Hi gang - recently decided to fire up Skyrim after taking a few months off - wanted to get back into Skyrim in anticipation of upcoming DLC. Of course, since the last time I played (June) patch 1.8 came out, which I installed when the game loaded. However, now, I'm running into problems. Here's what's happening.

So, I start in a mining camp, just south of Fort Amol. I decide to mosey on up to Windhelm. Right about the time the the grass gives way to snow - near the Talos shrine, and where the road comes to the river and you turn right to go over the bridge and then to the Windhelm stables, the road disappears! Just snow. About twenty seconds of walking later, the game freezes entirely and I have no choice but to shut the power off and reload.

Here is what I have tried to ameliorate the situation:

1) delete the game data and update files
2) turned off auto-save (it's only doing 15 minutes on the character menu).

Neither of these two things worked. A couple of other bits of useful info.

1) I have 3 auto-saves, each 14 MB in size, 266 hours playtime (yeah, I've been playing this game a lot(. I also have two teeny game saves from this time last year, which I created when I was a measly level 9 guy. So, apart from those two saves, not a lot of save files.

2) I have 66 GB free on the PS3, so space shouldn't be an issue.

Anyone have any ideas as to things I can do to make this freeze issue go bye-bye? I'm really jonesing to play this game!

Thanks in advance!

RFLOL what DLC???
They have not even confermed PS3 is getting any type of DLC only additional content and that my friend can be something as simple as horse armor....

About your issue, nope sorry. Can be something as trivial as how you turn your PS3 off?? or you are travling by horse and the cell fails to load properly.

Bets bet would be to stay put and wait for a week or two and then sit in that area for a few minutes with out moveing.. Let the free camera spin around you for a few minutes too and then try again.

Thanks for the advice, and yeah i know. Hope springs eternal.

You should manually save more for a start, your PS3 is not about to run out of space. Is the 1.8 patch already out for the PS3? I thought the last was 1.7, we must be slow at getting these things in Australia.

You could try clearing the game cache? (not sure how you do that on the PS3, but it is likely holding L1, R1 and Square from starting the game to when the start screen appears, but you should check)
Turning off all autosave options even the one you left.
Making sure the PS3 is not overheating
Moving slower, if you were going at a fair pace (sprinting, riding a horse), the game might be struggling to load, the grass often loads practically under your feet these days, even when walking.

And if you do indeed have patch 1.8 they could have been skimping on resources trying to free some up for DLC, so who knows what the PS3 is likely to make of that.

Unfortunately no matter what you do the game is occasionally going to freeze, which is another reason why you should manually save a bit more.