hmmm seems riften is the problem area for most people. Bethesda do check these posts right? I hope so

A few weeks ago, I had a similar problem to the 'open sky void' bug you mentioned. I was in a dwarven dungeon where some ghosts show up (I forget the locations name). After they appeared, a large chunk of the background vanished, showing blue sky. Walking towards it caused me to fall and then I was teleported back to the start of the level. Another problem I had, was when I was swimming in the water outside solutide and a dragon showed up. At the point the dragon appeared, a large square of water vanished. I could swim into it and look down to see the river bed. In both of these cases, I reloaded because I imagined something very bad had gone wrong. Thankfully, after reloading, everything worked fine and I continued to play the game for the next 100 hours and finish the main quests with no problem.
My point is, that there are (thankfully infrequent) bugs in the game which cause things serious things like these to happen. When you see graphical problems like these (i.e. large chunks of background vanishing) I would assume that memory is getting trashed somewhere. When this happens, I always reload a previous save and try again because continuing playing and then saving later, is likely to destroy your game forever. Essentially, if memory is getting trashed, then the information regarding objects and NPC's could also be getting damaged. Saving your game after this happens will save corrupted objects and NPC's states. So, when this happens, there is no way the game is going to be repaired. New patches are unlikely to fix damaged savegames because fixes like this will not be retrospective. Computer games are written with the knowledge that the world is correct and nothing will go wrong. But when it does (because no piece of software is perfect), you will have objects in places that shouldn't be there, and the game has no way of knowing what to do in cases like this. Objects/NPC's can't be reset because of the complications regarding of quest cross-overs.

I realise you are looking for solutions and a way to fix the game you have invested a great deal of time in, and I wish I could help you. I really wish there were solutions to these particular game-wrecking bugs, but the reality is, when problems like these happen, it is highly unlikely that savegames in such a broken state can ever be fixed, due to the random nature of the corrupted data that is now stored in your savegame.

What has worked for me while I play Skyrim, is that if I see any serious graphical problems (like vanishing backgrounds), I immediately reload my last save and continue, because I know that my Xbox memory is likely to have been corrupted due to a bug. So, if I continue playing and save, I am likely to be saving corruption and damaged objects. Future patches will not be able to solve these problems, because patches will only prevent problems from occurring in the first place (because the game is written with the expectation of everything working and being perfect). So, reloading upon encountering any problem has enabled me to play the game with virtually no lockups (only 3 in 250 hours of playing. These happened during loading. I tried again immediately after, and the game worked fine).

yeah i've always done that myself as well Slick Van Tanoid, anytime i see vanishing 'blocks' that allow me to see pure sky i'll reload the area. Have had this happen below winterhold college in the tunnels, different dwelmer ruins, and once in a house, same with my houses, if I notice something malfunctioning after entering one or a missing piece (non working plaques, weapon racks, bookshelves or missing them) I reload the area as well and it generally fixes that.

Someone mentioned in another thread they thought that maybe their problem with the lockup was related to them dieing as it was autosaving.

That actually makes a lot of sense. Right after that master vampire lair with the "open sky void" parts, is when the game started going downhill. I never experienced that until then. I probably should of reloaded my save file, I wasn't thinking at the time. There were a couple times I reloaded my file due to objects like the stables outside of Windhelm being totally gone.

This morning, I started a brand new game to beat the main quest with. Everything feels so smooth now lol. Saving is quicker then in my old file now too. I don't really notice any stuttering either. No freezes, even in areas that were doing it in m old file. I was happy to see my favorite spot again haha (The Rift).

you'll notice the slow down with saves as you store more stuff in your houses, its pretty much the file size bit that seems to be causing that issue, you can really see the save time increase as you play if your saving your game to a flash drive (not the internal memory on the slim) as the file increases.

a tip that can help too, if your going to ditch stuff your carrying that you dont want to pick up later, shove the stuff in a corpse instead of dropping them on the ground, that way it will get cleaned up from the world faster and help prevent some of the slow down problems that come from long term play.

You and I are having the exact same troubles as I found I couldnt get from whiterun to windhelm after several attempts... it would always freezze beyond vaulthiem towers but before or on the first bridge at the bottem of the slope.

I'm sure theyre aware of the broblem... weither anything can or will be done about it....

There was a similar bug in oblivion that had to do with the animation counter.... after 400+ hours magical animations would not dissipate... and fire would no longer have any animation at all... it would just sit there un=moving as if the game was paused.

The bugs still there.

wow that is identical to mine, how big is your save file? This is the first day i havent played skyrim since launch and i miss it already lol i really hope they fix this. Oh well i might as well make a start on the new vegas dlc that i bought on the 12 days of xmas sale

Ok, TOTALLY off topic, but nice avatar. \m/ \m/

haha thanks, doesnt quite suit listening to it while playing skyrim though lol

I know right! You know what game was good for that, though. I had Kill em all, all the way through justice, + Death magnetic, all on shuffle repeat while playing Borderlands. Epic.

That does sound awsome. Not that much of a fan of their newer stuff but DM redeemed Metallica. We are straying off topic lol. Please fix the freezing bethesda!....there we go haha

lol yes, sorry.

Yep... just got back from tryin every which way to keep the game from freezing... I rolled back 4 hrs before I first noticed the problem and it still locks up.... install/un-install....cleared casche twice....move slow...run through...

I herd that the xbox360 just cant work properly with game saves that big period so I've gone back and looked through my game save files to compare and the largest I have is on FO3N.V. mb... I'm 373 hrs on that save... 12 mb...

To answer your question my save file is at 16 mb...

A question for you... what type of xbox you got?

I've got a 2 tear old fat black " eliete " model

I remember back last e3 somebody said that Tod Howard mentioned that Skyrim would work beter on the new " slim " xbox... I didnt think much of it at the time....

Bit here I am... not playin skyrim...

Hopin for a miracle...

I got a 2 year old premium with a 120 gb hdd, never had any problems with any other games (even bethesda games). My save file is 17 so yeah i think we are in the exact same boat together. I heard someone say its something to do with how memory is used on the xbox. Xbox has better memory access than the ps3 which is why we heard about lag and freezing much sooner on the ps3 but now it seems people are starting to hit the required file size for the game to start messing up (around 16mb upwards). Just gotta see if bethesda can figure out a fix. Fingers and toes crossed

Yeah we'll see... although im not gonna hold my breath, seeing as its due to the hardware limitations of the console itself....

I''m lucky in a way that I haddnt actually done many quests ( i was kind holding back for the patches } only done the theives guild... two or three deadric quests... and a small amount of oddball side quests. I'm thinkin that I might just wait for the 1.4 try again and if my current save is shot just start a re-creation... power level back to where I was and mash thru the quests I've already done.... at least I'll get back those two perk points I put into restoration and speech LOL

lol yeah i wasted so many perks at the start of the game. I couldnt start again now though, its either a future patch fixes the freezing or i dont play skyrim anymore or at least a long time. Done every quest in every city, main quest, companions, mages guild and loads of other misc objectives, crafted daedric armour for me and my companion which took forever. Too much time and effort spent on this character to start again. Hope it all gets fixed

and all daedric quests also

Yep... it blows balls man... I know how you feel... as much as I like Elderscrolls/Fallout games, I gotta take a long break between playthrus... try n forget stuff a lil bit.... otherwise it's like watchin a movie you've already seen the verry next day.

I was kinda lucky I guess, I'm such a cheap-ass I didnt buy the fallouts until after they'd alreasy been out for a year,,, so I didnt have any issues with them..... but wooowooowoo " Skyrim" I hadda go out an get that masterpiece/second coming/game to rule all games at a Midnight realease.... I didnt know what I was in for.

even though i currently cant play skyrim, even though ive been so angry, even though ive called bethesda every name under the sun i still love this game and bethesda. Best game ive ever played, even more so than mass effect and thats saying somethin'

Morrowind was the best game I ever played... until Oblivion...until fallout....until N.V.

Now it's Skyrim... I feel like a dope fiend thats had his crack taken away...

I keep wanting to go over there, boot up my game and try again...

haha thats exactly how i feel, even though i know it will freeze i just wanna fire it up and play

This is a good point and worth reiterating. Skyrim's engine dynamically loads everything, which means stuff is only loaded when it is needed (simply because the world is just too big to fit all of it into the consoles memory at any one time). So, if anything is left on the ground (weapons, armour, food, etc), when you come back to this place on the map, the game needs to display everything you can see. To do this, the game will access your savegame to see what objects are in the local area, and then anything it finds (i.e. your previously discarded objects) will then be loaded. This involves loading the data for the object (either from DVD or the HDD), such as its polygons, low and high res textures, collision detection information, control software, etc. The more stuff you leave around, the more the game has to load in at any one time. This is what causes the stuttering during the game. However, leaving unwanted objects in chests means that only the minimum amount of data is stored for it, and so it wont have to load the polygons, textures, etc, for the object because it isn't actually 'visible' on the map (i.e. it is 'hidden' inside a chest or body).

And as caleb68 also points out, the access time of where your savegames are stored are also an issue. USB drives are much slower compared to the HDD or Xbox's internal memory. So, if the game is having to wait to get the location of objects from your USB, the game can't continue properly until it gets this information. Once it finally gets the info it needs from your savegame, it then loads an objects textures, etc. All this takes time and hence stuttering, etc. Taking the steps mentioned in this forum will greatly reduce lag, stuttering, during the game. It won't completely get rid of it, but it will keep it to a minimum so it doesn't become intrusive.