to bed.

Tomorrow, if I have the chance I will start a new game with the 81 mods and see what happens as I move up or down.

Please keep in mind that up till now my experience with mods has been plug it in and pull it if it doesn't work. I do not have a technical background and am simply trying to proceed as logically as possible.

 

[aspekt]

The three (3) that don't work - load order nor will xEdit relieve these problems:
1) RetroDaddy Ultimate Kit for FO4
2) Quieter Settlements - All-in-One with recommended settings
3) Settlements - Lights Out - Settlements - All DLC - Lights Out

So taking out these (3) in various categories, I am back up to 254 with lots ESL's(ESL tagged ESP) and working fine...

John

None of those mods were enabled during my run tonight. Only one of them is in my mod list, Quieter Settlements.
So it seems like this must be some kind of screwy synergy between mods, mod manager(?), and mod order/number.
P.S. I'm using MO2

 

[MrCJohn]

None of those mods were enabled during my run tonight. Only one of them is in my mod list, Quieter Settlements.
So it seems like this must be some kind of screwy synergy between mods, mod manager(?), and mod order/number.
P.S. I'm using MO2

So what I did was in this order:
1) Basic core items
2) Sim Settlements & Conqueror
3) clothes / npc looks
4) game play
5) etc...

After I validated the basic core items, I did SS & Conqueror. Waited 2 hrs to get a save file. Exit... reload, let reload settle for about 2 mins. The reload right after a prebuild is done validates everything up to Conqueror. Then I started installing the rest of the mods in sensical mod groupings... till a reload would not go to desktop without crashing. then knockoff 1/2 of the grouping I added. Reloaded back to the save before the grouping and validated with exit to desktop.

Iterations... My mod order problem was that the 3 was not in one group so when I found one, one would pop up later. Try installing Conqueror sooner in the first installs, run the prebuilds, go to desktop, should be okay. When you do that first reload, that's when the conflicting mod is activated alongside the running conqueror. That's when you find out that something is conflicting with Conqueror...

Rinse and repeat.
John

 

[Kharos]

I have quieter settlements, but disabling it does not fix the crash. The game did initially not crash on exit, it started doing so after prebuilding the settlements had finished. So it may very well be a issue with too much data in the save.

 

[MrCJohn]

I have quieter settlements, but disabling it does not fix the crash. The game did initially not crash on exit, it started doing so after prebuilding the settlements had finished. So it may very well be a issue with too much data in the save.

I remember when AAF was crashing to desktop and corrupting save files and the fix was to enable write to external file = TRUE … it is now standard in AAF.

My current save file, that doesn't crash is 36,767 … using 2,083.9mb RAM, 12.6% CPU, 1080TI power usage is 5.7% … if any of this data means anything (I know when mine was crashing, it was more towards 40mb and over 3gb RAM....)

John

 

[aspekt]

the fix was to enable write to external file = TRUE … it is now standard in AAF

This is in one of the .ini Fallout files?

 

[aspekt]

So what I did was in this order:
1) Basic core items
2) Sim Settlements & Conqueror
3) clothes / npc looks
4) game play
5) etc...

After I validated the basic core items, I did SS & Conqueror. Waited 2 hrs to get a save file. Exit... reload, let reload settle for about 2 mins. The reload right after a prebuild is done validates everything up to Conqueror. Then I started installing the rest of the mods in sensical mod groupings... till a reload would not go to desktop without crashing. then knockoff 1/2 of the grouping I added. Reloaded back to the save before the grouping and validated with exit to desktop.

Iterations... My mod order problem was that the 3 was not in one group so when I found one, one would pop up later. Try installing Conqueror sooner in the first installs, run the prebuilds, go to desktop, should be okay. When you do that first reload, that's when the conflicting mod is activated alongside the running conqueror. That's when you find out that something is conflicting with Conqueror...

Rinse and repeat.
John

This is basically the pattern I followed, if I understand you correctly. I ran a game with only SS/Conqueror and waited until the base layer was prebuilt for the settlements. I then began adding 5-10 mods at a time, with dependencies being the variable most often. There were no Exit/Save issues until I got to 130 mods.

I might try it again, but tweaked with your idea about saves.

 

[aspekt]

So this time I made it only to 111 mods (oddly enough). I waited until the first stage of Conqueror prebuilds had finished then logged out with 81 mods. I incrementally took it up to 111 when I got my first Exit/Save lock up.