Im getting a CTD on a point on the road between Caldera and Balmora. The error box reads: "Clone ab01snail0500000000" was exported with 'animate in place' from MAX. Continue Running Executable?

Now, granted, I do have a large list of mods, and I expect that some glitches happen, but I dont know what mod is causing this? Could it be one of Abot's mods that add water life or birds? Or Tamriel rebuilt?

Anyone got an inkling of what it might be?

It's Abot Water Life. You could equip configuration ring at any time and disable those snails in one of the configuration steps..

Thanx! I'll try that!

This bug is normally harmless, click on 'Yes to all'

It WAS...until it started bringing the game down to desktop, and CTD. Im not sure what changed to make it do that. The message itself is different...with references to 'export animations from MAX'. That isnt the same message box i got before when it was harmless.

Funny thing is...I have disabled the snails in the config ring...but the error message still sometimes appears! Except now its back to the harmless error message

But I dont want to get rid of Abots water life mod. Its just too awesome! Just today I was swimming in the canols of Vivec, and a shark started attacking me, and then two dolphins showed up and rescued me! They killed the shark! Then when i clicked on a dolphin, it gave me a ride on its back! How freakin amazing is that?!

But Im getting to the point where i have to cut out something for performance reasons. So I had to let go of Starfires NPC additions. Didnt want to, but it brought my system to its knees

The ring works avoiding spawning of next generations of snails.
To clean your saved game from possible previously spawned creatures, a simple way should be using Wrye Mash removers:
right click your save in Mash, File\Duplicate (using a backup is always good), right click the duplicated save, Remove\Edit Removers..., in the Ref Removers dialog click Add button, choose the file Data Files\abotWaterLifeCreatures.etxt that comes with water life.
Now right click again the duplicated save, Remove, choose the new abotWaterLifeCreatures option.
This way Mash will clean from your duplicated saved game any creature reference spawned by water life, snails included.
If you want to clean only the snails, you could edit and use a copy of abotWaterLifeCreatures.etxt (it is a standard text file) keeping only the

"ab01snail01" "Snail""ab01snail02" "Snail""ab01snail03" "Snail""ab01snail04" "Snail""ab01snail05" "Snail"

lines.

Is seems no matter what I do, I cant get rid of these snail animation errors that cause CTDs. Ive disabled them in the ring config, Ive removed the references with Wrye...but still I get random popups in the coastal regions that read something like this:

"Clone ab01snail0500000000" was exported with 'animate in place' from MAX. Continue Running Executable?

The snail number might be different at times, but that box brings the game down to taskbar, and then trying to continue causes the game to stop working. This last crash seems to have had 3 snail error boxes at the same time!

I dont get it? Ive used Wrye removers to solve other problematic mods, but its not working here.

Abot...maybe I should add the waterlife ESP to the removers as well? Not just the etxt file? Or should I disable the whole mod and then use the removers, and enable it again later?

No, remover files should just be text files with a list of ids to remove.
Try these things:
First, be sure to have the line
AllowYesToAll=1
under [General] section of your Morrowind\Morrowind.ini file.
This should allow you to avoid multiple error windows.
If you have done this already or if this does not help, better try removing the mod.
Get one of the bunch of dummy .esp that are in the Morrowind\Mopy\Extras\ folder, for instance MISC.===============.esp, copy it to the
Morrowind\Data Files folder and from Mash right click it and use the Copy to Esm option.
Now click abotWaterLife.esm, select its date/time and copy it.
Click MISC.===============.esm, select its date/time, paste, rename it to abotWaterFileDummy.esm, save.
Now you should have a empty abotWaterFileDummy.esm with the same date/time as abotWaterLife.esm
Right click abotWaterLife.esm, replacers, select abotWaterFileDummy.esm.
Now go to the Saves tab, click your problematic save (make a backup before), in the masters list on the right click abotWaterLife.esm, change to...,
select abotWaterFileDummy.esm, save, right click your save, load masters
Try playing the savegame, anything related to water life should be gone.
If you are able to play, you could then try loading back abotWaterLife.esm instead of abotWaterLifeDummy.esm

[EDIT]typos

I do have the Yes To All enabled, and it does work. (allthough i have puzzling issues with my ini, like I cant make screenshots even though its enabled...but thats another issue)

Ok, I tried unchecking the waterlifeTR esp, and then running the game. Just to see what would happen. At the spot in cell changes i was having a CTD at (coming down south on the road to Vivec) I was able to pass that spot with no crash or message. I assumed the mod was disabled...but when i got to the water, the abot fishes and stuff were still there! Then i realized I didnt uncheck the esm file. But I didnt think the mod would run without both the esm and the esp checked? Puzzling!

When i get a chance I'll run through your dummy esp proceedure.

Thanx for the help and input! Im confused as anyone why this isnt working for me normally

Ok, I tried the replacer procedure, and the game ran fine...all refs to waterlife were gone, except for the book in my inventory which had blank pages.

So I played around for a little bit and saved. Exited and reloaded waterlife esm and esp. Went back in game, and waterlife is back in play. No problems evident yet. Except i no longer have the config rings. I looked in Gilniths shack in Seyda Neen but found no ring. Any idea how I can get the config ring back , Abot?

Im hoping that as long as the snails arent checked then they can never come back and CTD on me again.

abotWaterLife.esm is the main/essential mod, it may be loaded alone without abotWaterLifeTRaddon.esp.
abotWaterLifeTRaddon.esp is just an add-on for Tamriel Rebuilt, it needs
Tribunal.esm, Bloodmoon.esm, abotWaterLife.esm, TR_Data.esm
loaded and Tamriel Rebuilt correctly installed.
better dispose of it and replace with a new copy.
1. drop it on the ground
2. open the game console
3.. click the book (you should see something like ab01wlBook0200000000 on the game console header)
4. type in the gameconsole
disable
, press enter
5. type in the gameconsole
setdelete 1
, press enter
this should get rid of the outdated book copy.
A mistake o mine in the readme, a backup ring was present there in a previous version, I think I should update the readme or put back a ring there.
Anyway, try opening the game console and type
set ab01WLVersion to 0
(it is not case-sensitive, I've used WL for readability), press enter, save and reload the game, you should have starting items back/settings reset to default (don't change the snails setting )
Yes, keep them disabled as in default configuration. Sorry for the inconvenience, but I'd like to keep the snails because they are cute and a retexture gift from redwoodtreesprite, usually the AllowYesToAll solve problems, if I have other people having CTDs I will consider removing them.

[EDIT2]Just to clarify things a little... if you remove abotWaterLife.esm from your load list but keep abotWaterLifeTRaddon.esp, you will be probably still loading abotWaterLife.esm because abotWaterLifeTRaddon.esp depends on
Tribunal.esm, Bloodmoon.esm, abotWaterLife.esm, TR_Data.esm masters so Morrowind will load them automatically.

Yay! Got my WaterLife back, and the code gave me back the config ring! Everything looks good so far. I promise to never ever touch that snail button again!

Thanks for the help Abot! Your mods are amazing, and you have been so kind to assist me through this problem