[sorry, I tried posting yesterday, but my internets got cut off by a wicked hailstorm (here in the Charlette, NC-USA area)... then I ran out of time.]

Thingy Person: nice narrative on 'The Life and Times of Family NavMesh-Bug"... I may have to put that post in an EasterEgg book somewhere in my Player-Home. heheh

JustinOther: Is someone working on TES5Edit? Have you tried asking TheFigment to add the ONAM capability to his TESvSnip?

RealmEleven: I agree that Notepad++ is phenomenal, and I already use it the way you say (a must-have, if you don't already, is the Papyrus language plugin, linked from the CK wiki I think). I also agree moving the script editor external was a good move to prevent the crashes deleting unsaved work (yet there IS still an internal editor if need be). I actually used NP++ for Obliv script too... then copied it over to compile. I only use the CK to assign properties with the mod actually loaded, but for trouble-shooting and tweaking I just load plain CK and recompile after making changes in NP++... that way you don't have to wait however long for skyrim.esm to load (and whatever else).

And I don't think anyone said my chipset was outdated... just that if it WAS, it would preclude the theory of lowering detail level fixing the bug. Since my system isn't THAT old I don't think it applies (i5 2.27, 4gig ram, with gtx350m 1gig dedicated vid ram), and I run on med-high settings (at 1366x768). Personally, I prefer frame-rate over ultra-graphics... the game moves too fast most of the time to notice some super-hires piece of flora or life-like shadows/etc... I ain't tryin' to notice how realistic the fur is on a bear which is mauling me ya know? (I use my 'Faster Woodland Creatures' mod, so they get pretty vicious sometimes... heheh)

Also, not for nothin, but why did you link a map marker to a static? (so it would only appear after Player discovered the area?) Just wondering... sounds like some avant garde technique... heheh. But the early versions of my mannequin script didn't have the source... only v2.0 does, since it's as close to bug-free as I am willing to push mannequins right now. You don't really need to ADD to the moveTo code, it just needs to be placed in certain spots AND it must be called while enableAI is true (if not, wandering or other buggy behavior occurs). Take a look at the script though - I redacted most of the whiteSpace, but kept my comments in I think... so you should be able to see everything pretty self-explanatorially. (ya like that word? heheh) A couple people have complained about it not fixing the 'naked bug', but I think those are isolated incidents caused by saveGame corruption or conflict.... myself and most everyone else (thousands) use it uneventfully. The slot system fixes and repairs the 'dupe bug', since it was caused by a faulty setup in the Vanilla slot code. But I've gotten VERY sick of talking about mannequins and their bloody code the past couple weeks... sooooo moving right along..

You said that you can fix your navMesh problem EVERY time by reducing the detail level? I think you said for both the in-game slider settings, AND/OR the amount of objects/detail in the modded area? Has anyone verified this? If that's the case, it may be a memory management issue as you or someone else suggested. I think that's the problem with the CK and my script recompiling... eventually it always comes up with the same error then crashes - though it takes maybe a dozen recompiles or so to trigger it. But NOTHING is loaded (plugins or Skyrim.esm), so it seems to be a 'garbage removal' function or some such thing may be the cause. This may be affecting the game-engine as well, seeing as people say it works initially but then when you return it triggers.

Arthmoor: I actually agree with you on something! I agree that using 3rd party software, especially in early-stage development (as Skyrim apps currently are), is asking for trouble regarding corrupt data in the plugin files. I was the first to use GECK to mod Skyrim (at least the first to successfully upload working mods using it), but I needed to use FO3Edit and Snip. NONE of those apps could read ALL of Skyrim's data completely, so any mod made with them was/is apt to cause strange problems... and none of them fully worked; oftentimes because the old software didn't know how to do some of Skyrim's new features... which left gaping holes in the plugin files strewn with corrupt data.

That's why I completely remade (or will remake) all my preCK mods using the newCK. Already, my Player-Home hasn't had any problems at all.. whereas the preCK version had unpredictable yet isolated problems for a few people. Also, some mods which are still based on the actual preCK files (built off previous versions of the mod) are STILL causing problems... despite all their efforts to fix them. MY point is that using ONAM lists may not be the way to go just yet, as you suggest. But not because the theory is flawed (which I believe it's not), but because the software needed to implement it correctly isn't capable of pulling it off yet, at least (apparently) without making things disappear or whatever other corruption is going on we don't know about yet.

As for waiting for Ma Beth to fix the problem... you can if you want, I certainly don't have to because my mods work with all versions (except seemingly that test ESP above...), but others aren't willing to hold out - so why not let them continue THEIR plight, irregardful of your prognosis or despair. Others use to say the same when i was pioneering preCK moddery... "just wait for the newCK" - but as it turns out, I had something to practice with and keep me busy for several months... and I warned people using those mods would have inevitable problems (because the old data stuff); but the game got played out faster than the real CK was released... myself and others filled the mod-less void by not heeding the nay-sayers. Perhaps this navMesh thing won't be resolved for months from now... in the meantime there is a void that needs filling.

Amethyst Deceiver: To summarize your findings - you tried modding that test yourself with v1.5 and it worked; but when you tried the test file I linked to (the actual file I made for that test, with v1.4) it triggered the bug? And when you delete ALL your navMesh data from your mod it does NOT trigger the bug; and when you rebuild the navMesh using 1.5 it also works correctly? But the problem you have is that you already have a released mod that you need to fix for people experiencing the v1.5 Family-Navmesh Bugs? You said the F'd in the A theory was proven... but you said my v1.4 didn't work when you tried it before 'porting' it up to 1.5, so the theory doesn't hold up just yet (in that 1.5 CK isn't what breaks things, but that it's 1.5 the game-engine).

You said that you had the CK open and running while you tried to update the game? MAYBE that has something to do with it; the install code should have forced the app to close, or Windows wouldn't have allowed certain files to be overwritten (giving you a hybrid-mutant CK maybe?). If you haven't already, I'd do a 'verify content' or whatever that thing is on Steam to correct any corrupt or still-old files. I doubt this would be a problem, as I've noticed precious little is actually updated in the CK (the un-writable-while-in-use EXE is always one, though)... also, what are the odds of like everyone being under the same circumstance.

Can you tell me EXACTLY how you triggered the bug while using that linked-to ESP above, I need to recreate your exact steps... I'll even make a video of it to show I'm not crazy (unless it finally triggers heheheh ). Keep in mind that I still use v1.4, but everyone says the daddy-bug was still in that version wasn't it? (or was it the cousin's mother's brother...) I'd still like to help, but I understand if you wanna try other stuff or whatever (the ONAM thing). I still think there is something fundamentally different between my install/config and others'... the only way I/we'll know for sure is to prove the exact same thing doesn't have the same effect on two different systems (or I'll finally get this bug to show).

I dunno - I re-read the way you used that ESP to trigger the bug, and I tried what you said, exactly - and in other ways. I'll make a vid and post it later to show what it is that I do to test for this, and that it doesn't trigger. There has to be SOMETHING we can find that makes my system magic!!! (even if what we find is that it wasn't really magic, and that it was my ineptitude all along... heheh)

And your statics disappearing... I dunno. If it WERE exterior, there's that LOD bug.. but you said it happens inside, correct? I agree with whomever that it sounds like a corrupted saveGame or another mod interfering somehow. It may be related to whatever is causing this navMesh thing - as you said it was caused by the test ESP (with false this that & the other thing). I made that test ESP in under 15min, just for this forum... so keep doing with it as you guys like. (grey faces because I didn't take the time to auto-gen the head meshes for the custom Delphine) It didn't have ANYTHING that could cause conflict with a surrounding area (the dissapearing), EXCEPT the navMesh; but I don't know what that ONAM contained, maybe it somehow causes certain surrounding elements to be flagged as deleted/disabled/whatever?

Everyone: sorry for the long-winded posts... I'm not always online, and I have quite a bit to say sometimes so I have to catch up while I can.

I was going to look around to find out before I started building some new interiors...but I'm guessing the Navmesh bug still hasn't been fixed?

The most frustrating thing about this bug is the fact that you can never be sure if your doing something wrong or is it just the game's fault. For example I'm getting CTDs when actors try to follow me to another cell. Now I can't be completely certain if I am doing something wrong or is it just buggy TESV/CK plaing games on me. I'd love to agree with Mr. Lucky here and admit that all of us are doing something wrong except him. At least then we had some chance of fixing things. But if it's the engine's fault, then there ain't a damn thing we can do about it.

edit. deleted navmeshes from my esp and tested my cells in Skyrim -> no CTDs after traveling between cells.

Btw, did I understand this correctly - If I create a new esp from scratch (and thus completely throwing away dozens of work hours) with the 1.5 CK, no navmesh bug should occur?

edit 2: esmified my esp and the navmesh works as it should (more or less, the actors have problems following me between cells but at least there's no CTDs). So I guess it means that fixing this bug is possible if the game can read esms correctly.

@sluckyd - i have no doubts that your method of navmeshing in the 1.4 kit somehow circumvented the navmesh bug when you play the game in 1.4, just as doing the same using the 1.5 kit (starting from scratch) works completely fine devoid of the entire navmesh extended dysfunctional family while using skyrim 1.5

the problem lies when you have the 1.4 legacy mod being used in a 1.5 skyrim game (aka bride of navmesh bug)

my "legacy f'd in the A" theory is that for those of us who navmesh our stuffs while we were using the 1.4 CK, AND THEN continued into 1.5 CK are now completely ****ed because either our files are corrupted, or there is some legacy code that is still interfering with 1.5 skyrim game (and no one seems to know whats causing it, its not just the navmesh itself). files that are created from scratch in 1.5 don't have this problem


here's the TL;DR version of my test findings based on your methods and your test file esp:


Slucky navmesh technique using CK1.4 - Played in Skyrim 1.4 = no problems (this is according to you, i'm taking your word for it, and believe you, but i cant test myself, i dont have 1.4 of either)
Slucky navmesh technique using CK1.5 - Played in Skyrim 1.5 = no problems - (aka "New files **** smell like roses" theory) confirmed by me using 3 separate tests
Slucky navmesh technique using CK1.4 - Played in Skyrim 1.5 = Bride of navmesh bug (CTD on load or fast travel) - confirmed by me and arthmoor
Slucky navmesh technique using CK1.4, then modified in CK1.5 - Played in Skyrim 1.5 = Bride of navmesh bug and +1 confirm Effed in the A theory - confirmed by me

Questionable navmesh technique using CK1.4, then deleted and Slucky navmesh technique in CK 1.5 - Played in Skyrim 1.5 = Bride of Navmesh Bug & "legacy Effed in the A" theory +1


BTW, i downloaded and installed Overlook Tower and playing on patch 1.5 (with no other mods installed) and it CTD's on fast travel like all the others.

I think I finally have gotten it to trigger, but you may not like how. I made two videos to show exactly what I did and what happens. I put em in Dropbox (as opposed to youTube), because hopefully this is the kinda thing noone will care about soon enough... so it doesn't have to be posted forever. Remember I use v1.24704 of Skyrim (and the CK which came with that patch); so this bug should have caused the Delphi's not to show up or to be stuck in some corner, correct? But that's not what I got to happen... maybe I discovered Cousin NavMesh-Bob the Bug... read on.

The first video is quick and to the point - under a minute. It shows what may be me finally triggering the bug... but not like everyone describes. The FIRST time I try to enter my custom exterior, it crashed immediately AFTER it was loaded; noticed only in the video capture... the last couple frames show the cell and actors have loaded and that autosaving has been initialized, but it crashed so fast I never really SAW that in-game. So maybe that helps the troubleshooting effort somehow, in that now we know this particular bug doesn't happen during the load screen, but after the new area has finished loading (at least the visibles..).

That first video was taken using a 'dirty' saveGame... one I used to use for testing my mannequin mod; it's dirty because those plugins weren't enabled during this test, and maybe it was such an old save that it was before I updated to v1.4etc (which was like more than a month or so after it was first released)... not much other difference between this saveGame and the one that worked in the second video though. This may mean that if you HAVE already tried using different saveGames to test for the navMesh bug, you may have to dig deeper... though I'm pretty sure some of you have already said you tried without a saveGame at all (straight out the game menu, or from Helgen); so how many people this may help is obviously going to be limited.

The second video is under 7.5 minutes; and illustrates the exact same plugin, the exact same EVERYTHING except using a different (clean) saveGame. This time it works without a single problem; except the torch thing, but I doubt that's related to family-navMesh bug. So my point here is that I really do have it working as I say; and I can now trigger some FORM of the bug, but I KNOW what caused MY particular manifestation of the bug... and it was a dirty saveGame. It's noteworthy that 'dirty' saveGame works for everything else that I know of, but I also don't really use it too often anymore... all I know is that entering the test mod's area is what caused a CTD when using it (as opposed to crashing when first trying to load the saveGame, as a fully corrupt one would).

Also in the second video, I show how a non-Family-related bug is triggered in my installation. The 'torch bug' (isn't that an ingredient in the game? heheh) is when an NPC has a torch in hand, and it lights up the surrounding area; but when you leave that area then immediately return, the torch is visible but the surrounding area has no light from it. It seems to be only when exiting then going straight back, as the video shows the torches correctly illuminating the room upon fast-travel return. I've seen strange things with torches before all this, so I think maybe the torch script might need to be called onCellAttach like the mannequins? (or some other such fix/workaround) But who cares about torches at a time like this?? heheheh

First vid with CTD:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/67168394/navMesh%20bug%20test%20dirty%20save%20crashes.mp4
Second vid with working navMesh:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/67168394/navMesh%20bug%20test%20clean%20save%20working.mp4

minute 2:30 - is where I make the first return to the modded worldSpace after fast-travel then returning
5:20 - is the first return to the modded interiorCell, after walking a couple cells away, then fast-travel, then return
6:00 - immediately going back in the Cell (without fast-travel), this shows the 'torch bug' that I tripped over
6:30 - immediately going back in again (no fast-trav), torch still hasn't kicked in
6:45 - returned for the second time to the worldSpace from above, without fast-travel between leaving the interiorCell
7:15 - version number of Skyrim used in the videos (though it may be hard to see from loss of quality when re-encoding it for the net)

So I've now found TWO separate navMesh related bugs which I can replicate exactly, and that I know the fixes for both (the other was the 'selective recast auto-gen bug' - whichever relative IT was deemed to be). I guess I can name my bug since I found it... heheheh.. I guess the other one I'll call 'dirty gene-pool bug' - no.. I'm just kidding; but 'dirty saveGame bug' is prob'ly about right. Keep in mind that both these 'bugs' are, in my opinion, Family-Navmesh related bugs... even though they have absolutely nothing to do with each other, and cause two different symptoms (srag bug causes corrupt navMesh in the same cell, maybe more; while the dirty-dirty crashes it outright). Then there's the torch bug...

Yes (Elminster). No, I don't really use TESVSnip...

that's all fine, i already believed you.

the problem right now is already past this (whatever problem you are trying to replicate in skyrim 1.4 is nonexistant in skyrim 1.5). bride of navmesh is exclusive to the skyrim 1.5 season of this terrible reality show, whereas the original daddy navmesh was voted off the island.

right now the 2 biggest issues (IMO) are mods created in 1.4CK are CTD'ing in skyrim 1.5 (bride of navmesh bug), and your overlook tower is not immune to this bug.

the second and IMO the most important issue is the "effed in the A theory" - mods created in CK1.4 CANNOT be legacy-adapted into CK1.5, at least not by deleting and rebuilding navmeshes from scratch. there are other records somewhere that are causing legacy-related conflict with Skyrim 1.5 and no one knows if its even possible to fix.

if bethesda cant fix it, the mod is "effed in the A"


right now the only known workaround is using esm/false-flagged esp, but thats not a viable solution for everyone

I've heard about some kind of mapMarker bug being introduced with the v1.5, but I dunno if that is this navMesh bug or something else... do you know if it's the same or if it's fixed by deleting the navMesh (as your other problems were)? Maybe I'll just take the plunge and update to1.5 myself - get in there with the rest of ya's...

v1.4 works fine of course; but I wonder why noone has complained about it on the comment section yet.. maybe they figured it out themselves, or heard what's going on and dropped player-homes altogether (or moved on to a diff one). I dunno. Interesting. And there's no way for people to roll back their installs in Steam is there...

Thanks a LOT for putting all that info in one post and easy to read... now we have a reference to look at (at least I do... you guys are already sick of trying to explain it to me). I know NOONE wants to hear this, but has anyone with these problems tried a clean re-install of the entire game? NOT that I recommend trying... just thought I'd ask if someone got that ambitious... so we could possibly rule out corrupt game install, post processors/injectors, and INI tweaks.

In the meantime, I'm gunna wait to see what you guys have to say about the videos I posted, and if you know more about that mapMarker thing (whether it's navMesh-related and/or fixable)... gunna do some non-navMesh modding..

i havent heard about anything specifically regarding mapmarkers, only that using map markers in conjuction with corrupt navmesh is co-infected by the bridezilla CTD fast travel.

if you upgrade to 1.5 you can roll back to 1.4 but you would have to do it manually in windows 7 (there is a rollback feature for folders)


and just to satisfy my own curiosity i am going to delete everything and reinstall CK and Skyrim from scratch (although i dont see how this would help)

Your test involved fast traveling away and back. When I tried your plugin with 1.5, I didn't have to do that to induce the CTD. Started by going into the interior cell first, exiting, going to the worldspace cell, exiting, crash. On a fresh character, so no possibility of influence from bad data.

There's been more walls of text, so I don't know who suggested it, but someone suggested starting completely over with 1.5. Not happening with my alt-start mod, no way in hell would I have the patience to rebuild that all over again considering the details involved. I could try this with Open Cities though. Start a new copy of that in Riften and see what happens with something rebuilt entirely in the new CK. I wouldn't be happy about it, but in a few days we'd know if this is a case of being corrupted by bad leftover data from old mods.

I'm going to try one thing with JustinOther's ONAM version of OCS though. Change it to a regular .esp file and see if the game leaves the ONAM records intact. Getting those is a massive pain in the ass, but if they survive conversion to a normal file and don't cause some kind of crash, or simply get ignored, that would probably work.

Yeah, nope, that didn't work. The ONAM records are ignored if the file is a normal .esp.

Since I don't really play the game as much as I mod, I'm gunna update to 1.5. Might as well take one for the team....

Amethyst: A clean install would only help if somehow the game files became corrupt, or if some strange INI setting is doing strange things. I think those injector/processor things mess with DLL files for instance. This can probably be handled without a re-install, by doing a 'verify content/whatever' in Steam, and deleting the INI files (letting the game make new ones). That and like you said... just to satisfy curiousity and know for sure; but I doubt it would help if I had to guess. That's why I said I don't recommend anyone trying it... just wondered if anyone had.

Arthmoor: toward the end of video two I actually go from the interior cell, to Tamriel then the worldSpace cell; then I exit but it didn't crash like yours did. Presumably my version should have triggered something with the AI & actors though, not CTD; but my test didn't have any bug activity at all (vid two). The CTD I show in vid one is most likely caused by something totally non-related to the 1.5 CTDs, and happens when FIRST entering the modded exterior world from Tamriel.

I'm not sure why you'd put the ONAM in an ESP, since ESPs are intended to alter ESMs... I thought the ONAM was to indicate what the engine should be looking for in terms of master vs master altering. (unless you're talking about the false-flag technique from before I guess)

Given my experience with players, I am as surprised as you are that no one is complaining in your comments section, but maybe players are only going to the house once per play session. If they did that they wouldn't experience a CTD. I downloaded the tower and tested it a couple of hours ago to see what would happen. I cannot visit the tower more than once in a session without CTD. I'm updated to 1.5. I did the test with your esm/esp loaded and one other mod in a new character I created for the test. I can travel to the tower once, enter the tower and say hi to the sabre cat, leave the tower and kill the giant (if I didn't kill him already) and then leave the cell either on foot or FT. When I try to return to the tower I CTD every time. I tried to get back several times before I gave up.

I reinstalled the CK and Skyrim when I updated to 1.5.

You won't get the CTD variety with 1.4, so testing and expecting to see one isn't going to work. The worst that would have happened are your NPCs vanishing. Usually they just bunch up somewhere. With 1.5, CTD, so it hardly matters that the navmesh works while you're there the first time

I was hoping to find that the ONAM records would prevent the bug from appearing, but since those are ignored in a normal .esp file that's not useful. The ONAM records in the false-flagged file caused other unrelated issues which would be just as bad to leave in a released mod.

i did a series of more tests. here's my results:


on my mod i have all my navmeshes in my esm, and none of the records are editing vanilla. currently it works with no navmesh-family errors.

test #1 - i tried editing the interior navmeshes using a non-world-cell-related esp (contains only records related to armor, magic, enchanting etc) that was created in CK1.4 (with some records actually copy-pasted in tessnip from pre-ck).

on this esp i duplicated a cell and finalized the navmesh after connecting it to tamriel (again, not even bothering finalizing the vanilla navmesh in tamriel). played the game and there are no navmesh bugs anywhere.


test #2 - using the same esp, i finalized the tamriel navmesh, resulting in Bridezilla bug.


test #3 - reverted the esp back to pre-navmesh edits, then tried only editing existing navmeshes on the esm instead of creating new ones. i changed all the interior navmeshes, and re-finalized. again ignoring the vanilla navmeshes in tamriel. played in game with zero nav bugs.


test #4 - reverted esp again, this time creating a new interior from scratch, exactly replicating my previous successful test from yesterday. result: CTD (another +1 LFiA theory)


test #5 - dug out another old esp with no esm dependency. this esp was created pre-CK entirely using tessnip, and has no world or cell edits at all, no traces of navmesh, nothing. i created a new interior and navmesh 100% identically in procedure as my other successful test. result: CTD (another +1 LFiA theory)



test #6 - same result as #5 using a old non-world-based esp created entirely in CK1.4 (with no possible pre-ck artifacts)



test #7 - created a brand new blank esp in CK1.5 and copy pasted in data (NAVI, WRLD, CELL) from legacy esp using tessnip. same CTD




in all tests the LFiA theory prevailed except for #1 (using a esm-dependent legacy esp to create a new interior, new navmesh not editing any vanilla) and #3 (editing only new navmeshes on the esm, no vanilla), but in both cases a esm was involved, so LFiA still stands uncontested.

Interesting on #1 .. I have been changing over mods (that impact world space) to esm now for a week and getting very similar results. What has confused me is there are some that I can run as an esp and some I can't which is why I was stuck thinking must be something on my system. Hmm now one I am playing with is based on a copy of existing dungeon which left the navmesh in place and just added in changes wonder if that causes a similar phht!!! like vanilla mesh (never had issue in FNV on this but who knows here) .. might delete them and see what happens as made no external mesh changes. Thanx for tht testing as helps with at least trying to zone in on what works.

news of a fix, mayhaps, i haven't tried it, but his followers comments seem to show success. he outlined his process thusly:

"Steps I used for creating esm and ESP .
1. Finish the mod world untils it's complete, editing esm is not possible so make sure your ready.
2. Create for all the folders in the data that use .esp postfixes , make copy with .esm for instance al voice audio is in a folder your mod.esp copy and make mod.esm folder duplicate
3. Create an BSA from ESP. But with the esm folders instead of the regular ESP folders (if you use voice or face gens otherwise regular BSA)
4. open your ESP in tessnip and use spell make master
5. ESm is finished and world will load but not quests and traps and all activators.
6. Open esm in ck , you cannot save, cuz esm cannot be active file, but this is ok
7. Slightly move all the activators, Npcs and other stuff users interact with.
8.press save, and save as different name for instance questdata.esp
9 . This ESP now only contains npc changes no new stuff. It basically creates references to your esm as well as skyrim.esm
Save and package for NMm and you,r done. Navmeshes work without Ctds"

Ah why do you need to move all the NPCs just curious on this one as could be 100s in some mods and thought they would show fine if in the esm??? just wondering.

.
Lastly, I'm glad you have the inclination to write - which is much harder work than reading, thank you. There's been a lot of very useful detail come out of your posts - as well as a few others.
.
Firstly, those storms can be a real disruption. I have a policy that all computer systems under my supervision must be down and unplugged (from both power AND comms) within 22 seconds of the first rumble or flash. It leads to some amusing scenes if I'm tired on garbage-bin night - and, sometimes, Microsoft can't pull their finger out fast enough with their shutdown procedures (in which case, sorry, but the power plug gets pulled - I can always repair the disk later provided it doesn't get deep fried first). It's still slow, and I consider myself lucky to have only lost a modem and a network card to lightning strikes. Touch wood. Touch lots and lots of wood! I think I once zapped a memory stick myself (proving there's a bit of Thor in all of us) and I might have fried a video card with excessive game settings (and the ambient Summer temperatures, of several years ago and around 45 degrees Celsius, may not have helped matters either).
.
Now, for the stuff in the middle (you can see I'm not exactly writing in the linear style today), I set the ultra graphics out of curiosity and because, if memory serves, my machine is at the low end of Bethesda's specs (but maybe I'm confusing theirs with someone-else's) - and I just wanted to see what they looked like for a bit. I didn't expect it to work as well as it did - and forgot about it. It is very rare for me to get frame rate stutter in Bethesda games - and usually only when resources are over-taxed and it's time to reboot (and kick off all those do-gooder programs that fire up because, perhaps, Microsoft assumes the machine is idle whenever the desktop gets dropped from the graphics memory i.e in the middle of a good game). In any case, there is a new version of frame-rate stutter which is much less visible to the naked eye - and probably why it has a strange and nauseating affect on my inner ear. It very closely resembles visual perception problems caused by sleep debt (which is impressive in itself). I see a little of this frame-rate blurring at Ultra settings - and I guess I see a few more bugs. Considering that ultra settings are way out of my current machine's league I'm impressed that they work at all. In any case, when I stop testing and start playing, I'll naturally dial down the video settings and hopefully the motion sickness as well. Ha! At least the visuals can be paused when they get a bit much! But this frame-rate blur really is a useful effect for simulating conditions affecting visual perceptions (e.g. inebriation) and I think it needs to be turned into a special effect so that it can be applied in the correct context.
.
Sick of mannequins? Me too! But thank you for the EnableAI tip - and I'll download version two and have a look.
.
That MapMarker being hooked to the static was originally from an experiment to see if there was something I was missing with the large-model loading bug fixed by turning on or off the HasLOD attribute. After the experiment failed, I already had something else to try and forgot to break the link. Perhaps that link was the straw that broke the camel's back - at least in that instance. The NavMesh crash problem hasn't returned since I removed the Static Object link to the MapMarker - and I've been running the game a lot (I've also disabled Windows Media Player and all its brothers and sisters in arms). Admittedly, the detail has been building not in the exterior space but in the interior space with a renovation of the, ahh, "chapel" (for want of a better word for a very small place one goes to meditate - other than the little town of La Trine). Once I get the generic control code written, I'll be setting up quite a few statics in the exterior space - and we'll soon see if this makes things any worse.
.
I agree with you about the rampaging garbage collector, but I think it might be more a problem of certain processes (e.g. background load processes) not getting sufficient priority to load everything before the curtain is allowed to come up in the first place. The problem is twofold. Sometimes the curtain comes up before everything is loaded (which we see occasionally in SkyCK's render window) and, sometimes the load process is stalled by other processes which have been allowed to hijack resources allocated to the game. Things like this could be fixed by allocating top priority to all processes and their resources that are used by the game. If I understand high level programming language architecture, something like this is very simple to fix, but not so simple to diagnose.
.
But that's just my opinion...

Just in case anyone misses it, beta 1.5.26 reverts in-game navmesh behavior back to what it was with 1.4.27. No more CTDs, but NPCs will revert to their previously broken AI behavior.

I finally updated to v1.5 yesterday evening... needless to say, I'm now in the same heinous boat as you guys. So I messed with it quite a bit and found a few things. Some maybe-good knews, some knews which apparently confirms some of Amethyst's recent findings, and some knews which leaves my brow furrowed. I hope you take me seriously, as I am NOT kidding in this post... but as you read on, you may be compelled to say "what the bloody hell is he on about??"

I ran out of time last night, and this morning I did a little testing.... but I now have to wait until later or tomorrow to continue working on it. As not to bore everyone with possibly useless details, for now I'll share the basics of what I found (I'm nearly 100% sure on this stuff, unless otherwise noted)... .

LEGACY MODS (entirely made prev1.5)
= deleting any Vanilla NAVM refs in your plugin allows the mod to work perfectly, UNLESS your mod is fundamentally interwoven with Vanilla (such as Open Cites, or maybe adding a new statue in the middle of some Vanilla road); this works for ESPs without having to false-flag or anything else
- this allows followers will follow Player into a modded area (which has a finalized navMesh), from a Vanilla area which is NOT re-finalized or changed in 1.5
- re-finalizing Vanilla cells (without even altering it, just placing a door) caused return from fast-trav bug (as in fast-trav away, then fast-trav back, crash bug; NOT FT away, FT back, return to mod-world, crash bug)

PURE v1.5 MODS
= the entire mod may have to be in an ESM (or at least the navMesh data may have to be)
- I tried my above simple experiment (fresh-made in v1.5) and it fails when an ESP
- when made into a false-flagged ESP it works (flagged as ESM, but named ESP)
- flagging as and naming the mod as ESM works

ANY NAVMESH MADE WITH v1.5 (regardless what the mod was originally made with)
= this wound up being a focus of my R&D last night, but sleep required me to stop before I could definitively know this stuff is for REAL)
- there seems to be a limit on how many tri's a particular cell's navMesh may consist of... this number seems to be around 640-670 (initial testing revealed a couple different exact numbers in that range, but there is no apparent reason for the slight discrepencies; kinda disconcerting)
- if a cell's navMesh has an island, it may have the above 660 or so (in the main navMesh), plus another 100 (or so) in the island
- I ran out of time before I could test enough to form a SOLID prelim opinion on this: more than one island is possible if the cumulative total of their tri's is below 100

Why all this is, and how it can happen - I have no ideas right now. I tested this stuff for a couple hours last night, with a couple different mods; but I had to sleep before exhausting all possibilities (and working more on proving and/or discerning the above tri-count limits). A combination of the above factors, after already having eliminated the selective-recast-autogen bug and dirty saveGame bug possibilities, most likely reveal that more than one thing causes similar symptoms, yet there is no one full fix nor one single cause.

For mods which are made or altered in v1.5: the above may account for why some mods work and some don't; why some tests fail where others succeed, even though they seemingly repeat the same experiments. I'd appreciate it if someone else could verify some of the above (which hasn't already been corraborated... ie: Amethyst's findings). Feel free to use the above-linked (in a prev post) experiment ESP to tinker with (regarding pre1.5 mods... I made that v1.4).

For Legacy mods (f'd in the the a): In my tests, I used my own mod to test this stuff with (Overlook Tower, an as-yet-unreleased version.. the next upgrade to v1.7b now available on the Nex), as well as the exact and variants of the above testESP. I tried ALL kinds of things... deleting this, refinalizing that, snipping this over to an ESM, switching that to whatever, blah blah. The above basically summarizes my findings, but if you wanted more details....

My mod has an interiorCell which has several doors linked to various cities and places in Tamriel (doors to Vanilla, all exterior worldSpaces). The ONLY thing I could consistently get to NOT crash/bug-out was deleting the Vanilla NAVM refs. I had spurious results with other remedies, some of which allowed me to FT to and fro my custom cell (whereas it would crash if the mod was tried as-is), while others had different outcomes (CTD when trying to start Skyrim period). This includes deleting everything EXCEPT the nilla navMesh refs (in my mod)... still had the bug; I even went through and selectively deleted stuff, but it always wound up that the Vanilla NAVMs were to blame.

I ran out of time before I could test all this stuff further.. so here I am, telling ya what I got. Lemme know what you think and if anyone has similar experiences. I'll be back by tomorrow to resume work on this. What it comes down to for ME is a useable fix for Family-Navmesh Bug... delete the nilla navMesh refs from my mod - case closed. BUT my mod doesn't change Vanilla stuff... it only pops up inside it - those who mod Vanilla still seem to be out of luck with my current findings.

(at least I found that for MY Legacy mods it's the Vanilla NAVM which actually triggers CTD.. if all else emerges BS, at least I know THAT much)

I guess that is their way of saying "back to the drawing board". At least they are close to solving the problem.

Just a quick observation just to see if you guys can make any sense of this. I built and released a mod a few weeks after the CK came out that tweaks the vanilla Breezehome. Among other things, it removes the fire pit in the middle of the living room, and adds a proper fireplace. I definitely edited the vanilla navmesh because I replaced that fire pit with a regular floor piece, and navmeshed the hole where the new floor piece was. I’m almost 100% positive that I finalized it as well. I didn’t make any changes to the exterior navmesh, but I did add a fast travel/map marker to the exterior. I'm also 100% certain I did NOT finalize the exterior navmesh because I didn't edit it.

This mod was made entirely before 1.5, and while I don’t have tens of thousands of downloads, it still has enough that if it were causing the navmesh bug I would have probably heard about it . However, no such reports have been made, and I have played (and tested) quite a few hours with no NPC’s losing their ability to run their packages.

I also have another personal mod (not released) that adds a new custom interior for a player home that’s fully navmeshed. For the exterior, I used one of the Whiterun exterior house models, added a small barn & smithing type area and edited the landscaping to accommodate the home exterior. I also definitely edited the vanilla navmesh, removed quite a few triangle, and reshaped it for my home. Again, I’m almost 100% certain I finalized, but I’ve been running it for a while with no problems that I’ve seen. Any ideas why I haven’t been bitten by the bugs yet?

@sluckyD - i can replicate the CTD bug everytime even with an esp that has no vanilla NAVM (although it may possible have some vanilla in the mickey-moused NAVI group)... although the tri-count theory is interesting. i cant remember off the top of my head if any of my navmeshes are this big (could be though i have some kinda large ones).

Your edits are too small to be noticed. Adding what few tris would be necessary to plug that hole in the fireplace won't be noticed. It's entirely possible you don't even need to finalize a change that small since the exit door didn't move.

So it looks like Navmesh Bug got together with his first wife again. Very unusual, but it won't last (hopefully).