» Tue Jul 10, 2012 9:38 am Like many, I have had my game lock up. I conducted a lot of trial and error to determine the cause. Here is what I came up with...
1) my game freezes at specific locations within the map - in this case, close to the Abandoned Prison and upon entering Lost Knife Hideout - always here, always crashes.
- I am using an XBox 360 (old style, not slimline)
- I have a 250GB HDD - with a lot of empty space (180+GB)
- Playing Skyrim with unknown XBox patch (not sure how to check it)
- when it locks up, the screen freezes and no controls work, the sound stops, I can only reset by pressing the off button on the XBox itself
2) I thought it might be a scratched disc and, when accessing the data for the area on the map, it caused the crashes.
- I cleaned the disc - still locked up
- I copied the disc to the HDD - it copied fine (I assumed if the disc was bad, it would not copy successfully - I hope this is a reasonable assumption)
- I decided it wasn't the disc
3) I loaded an older character (I am on my third one) and attempted to access the cave at Lost Knife Hideout.
- It worked
- I was able to go through the entire cave complex (both sections)
- I tried to go down the road bhy the abandoned prison - it worked
4) This means it was my character file that is causing the game to lock up - but it is only at these two locations. I tested this out.
- I fast traveled to several locations - I was able to successfully travel
- I entered several other caves - this was a success also
5) I tried some desperate moves in the hopes of fixing the character file:
- I cleared the Xbox 360 system cache (via the XBox menu)
- I cleared the game cache (hold LB, RB, and X from game start to initial screen)
6) No joy - still locks up at the same places.
Concern: I have 555 hours invested in this character. The first two characters had to be abandoned (one had 476 hours invested) because of bugs that precluded me from finishing main quests. This one managed to finish it all except for one dragon mask (issue with Shearpoint - the dragon priest never did rise up so I couldn't get Krosis). I don't want to start all over again, but I don't want to have to forego travel down the main road northeast of Whiterun (by the abandoned prison).
Question: Is there anything anyone can think of that I haven't tried yet?
For Bethesda, I have detailed my issue so that hopefully, it will give insight into the problem and people with this same problem can overcome it with a patch.
Any constructive help would be appreciated.
