*Possible Spoiler/Spoilers*

That visual C++ error that keeps popping up ever 10-30 minutes without warning is really starting to tick me off... started happening around "Beyond Death" just before you encounter the dragon and then started becoming more frequent towards the end of "Touching the Sky" and after the main quest-line. The glitch is absolutely random to the point I just gave up, disabled Dawnguard, loaded an earlier save (in which Dawnguard was not started/downloaded) and what happens? Nothing except for an excellent running vanilla Skyrim with not one crash for about 5 hours now.

Please Bethesda, fix this rather annoying and game breaking glitch, we payed so we expect results.

Edit: Not to mention I really enjoy this DLC considering...

Does the http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/23491/ patch fix it?

I do not want to and refuse to download an unofficial patch, I shouldn't have to... but thanks anyway.

Besides, I'll have to start a new character for that and I cba doing that.

Edit: Had a look at it and it says it can't even help with crashes LOL.

Allright. have fun not playing a good dlc because you refuse to download a patch.

"Crashes: We have extremely limited ability to do anything with this. If something that the CK can edit will resolve a CTD, then we will do so. Otherwise don't hold out much hope."

Copied from the FAQ, woo.

Ah ... but just so you know you wouldn't have to start a new game anyway so even though it won't fix this I would still get the Vanilla Unofficial Patch to help general bugs.

Wait wait wait... what? I don't need to start a new character? Well that changes things... thank you.

Edit: Can I remove the unofficial patch without any consequence?

Well I don't know why you would want to uninstall it ! However, the Nexus page doesn't tell you if it's safe or not, because of this I would say it is safe otherwise they would mention it.

This is from the Nexus page for the patch:

Cheers mate, I'll try this now.

Edit: Lol, just crashed again :c. Looks like I'll have to play without Dawnguard for now, welp on to making my house.

CTD's happen a lot with Dawnguard installed, alone installing the Unofficial Patches for Skyrim and for Dawnguard will most likely not rectify the problem. There is a discussion thread on C++ but I have not been following it as I have had little to if any problems with Skyrim + Dawnguard.

If I understand correctly, installing and uninstalling mods will cause issues in your saves - this may lead to corruption.

My most important steps that I did were :

Deleting everything I had to do with Skyrim. I used a cleaner to remove all files in my games drive and all files in my documents.

Re-installed everything fresh and installed must have mods (SkyUi, Unofficial Patches etc) with Wrye Bash.

Ran BOSS and followed instructions (after using the Skyrim Launcher for generating the ini's). Update.esm and Dawnguard.esm NEEDS cleaning. This helps prevent CTD's and other posible issues. TES5Edit is used to clean mods and is easy.

Make the Bashed Patch and start a new game!

To be honest I have had one CTD doing this with this save.

Last but not least, in Wrye Bash you are able to control your saves and that is where I delete them. Too many saves, if I have heard correctly, causes issues. Last Last, every time you update your mods, rebuild your bash patch.

I also use GameBooster to free up resources for Skyrim.

I enjoyed writing this and hopefully can help someone.

The Visual C++ errors are not Skyrim's fault, its a problem with the Visual C++ libraries on your computer.

How about "uninstalling" any versions of Microsoft.Net Frame work and Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributables from your system.

Reboot

re-Install .Net 4 (which includes .Net 3, 3.5, and 4)

Re-install newest Visual C++ redistributable.

Reboot system, play Skyrim...I bet the problem goes away

Of course it's Skyrim's fault. It should install the required Microsoft redistributables properly.

TehFluffyBunny:
I've experienced your problems under Win XP.
After switching to Win7 everything seemed perfectly OK.
Are you using Win XP (SP3) ?

Unfortunately I have windows 7 and I'm still having these problems.


Update: Well after crying and having a funeral for my saves, I completely un-installed and re-installed Skyrim. Then on a clean Skyrim install, used Nexus Mod Manager to install all the Unofficial Patches for Skyrim, Dawnguard and Heathfire and started a new game. After completing the Main quest-line, I then started the Dawnguard quest-line... and about 1 hour in I get a random CTD, managed to play up to "Beyond Death" and then got a C++ Runtime error even after reinstalling C++ Redistributable...

Seriously why does this have to be so hard? I just want a vanilla Skyrim + DLC I don't even want a modded game... I should be able to open steam, click Skyrim, install the DLC and just play without any problems -.-

I just don't get it :/

Edit: Btw I even cleaned Update.esm, Dawnguad.esm and Hearthfire.esm and used BOSS to modify the load order for me.... still having these problems.

I suggest opening a ticket with tech support: http://support.gamesas.com/form.php?l=en

When you say you "cleaned" Update.esm, Dawnguard.esm, etc., do you mean you used TES5Edit to modify the vanilla master files? I would not recommend doing that.

Umm, why not? Cleaning the Update + Dawnguard will reduce CTD's and remove Identical To Master and undeleted references..... Why would you state otherwise unless I am missing something ....?

I used TES5Edit to clean them yea, but I didn't modify Skyrim.esm if that's what you mean.

Cleaning the official DLCs is safe, and is actually recommended.

stubbornness. Sometimes bethesda's infamous bugs can only be fixed by player modded. Why did you buy skyrim anyway then?

Well I didn't realise at the time that I bought a broken game... or should I say DLC, the vanilla game is fine even with Hearthfire installed. I do realise that the Unofficial patches help though so I have them all installed, so sorry for my 'stubbornness' in that sense.

Update: Have Dawnguard installed and it seems that if you don't do the quest-line you're sweet, but that means constant vampire attacks....

Update 2: I seem to be crashing ONLY if I quit the game to desktop, other than that it's fine. I suspect this is caused by the Unofficial patches because it mentions it somewhere in the docs or something :/ Well at least I can use the features Dawnguard gives me...

I'm having the same problem, and I don't think Bethesda is going to fix it. As soon as I enter the soul cairn and defeat the dragon it begins happening, everything is fine before that. I left Serana in her mother's laboratory, waiting to open the portal to the soul cairn, untill there is a fix for this. It's been several in game months now.

Arthmoors When Vampires Attack mod will solve that. And a mod which delays Dawnguard starting helps too ( more on that in the link below )

And I know this is unfounded, going from a fresh game start with vanilla content only through the quests the problem still can rear its ugly head.


For those of you who have not seen it, the other topic mentioned is here http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1421930-c-runtime-error-mega-thread/
I would read it through completely first before trying anything along the way, because I believe anything we try right now is just going to be a waste of time.

Will it ever be fixed ? what causes it ? is Dawnguard the soul cause ?

No-one knows for sure yet. I linked a mod later in the topic which will enable you to have Dawnguard installed just for its resources, and delay the actual start of Dawnguard indefinitely .. Not ideal I know.

To me it also seems like a waste of money too at the moment.

And opening a ticket will be fruitless if the response is anything like a recent user got, the suggestion was that it had to be something to do with registry settings .. which makes no sense if you read the related Microsoft Knowledge Base articles on this error.

Un-installing and re-installing game / drivers / C++ installations / vanilla game / different machines / new game starts .. all futile so far.

And I know one of gamesass Devs has popped in to have a look over the same topic linked above ( or at least has had a read of my PM on the subject in which I linked the same topic ) .. but has not responded.

I have 4 characters games. Out of the 4 characters I have 1 game that I managed to get through the DG quest as a member of the DG without any problems. This is the old game character I have from the beginning and have played through all of the main quests and most of the minor ones (266 hours game play). No problems. I started a new game and started the DG quests and I'm getting the C++ crashes about every 10 minutes. I've tried everything that anyone has suggested as well and I haven't found an answer yet either. I've posted all the information that I could possibly post to the thread that alt3rn1ty linked in the previous post and there's no responses. I'm assuming because like everyone else in the thread no one has an answer.

I tried with another character that only had 11 hours play and that was just exploring and I get the same thing there as well. What really set me off about this is that everything was fine one night and the next day with no changes (updates or anything) I suddenly started getting these errors. Oh, forgot I got a steam update .. I think it was when I started that afternoon, but I can't be positive. One thing about this game though, I forced played through the crashes and I managed to complete the DG questline, but I told Serana to wait at the DG castle and I could never get the option to have her follow me again. Total waste of time other than I figured out that if you have this problem and continue the quests that it borks your saved game. I have 2 more characters at various stages and I won't be attempting to do this DLC again until someone has some answers.