Unidentified CTDs

[MondoMage]

I've started experiencing random CTDs that I haven't been able to narrow down. Doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for them - just puttering around doing something, there's a brief freeze and then I'm dumped to desktop. Sometimes I'll get two fairly close together, other times I can play for quite a while before I'm dumped out of the game. Have had it happen inside and outside of settlements. Generally after interacting with something, be it a container, object or NPC, but sometimes while just moving around. Seems to have started around the time of the latest round of hotfixes, but I also installed a SS2 mod or two at roughly the same time so while I suspect it's SS2-related I can't say for sure. Checked my crash logs but found that I didn't have Buffout 4 installed correctly so I went through and reinstalled it while making sure to follow all the instructions, but so far I haven't had a crash log created in conjunction with one of the CTDs since. I'll go a bit more and see if I can get a good crash log.

As much as I hate the idea of it, is it possible that starting a new game might reset things and clear the problem? Not expecting a magic promise of a fix or anything, just wondering if it's worth continuing to much further if the problem continues (or starts getting worse).

 

[Kaorimoch]

If you aren't getting Buffout 4 logs during CTDs, it is because your game crashed due to the scripts going nuts and overwhelming the game. You'll need to get papyrus logging set up so you can see what scripts are going crazy.

If Buffout 4 isn't helping, papyrus logs are the only avenue left to work out what is going wrong.

This is my experience in playing SS2 - Starting a new game might help, but I've played SS2 four times so far and every single playthrough has different bugs and script errors. Starting a new SS2 game is like going to the top of a mountain and letting a rock roll down - it will accumulate scripts and errors as it goes until it becomes a laggy crashy mess (save every now and then manually). There are too many things going on behind the scenes and errors will appear almost randomly. You can get more stable playthroughs by minimizing mods and not adding / taking any away through the playthrough. My last game had to stop as I could not build anything at HQ - this playthrough I checked HQ's ability to build every 6 hours by using the inbuilt ss2 cheat to advance to that quest and check that I could build at HQ until I reached that stage again - however something went wrong in this playthrough as well - I can't interact with the CommHub to use the terminal to optimize my settlements.

When I find the script log going crazy, I go in to see what is causing the problem. I find the references causing errors and use a variety of methods to fix it up in game. You can use "player.moveto" to get to the area with the problem and disable / refresh the object that had the errant script. If is happens to be an activatable foundation that has the error, I just disable / enable it, and move it around if there is room. If it is a person, I disable / enable it. I always disable Decontamination Archs on Sanitation plots and the lifts on High Tech Agricultural plots. For industrial plots that generate objects that move through the air, I use the Tiny Living SS2 mod to use alternate industrial plot types without those objects as those things really fill up my papyrus logs and I have to find ways to disable them. In the SS2 - Performance area in the MCM, I disable all performance options since errors also pop up if some of these options are active.

This keeps the errors to a minimum.

 

[MondoMage]

Thanks for the tip. I've adjusted the configuration settings for Papyrus and will see what comes out the other side. Is there any particular forum where the logs should be posted if (when) one comes up?

 

[Kaorimoch]

If you can't identify the problem from the script, you can post excerpts from the scripts, insert it into spoiler tags on the forum or provide an external link where it can be viewed in full. If you are going to quote a script, please try to delete lines like these -

[01/20/2023 - 07:35:27AM] [::temp1855]: 0.000000
[01/20/2023 - 07:35:27AM] [::temp1856]: None
[01/20/2023 - 07:35:27AM] [::temp1857]: None
[01/20/2023 - 07:35:27AM] [::temp1858]: None
[01/20/2023 - 07:35:27AM] [::temp1859]: None
[01/20/2023 - 07:35:27AM] [::temp1860]: None

That means nothing.

Here is an example

[01/20/2023 - 07:57:42AM] error: Failed to setup moving reference because it has no parent cell or no 3D
stack:
[ (FF0220F0)].SimSettlementsV2:Actors:PlaySequenceIdles.TranslateTo() - "<native>" Line ?
[ (FF0220F0)].SimSettlementsV2:Actors:PlaySequenceIdles.HandleOrientation() - "SimSettlementsV2\Actors\PlaySequenceIdles.psc" Line 113
[ (FF0220F0)].SimSettlementsV2:Actors:PlaySequenceIdles.RestartIdleLoop() - "SimSettlementsV2\Actors\PlaySequenceIdles.psc" Line 129
[ (FF0220F0)].SimSettlementsV2:Actors:PlaySequenceIdles.OnLoad() - "SimSettlementsV2\Actors\PlaySequenceIdles.psc" Line 102

Each script "issue" starts with the date and lists the problem. We have a reference code to narrow down where the problem is. The reference code starts with "FF" which means the problem is not in a mod, it is in the save file. (Of course, the problem could have started in a mod but ....)

From the reference to an actor and idle, it appears that this is a script that deals with one of the settlers engaging in an activity (such as sitting, working on a plot, cleaning etc), actions which usually stop you from immediately talking with a settler until they stop their idle activity.

Using player.moveto FF0220F0, I land on an advanced agricultural plot. I use prid on the reference and note that it now has the attributes [D][PP][T]. [D] means it is marked for deletion (so this reference will disappear when you load a game, PP means that it is a parent script and T usually refers to dead actors or settlers so I have no idea why that script is there. Regardless, with the reference still targeted, I use the console command "disable" and then "refresh" the plot by selecting it and selecting refresh. I hover my mouse over the foundation of the plot to make sure it appears (if you delete the foundation, you end up with a lot of problems and you will have to enable the plot and just hope refresh works.

Other people may do different things but that is how I have been approaching it.

In my example, I quoted the lines showing the problem, referenced the scripts causing problems (usually starts with "SimSettlementsV2:" and included the reference showing where the problem is located in the game. That should be enough to start a discussion.

 

[RayBo]

I've started experiencing random CTDs that I haven't been able to narrow down. Doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for them - just puttering around doing something, there's a brief freeze and then I'm dumped to desktop. Sometimes I'll get two fairly close together, other times I can play for quite a while before I'm dumped out of the game. Have had it happen inside and outside of settlements. Generally after interacting with something, be it a container, object or NPC, but sometimes while just moving around. Seems to have started around the time of the latest round of hotfixes, but I also installed a SS2 mod or two at roughly the same time so while I suspect it's SS2-related I can't say for sure. Checked my crash logs but found that I didn't have Buffout 4 installed correctly so I went through and reinstalled it while making sure to follow all the instructions, but so far I haven't had a crash log created in conjunction with one of the CTDs since. I'll go a bit more and see if I can get a good crash log.

As much as I hate the idea of it, is it possible that starting a new game might reset things and clear the problem? Not expecting a magic promise of a fix or anything, just wondering if it's worth continuing to much further if the problem continues (or starts getting worse).

Have you run Fallrim on your save file yet?
It is also one of the first tools I use as a diagnostic.

FallrimTools -- Script cleaning and more

FallrimTools includes ReSaver, which is a powerful savegame editor/cleaner for Skyrim Legendary Edition, Skyrim Special Edition, and Fallout 4.

www.nexusmods.com

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[msalaba]

The reference code starts with "FF" which means the problem is not in a mod, it is in the save file.

Refs that start with FF means they were spawned via script. If you install Better Console, it will tell you what mod it is from and what the base form is.

Better Console - F4SE

This is a F4SE plugin which makes console menu show extra useful infomation about selected target,for example, target's name, ID, baseID, mod name and so on.This plugin also add some extra info lists

www.nexusmods.com

 

[Mystical Panda]

I'm not sure if you mentioned this but some 'crashes' don't get to Buffout but instead are from one of the loaded apis the game is using. Check EventViewer and Application and look for anything 'Fallout4.exe' related.

You can see the crashes that Buffout caught, and the ones it didn't(bottom of image) where you can clearly see the faulting reason.