Greetings,

The frustration level here is rising, so please bear with me... but either I am hitting a really bad run of bugs and strange conflicts, or something has gone awry and my build's stability is spinning wildly out of control.

I've been trying to play through the Heart of the Dead (by the way, if there is a dedicated thread for it that I'm missing, I apologize... I'm tired). It's been a wonderful quest mod so far, but not without its share of annoyances. The worst has been a tendency to CTD on the loading screens. I have since un-installed two different loading screen replacers hoping that would help me get through this mod. I don't know if that helped or not, but I have been able to get by up until now by just trying to reload after a CTD. After two or three attempts I'd get a working loading screen and continue.

But now I am stuck dead in my tracks. I got all the way to the end of Savior's Hollow and got a CTD (just as the boss for this part noticed me). I had saved just before then, but I can't load it... instant CTD. Same with any save in this cave, at any level of it. The only saves I can load are before I entered.

So, does this one sound familiar to anyone? I hope so... otherwise it's looking more and more like I've hosed something badly, and I really don't want that to be the case (not that anyone ever does )

TIA,
veg

Well, it seems I've hit on yet another obscure problem. Let me ask this... can someone suggest what to look for that might cause a save to CTD when loading? Literally, I can load the save right outside the cave in question, but once I enter and save I can't load it. I have no idea why, and no idea what to look for. This was an insanely popular mod at one time, but I'm finding very little help out there.

Please, please forgive the multiple posts, but I just stumbled upon this in the Nexus forum for HotD:


Can anyone think of a reason this might fix things. This person is describing the same issue I am having, and it would be great if it fixes it... but I would also like to know why if it does.

Why don't you just try it and find out? It may work because something needs to be synchronised or something has been removed (in cleaning perhaps) that shouldn't have been. I assume by TES he means the CS.

Yes, I assumed the CS as well. And I am going to try it. Something more specific to look for would be good though, IMHO. That's the reason for the question. I'm never really satisfied when something "just goes away"... something caused it, and I like to know what it is/was if at all possible.

And as it turns out, it had no effect whatsoever, so I guess it doesn't matter what it might or might not have done.

Yet now I know at least one other person has had this problem, and reading through posts and such it appears there are plenty more ahead. I'm really close to just getting rid of it altogether, as once again I am spending more time trying to fix things than actually playing the game.

Is this just the reality with modded Oblivion? I mean really... you think you have things stable, you get deep into a quest and a problem arises... then you have to figure it out, maybe uninstall mods, and try all over again... and that's with stuff that is reportedly compatible. Sorry... I should listen to my own advice and not post when I'm mad.

So I'll ask one more time if anyone has any idea what is wrong here, and possibly how to fix it. Failing that, I'm yanking HotD and moving on.

TIA,
veg

OK, well, reading further hasn't helped to solve this situation. It appears to be another issue that has not been solved with this mod, so I'm throwing in the towel.

Moderators, this thread is dead and can be locked anytime. Thanks!

Just because the problems are occurring while you are playing HOD does not mean that it is to blame. Sit right back and let me tell you a tale...

This actually involves Fallout 3 and not Oblivion, but they're similar enough. I was hunting around for new quest mods to try out, and found one called "The Librarian" that sounded interesting. A fun quest mod, a little different, in the style of Indiana Jones it claimed. Sign me up! However, when I installed it, strange things happened. Meshes disappeared for no reason. The mod didn't even touch the meshes. Strange, unexplained crashes started occuring in certain, and predictable, portions of the game. Then, if I deactivated the mod and ran without it, all my problems went away. I figure that is good enough cause and effect for me, so I uninstall it and go on my way. Everything is fine and dandy.

Later, I am just going through the mod-list at the Nexus and I install about 13 new mods. I get the exact same problems as before. Missing meshes. Unexplained crashes. All sorts of new and crazy problems. I start thinking, well I just have to have had a conflict elsewhere in my mod list that I didn't catch before. I go nuts playing with the load order, this time loading these mods, that time loading those mods. The problem never recurs while I have just a few mods active. I can literally run every mod in there without a problem, but I can't do them all at once. So, I narrow that idea down to this: I could only run 140 mods at once. I know, and confirmed with others, that Fallout 3 had a limit at 255 active mods at once. And a further ESP/ESM/BSA limit around 350-400. These are the same as Oblivion. I am nowhere near either of those. But no matter what I activate, any mod beyond 140 gave me the same strange problems.

I think to myself, okay, surely I still have a conflict that I just can't find. I created a blank.esp and activated it in my load order. 141 mods, but only 140 of those are real. One does absolutely nothing at all. And you know what? I get the problems again. Maybe I was still missing some bizarre conflict in the load order, but I can't imagine what it might have been.

The moral of the story? These games are very twitchy sometimes.

Here's another one!

After a mod-bender in Oblivion where I install about 30 mods at once (big mistake, generally), I'm playing around, and I make my way to the Arcane University. Crash. No big deal, these things happen. I load up and head there again. Crash. Two times could still be a coincidence. One more time! Crash! Time to start hunting that down in my load order. I turn off anything I have that even remotely modifies the imperial city or the arcane university. Still crashes. Huh. I turn off every new mod I got in my bender. Still crashes. Now I'm down to systematically turning off the mods a few at a time, and trying it out. Crash. Crash. Crash. Finally I find the problem. Mayu's Animation Overhaul. Something that has nothing to do with the Arcane University had a crash there every single time. Thankfully that crash has been fixed. But still.

Specifically to your situation, I have played HOD top to bottom and had none of the problems you are describing. I just checked it again, and I have no issues with it. But everyone on the Fallout 3 forums thought I was crazy. No one had ever had that problem before, and it was very frustrating that there was no way to fix it. I'm sorry that you won't be able to finish HOD, I enjoyed it.

@manymoose

I appreciate what you are saying. And I am glad that you were able to play HotD start to finish. As I said, this is an insanely popular mod so obviously many people have shared your experience.

However, a quick google search will show that some people have not had a great experience with this mod and that many of the issues, including the one I detailed in this thread, remain unresolved. I've done my research, and I have isolated the problem to this mod. As interesting as your stories are, I don't see where they offer anything to help my situation; they don't offer any suggestions other than the general "it may be something else". With all due respect, I already know that. I think I have done a good job addressing that, and have invited people to help me find a conflict with other mods in my LO if such a conflict exists. To date, no one has offered anything like that, and unless I am missing something, your post doesn't either.

Don't get me wrong; I appreciate help. However, a long talk on how symptoms can be hard to track down followed by "These games are very twitchy sometimes" is not really helpful in this situation. I know problems can be hard to track down... that's why I posted here in the first place.

So I guess, thanks for the tales, but try to make them a little more relevant to the OP in the future.

Moderators, AFAIC, this thread really is dead an can be locked. Thanks again!

Well could you show us your LO it could help

My LO does not include HotD anymore. Like I said yesterday, I needed to move on, so I did.

Seriously, unless someone can suggest a reason for the behavior I described with this mod, then this thing is as dead as it can be. I have removed HotD and am not interested in reinstalling it unless someone can provide some insight into the problem I have described.

Hi Veg,

Sorry you had such a miserable time with HOD. I've got it in my LO but haven't played it yet, so I can only offer some general observations. I ran the check for errors function of TES4Edit on it and got this back:



As best as I can tell from investigating my own CTD issues, most of the ones that remain occur because of illegal memory references (null pointers, etc). Sometimes re-saving a mod in the CS will resolve a bad reference, magically "fixing" the problem. In your particular case, I would try to enter the cave with and without companions to see if it's a companion issue or a mod issue. Also, can you play through the cave without having to reload or otherwise touch a saved game? What happens with saved games once you are back outside? I've been experimenting with selectively disabling "likely candidate" scripts (I'm still convinced that most CTDs happen during script execution -- after autoghosting files to take care of that soft file limit). It all depends on how badly you want to play the mod.

Good luck and sorry I didn't jump in earlier (I was busy playing the game for a change)
RB

I got the exact same thing in TES4Edit, but it did not help me at all with the problem I posted about. Regardless of what the CS may or may not have done, as I said above, saving it had no effect with respect to this problem. The mod is no longer in my load order, so I can't do any of the things you suggested. However, I can tell you I do not play with companions. In this mod, there are several points where you have people tagging along, but this is not something you control yourself, so leaving them behind is not an option without some sort of cheat. But none of that matters because I have seen this behavior with or without HotD's companions.

As for what happens when I am back outside? Nothing. This only affects loading screens in HotD interiors... and specifically this Cave.

Honestly folks, I have done the obvious/easy stuff and got nothing. What I was looking for is someone who could help me with a specific problem. No one was able to do that, so I uninstalled the mod and declared the thread dead. I have moved on. If someone has something helpful regarding the specific problem I am having, then I would still be happy to hear from you. PMs are welcome.

But short of that, I really am done with generic troubleshooting where this issue is concerned. I was able to isolate the problem... I found at least two other people with the same problem... I found that the issue has not been resolved... I asked if anyone can help with the issue... no one could, so I uninstalled the mod. Now unless someone really can help with this, let's just let this one die, OK? I don't mean any offense, but it's getting really frustrating, especially when I have to repeat myself.

EDIT: wording

I definitely understand your frustration. I would not blame you if you never think about it again. However, for my own purposes, I corrected the errors in the mod and cleaned it up a bit. I'm testing it now and it works fine so far, but I'm not that far into it. You can get my test-fix here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7148400/HeartOftheDead.esp

manymoose, if you are referring to the errors rubioblanco wrote about, I think I already said this had no effect on the issue I am discussing in this thread. If you are referring to some other errors, then please let me know what you are talking about. But if they are the same ones, I have already addressed that and the fact that it did not fix my problem.

My apologies, I couldn't tell if you had corrected the errors manually with TES4edit or simply opened it up and saved it. I did 3 things in my test fix.

1. I corrected the reported errors manually.
2. I removed identical to master records.
3. I undeleted and disabled references.

That last one has been known to cause crashes. Mod A deletes a rock, but Mod B wants to use that rock: crash.

The CS was the "open and save" thing. TES4Edit was used to get the same errors you and rubioblanco are talking about. I did the exact same things, including your step 3 there. But undeleting references is something I do anyway before I install a mod, unless specifically told not to.

I appreciate any help anyone has tried to provide, but I really think this is dead now. Moderators, this thread really can be closed at any time. In any event, I am done with it.

Thanks,
veg