Well, he's either sorely misguided or flat-out lying. That 16 mb save file of mine I mentioned above? I also have a file from before it that's just slightly smaller. In the slightly smaller save file, I can still enter Understone Keep (it takes a hell of a long time to load, but I can still get in).

The only thing I did between that earlier save and the later one was discover a new location on the map. But simply discovering t hat location and wandering around a new area increased my save file. It was at that point Understone Keep decided it didn't want to load for me anymore. That isn't the only place, either. There's also a dwarven dungeon (the name escapes me) that refused to let me in without freezing up too. Probably more, but at that point I thought it was pointless to continue.

I've reloaded that earlier save multiple times and kept getting the same result. Understone Keep is accessible until I do something that makes my save file bigger, at which point it locks up on me.

There is a direct correlation between save file game size and not being able to enter/exit certain areas.

Either the two things are happening at the same time, caused by the same problem, or just having save files
that large causes a problem.

I had zero lock up exit/enter problems, until my save file got to about 18 meg by default (anywhere.)
That was when I noticed I could not leave the companions guild without the game locking up.

At 20 meg, the problems increased a lot. That was when I could not enter understone keep (markarth palace),
my house in Markarth with all my stuff ( =/_ ), The palace in whiterun, as well as quite a few more overland locations.

Also, I could still enter some places at the start of 20 meg save files, but not after playing the game some more after that.

There seems to be a direct correlation, since other people report not being able to enter markarth palace anymore at about the
same time; I've heard reports of 18 meg, 20 meg, etc.

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I'm experiencing these save files after getting to level 72 with no exploiting, doing all 344 locations several times, running through
all main quests and all side quests which are not bugged. So that is likely quite a few hours of playing time.

At this point, usually approaching ANYWHERE NEAR a nimroot spawn area locks me up in the same way (system freeze.)

I dont doubt that the save file size reflects that there is a problem, but i dont think the save file size is the actual problem. I went through a bunch of my other games save directories... most of them are between 1-5megs in size for the save files, the majority being 5megs, but, there are a few games in there that have save files at 20-40 megs in size. One would think that if it was a size issue and the memory contraints of the xbox system itself, that these other games would be experiencing the same thing, but they aren't.

The save file size most likely denotes that there may be a potiental problem within the game, and being that many people with saves running in the upwards of 18+ megs are experiencing the lockup issues, though there are a few people who have pointed out having simular issues with much smaller save files.

I think part of finding what is causing the lock up is using a character that isn't experiencing any issues in the areas that are locking up, and using that character to look around within the imediate area to see if there are various things that could be causing the lockup with the area. Nimroot glow stack has continued sense very early in the game, probably sense day one, and this glow stack itself can end up being very problematic for the users, when it gets bad enough it can cause lag, freezing and lockup. Have a feeling this has alot to do with the riften area lockups, but is it also effecting the other areas that are experiencing like lockups?

I have a question about this, since i started a new game with 1.4 and of course after reading this thread im a little paranoid about my save file bloating. anyhoo by this do you mean placing all weapon's on the corpse's no matter what or only the weapon's in which you can clearly see them next to the corpse but activating the corpse does not show said weapon in the inventory?

So far im roughly 8 hours into this playthrough and only 3 bandit's so far (out of a group of 5-6) had weapon's that could not be activated via their corpse but since i started i have removed and replaced the weapon's even if they are activated via the corspse (which does get a bit tedious after a while).

So long story short, do i place weapons in the corpse's inventory every kill OR only if said corpse's weapon cannot be activated via it's inventory?

Beth have more dev tools than us gamers have, more debug stuff so know alot more about this issue than we do. It clearly isnt save file = problems as we have people on here with large files and zero problems, and people with small files and lag.

If there is a weapon dropped on the floor (the cause of the problem), they are removed from the floor, into your inventory, when you take it from the inventory of the enemy who dropped it, where they are still displayed. Yes, it is boring, I agree. If there are weapons on tables or in racks, leave them, they are there anyway, won't contribute to your file size. Kill 500 bandits though, that's 500 extra weapons, on top of everything else in the world.
Of course, if I wasn't such a hoarder, wouldn't have so much of a problem.

Yeah that's what i have been doing, i just assumed it only count's for weapons that they clearly dropped but does not appear in the inventory. I'll just continue taking then replacing the weapon's i do not want, tedious yes but over the long term worth it. Thank's for the reply

as you become more powerful with sword and magic attacks, you'll have more enemies dropping weapons that wont activate via their corpses. its when the item can't be activated via the corpse that the weapon / shield has been dropped, helgen is a good place to test this out, as the bandits there are low level bandits, and a high level character can make their bodies fling pretty easy.

I'm pretty sure any weapon (unless disarmed via shout or perk?) that an enemy starts combat with will remain *listed* in their inventory regardless -- e.g., even if it fell off a cliff when they died. From my experience, weapons not attached to an enemies' inventory after battle were never in their inventory to begin with -- i.e., weapons that were on a table or just on the ground that may've been disturbed by the battle. The one exception to remaining listed are, of course, arrows shot will disappear from their inventory.

How the game handles seperation of weapons from corpses appears to be buggy, so determining which ones, or under what circumstances, they'd be left behind after "corpse cleanup" is anyone's guess. To be on the safe side, I check every enemy's inventory after battle, remove all weapons, and then add them back to their inventory (unless I want to keep it as loot, obviously) to ensure they get cleaned up with their corpses.

Arrows are a big one to keep an eye out for. I don't necessarily go hunting for arrows after battle, but any I see laying about get picked up and added to one of the corpses (again, unless they're worth keeping). As other's have said, grab any and all nirnroots regardless of whether you have any intention of ever using them in alchemy; their glowstack problem is a noted, and significant, problem.

By doing the above, I've got almost 400 hrs. in a lvl. 42 character and only a 10mb save file. I don't think the actual size of the file is the direct problem, but that its size is correlated with the amount of bugged data that's causing problems. And, yes, preventing the buildup of the bugged data by playing janitor is quite tedious.

Don't know if this will help you, but I tried deleting all of my saves exept 2 or 3, and my game seems to run better.

At one point I had about 100, and my game took forever to load and had lots of lag.

Also 40MB???

DUDE!! Sell some stuff.

Why are you hoarding so many items? Weapons... find... enchant... sell.

Money, ^enchantment... smaller save file.

For me the patches are fixing quest bugs and they did fix the save game issue where if you save it would overwrite saves and not display your saves properly. In saying that each patch makes everything worse. I had less problems out of NV than this game. Ash piles still do not clean up properly after 1.4.

Patch 1.2 or 1.3 made my enemies stop respawning in front of their respective dungeons, and one of those two has made ny alchemy ingredients stop respawning. There is random plants that never respawn and there is clusters of plants that never regrow, all the plants in the cities never grow back. I've waited on the ingredients and enemies to respawn for over thirty days, and its been over a year and half in game time. These issue have persisted with the character I have had since 1.1 and with my new character in 1.4.

It could be the key duplication bug.

The OP should check out his keys and get rid of the extra ones if that's the issue.

Just out of curiosity: Has anyone sent their huge savefiles to bethesda to have it checked out? Beth really needs those to anolyze the problems related to that.

I doubt that will really help to solve the issue, because as the situation is Bethesda must have known that such a thing will happen the longer you play and the more locations you visit / explore.
This must have become obvious during testplay except the testplay only lasted 10 - 50 hours. But also then it must have become obvious that the savefilesizes were growing. Therefore I'm afraid that Bethesda released an unfinished game which you can't play in the way Bethesda promised: Visit all locations and do all quests / questlines with one character.
If Betehsda needs bloated savefiles they should sit down and play their own damn game till they hit the 19 mb.
But I think I know what they say about the problem: It lies in the game structure and we can't change / fix / improve that on the consoles or some crap like that.

Face it: You'll need like at least 2 characters if you want to find everything what skyrim has to offer. One for the mainquest along with the major sidequestlines and one for exploring all locations not covered by the mainquest and the major sidequestlines.

You must do a lot of looting and hoarding most of it. Try selling as much as you can or putting the stuff in dead bodies. That should decrease your file size. If you come accross items you've dropped on the ground, pick them up and find or make a dead body to put them in. You shouldnt have to do all that, I know, but it should help with the lag.

What is the average file size on 360 anyway? Mine is about 11mb

average size ranges from 7-14 mb with a clean game, even if you 'horde' everything.

Mines 9 mb right now. Level 56.

Mine is 16. I'm level 45. roughly 200 hours but not there yet. I've discovered a lot of locations, own three fully decorated houses including the Solitude one, but I storage stuff in only two of them. All that stuff I keep it in the main chests, except for books, that I put in the bookshelves and those are pretty full. I don't have many active quests, nor dragons flying around and I don't litter, so to speak. I've done all the questlines except for the end of the main one, part of the Dark Brotherhood and the entire Civil War. I've completed an awful lot of regular and misc quests too.