OK, so I was testing some things with the new game version and discovered I have a game breaking problem with my mod and I don't really have a clue where and how to try to uncover it and fix it.

Basically, the intro sequence fails to start with my mod enabled. When the game loads, the player is standing on the ground looking at the cart you're supposed to be in, and Ulfric and the other Stormcloaks are standing there too. Some of the initial dialog from Ralof plays but not much happens.

Fortunately, I'm anol about saving, and I've run through my dozens of saved plugin versions, working backwards until I found one that works properly from the start. How in Hedes could I go about trying to figure out what is different from the saved plugin that works to the next one that is bugged? Hopefully, if I can determine what it is, I can fix it in my most current version. Else, I'm going to lose a month of work.

If I could pull them up in TESxEdit, I could just look through all the records and try to find something that way. But unfortunately I guess that's not an option. I'd be happy to upload both versions if anyone wants to take a look. But I seriously need some help in a major way here. That month of work is a LOT of stuff to redo.

BTW, just in case you're wondering, I've been testing from a vanilla save I made before leaving the Keep, and haven't been through that sequence in a while. (Lesson learned.)

Wow. I'm sorry I don't know where to direct you with this, but thank you for posting about it. Now I know to check my mods more carefully; it never occurred to me that something like that could even happen!

Maybe Arthmoor has some ideas - I know with LAL he had fits getting the MQ to kick off correctly - so he has been all up in the Helgenz.

You might try to compare the file details of each plug-in. By the sounds of it, I'd suspect a script gone wild.

A lot of scripts can break Helgen if they run at start time. Apparently there's even a comment in the code about it. If there's a lot of initlaisation or even quite light onUpate loops, it can break the timing and leave you stuck in a number of places.

What I tend to do is launch mine from the story manager. I tend to have kickoff quests triggered by different events. I can't remember what combination I'm using at the moment, exactly. I'll have a look when I get home.

I only have 1 script that starts the game enabled, and that's a check to see of MQ101 is completed or not, and it works like it's supposed to in the old version I have that works. (See my code below) All other scripts in my mod have nothing to do with anything else but what's going on in my mod. When my MQ101 check sees that "Unbound" is completed, it starts a timer that enables my messenger who gives you my quest. I'm not using any vanilla scripts that I can remember, so could it really be a script? Or would a more likely culprit be a dirty edit somewhere?

Scriptname BalokMQ101ChechSCRIPT extends QuestQuest property MQ101 autoQuest Property BalokCourierTimer  AutoQuest Property BalokMQ101Check  AutoEvent OnInit()			RegisterForSingleUpdate(10)EndEventEvent OnUpdate()			if (MQ101.IsCompleted())					BalokCourierTimer.Start()					Debug.Notification("Courier Timer has started")					BalokMQ101Check.Stop()																							   			else					RegisterForSingleUpdate(10)					Debug.Notification("MQ101 is not completed")					Return			endifEndEvent

Is there any utility besides that Details window I can use to more easily look through all the records between the good and bad version of my mod? That Details window is basically useless to me as I can't make much sense of it. I could pick things apart with TESEdit and Fo3Edit it FNVEdit because you see a lot more info and I can understand what I'm looking at. Does that java based utility work well enough to look at records? Or is there a safe way to pull a plugin up in one of the XXXEdit programs? I just need to look at records.

my suspicion is that running your RegisterForSingleUpdate is crossing with another script that's running at that time, and apparently yours is winning out over the vanilla one so for whatever reason it cancels itself out?

this just a thought and i'm not smart enough yet to be really confident in this, but can you use OnEndState for some part of the MQ101 to start that script instead of RegisterForSingleUpdate?

your script would extend the main quest script or quest (or whatever part of it is convenient), so you should be able to add that without changing anything vanilla. i would think anything that runs every 10 seconds should be avoided if possible.

more general thought to explain what i'm thinking, without checking to see if this is viable. maybe one of the actors, or one of the objects, or maybe better there is a trigger in helgen that has a script that is tied to MQ101. you could attach a script on top of that to start your script?

Well, the last update has some interesting bugs anyway.

Do you need your script running at game start? Could you (for instance) hang an activator script on the exit portal where you leave Helgen? It might be an interesting test if nothing else.

Thanks for the responses guys. I’m pretty confident that this is not related to the new patch. I saved a copy of the previous version Skyrim.exe and put it back in just to check that theory, and my problems still persisted.


If that were the case, the problem would persist in all of my plugin versions running my MQ101 check, right? That’s not happening as I have a version of my plugin saved from 7-4-12 running the exact same start up script and it works perfectly. Also, I unchecked the "Start Game Enabled" flag on that quest it's attached to, and the problem still remains as well.


I could, but if someone installed my mod with a game already in progress, they would have to run back to that cave to trigger my quest.


LOL, you’re right about that. I just set that number to 10 so I wouldn’t have to sit and wait so long for it to trigger my messenger timer. I was going to change it to like 300 or something later.

I could be totally wrong, but I don’t think it’s in the scripting. I wonder if somehow I inadvertently made a dirty edit that’s causing this problem?

Is there any sort of utility such as TESEdit, or FNVEdit/FO3Edit that I can use that I can sort through all of the records in my plugin? That damn Details window svcks. I got used to FNVEdit when cleaning my mods so I can actually go through everything and understand what is what, and if I made any edits to vanilla forms. I have a saved plugin from 7-4-12 that works, and another from 7-7-12 that is broken. It should be a simple process of elimination to find what’s different between the two, check all of those records and try to narrow it down to something that might be causing this problem, right? Will Wyre Bash or the WIP JavaEdit work to do this? Or is there a way I could use some version of xxxEdit to check my records? The ultimate would be to have something that I could compare the records between the two, and it tell me the ones that are identical, and the ones that are different.

Well the test case could still be informative: do it that way and see if the problem goes away.

But yeah, that's one reason I use the story manager to kick off my top level quests.

Making a trigger like that assumes I can get through the Alduin attack and out through the caves. My plugins that are bugged won't even put me on the wagon when you start the game so the trigger is pointless. If I could get through the intro sequences to the caves I wouldn't be having this problem, lol. This is either with or without that script running. As I mentioned, I tested it with the Start Game Enabled flag unchecked, so it shouldn't ever load. However, I'll delete the entire contents of the script so that it's just a script with only a name and check that when I get home. But something tells me I'm going to get the same result.

Ah, ok. I missed that you'd unticked the "start game" box. My apologies.

Sorry for you Balok. This would really svck as a good tool would make it a simple fix. Have you tried TESSnip? I know there are problems with it, so I certainly wouldn't save, but I have used it to look at records - it's better than the Details dialog.

Seems like from your testing, you've already isolated that it's not code but a change in your plug. I'd be happy to take a look at your ESP's and see if I can find any differences. I'll also run through the intro to see the problem first hand

Sweet, and thanks. I'll zip them up and upload to my server when I get home, and post a link. This day job is really cutting into my modding time...

I also want to double check my troubleshooting logic just to be sure I'm not on a wild goose chase.

If I had of screwed up a vanilla script fragment on a quest stage, dialog info or alias or whatever, or even something in a main script, that issue would persist without even having my plugin installed at all, right? The scripts are seperate from plugins, right?

I'm not getting that, and an earlier version of my plugin works, and the bad version is bugged whether the startup script runs or not. So, could I safely eliminate a dirty edit on a vanilla script or fragment?

If so, then it can ONLY be an edit contained in my plugin, right?

Meanwhile, when I get home, I'm going to be sure and copy all my fragments, stages and scripting and save backups of them in a text file just in cast I have to revert to my old (good) save.

Yes, the scripts are completely seperate from the ESP. So if you screwed up a vanilla script, it would still be broken with an earlier version of your plug-in. If the problem was script based, it could be something like a property value changed, so it's probably worth checking those basics.

just in case this could be related, scripts seem to have some odd way of sticking around, even if you unload the mod. so even if you screwed up one of your scripts, it could carry over into previous versions. you need to run from a clean save to get rid of the scripts. i suppose if you're starting from the beginning to test your mod though, that would count as a clean save.

more info about scripts and saves being messed up here:
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1386485-uninstalling-scripts-vs-leaving-them-in-but-replacing-with-blanks/

Yeah, it was a new character, not even a save.

OK, here's a link to the files:

http://ypdesign.com/skyrim/helgen/helgen.7z

(Might have to right click and "save as")

Okay, I have the files - looks like you have a "Good" and a "Bad" esp. I'll start looking at it.

Edit: And I'm seeing the Intro problem with the "bad" version.

I think I found it. I'd bet it's the navmesh in HelgenExterior02. The good file is exactly like the vanilla cell, the bad file I connected some things I obviously should not have, and it appears one of the navmeshes I connected was an island. (begin vulgar language here...)

The question is, is it possible to revert the navmesh back to it's vanilla state?

I have found several other dirty edits, as I know there probably would be, but I can't poke around in there and do everything I'm trying to do without bumping something here and there. But I wouldn't think a rock or some other static being moved a little would cause this issue. And I knew I would have to thoroughly clean it before release.

It's got to be the navmesh though, you think?

(The funny thing is though, that I've got guards and workers running around all over the place inside the fort, and don't have a single issue with their packages. I thought broken navmesh would screw up their packages.)

Yes, that's what I found too... the one at offset 291126. Trying to figure out a way to delete it cleanly without crashing the CK.

I checked in TESnip too, and no dirty edits to MQ101 under the QUST group, so I think we can eliminate that one too.

When I deleted the navmesh from cell HelgenExterior (4,-20), the intro works correclty. The problem is, it's crashing the CK. I'm working to figure out which records to delete so it doesn't crash the CK when loading.

Sorry I didn't get to look at this sooner when you PM'd me, but it looks like you guys have worked it out possibly.

You have one deleted Navmesh form in the plugin. That could be causing the disruption you're seeing here. But IMO, it would be damned weird if that's all it is. These guys ought to navigate at least as far as the border with the deleted one and I can't see how it could prevent them from boarding the cart.

I don't know how much you have invested in your navmeshes but the only clean way to remove ALL of the edits would be to have the CK detail screen remove all of the NAVM records and the NAVI record.

It's not that deleted record, that was the first thing I tried