Sadly latest mini patch 1.4.27 brought back the little bug when entering a door the loading screen that is only smoke on black surface has some black object on top of smoke. That was fixed in prior mini patch (1.4.21).

Could it be a mod?

Don't think so. I have only 8 small mods and had no new installed while the game was patched.

I've not encountered this issue. As you are still using mods, I'd suggest that you remove them and see if the problem persists.

Yea I agree. The latest patch changed the order mods are read in. I'd recommend removing them for now, and skse and script dragon to. Just to find the cause.

This would be a very good reason why my game started freezing, without destabilizing the PC itself though... the load order on the launcher is from top to bottom, right?

Yep top to bottom

Good to know, thanks.

To keep things on the safe side, I used the old -but always handy- Filedate app, to alter the dates of any loose .nif & .dds that came without an esp. Everything seems stable so far, even on uGrids 9

Oh man. I am lazy to do that. But I still think its a bug cause I had it long before I installed any mod.

Rule #1 when troubleshooting a TES game: if you have an issue, and you have mods installed, always remove your mods first to see if the problem goes away.

This isn't rocket science. When a patch comes out, especially one like 1.4.27 which directly messes with the launcher and mod load order, chances are good it is going to break a mod or two.

Take out your mods. See if the problem goes away. If it does, there's your answer. If it doesn't, at least now you know the mods aren't behind the issue. FWIW, I'm with Kastagir...haven't seen this issue reoccur with the latest patch. I only use a couple of texture (non-.esp) mods.

Is anyone else having problems loading esm's now after the patch. Seems whenever I load any mod as an esm the game shows errors and crashes on load. Change the esm to an esp and it loads.