What mods have you run previously that could have affected your save files? What happens if you start a new game? Have you deleted your .ini files?

It ain't Bethesda's fault people install mods willy nilly and have no clue about the problems that can happen.

I agree that patches shouldn't be forced on us though, as it does break mods, but again, that ain't Beth's fault either.

This.

Not technically or "directly" Bethesda's fault, no. But the way Steamworks has been done - anyone that's new to modding, new to Elder Scrolls, or just a bit of a "computer newb" (y'know, doesn't really understand how mods work/are made, that there's even a possibility that a mod can "break" from an update because they don't "get" what mods really are behind the scenes)... is going to fall into this trap easily.

Think about it. You've never modded a game before. You're not really much of a "community" person. You just bought a game, loaded up Steam, saw this "Steamworks thing". It's all integrated, easy, all official looking, all provided even encouraged by the game itself. You see some cool looking mods. You click to install them. Woo, dead easy! My game's changed! Next day, you turn your PC on, go make a coffee. Steam's loaded up in the background and updated Skyrim for you without you knowing. You come back, sit down, load up Skyrim... and WTF MY GAME'S CRASHING! IT WORKED LAST NIGHT!

You might come to the forums then - possibly for the first ever time even. You see mention of some update to the game. Aha you think! My game worked last night... it doesn't work today. There's been some update... THE UPDATE KILLED MY GAME!

Can you really not see how Bethesda does have to take SOME responsibility for this? Perhaps their responsibility need only end at educating users better - and making in your face warnings. Perhaps when the game updates, and you load the game up, it detects if you have any mods that haven't been updated since before the game updated, and warn you "If you have any problems... blah blah mods blah blah update".

Sorry if this sounds harsh but there are a lot of people playing Skyrim on a PC who really should have got the console version instead. The slightest issue and it's "Skyrim is rubbish" or "Bethesda broke my game" rather than a bit of research via Google, or searching forums like this one. I haven't posted on any forums for help but I know about VRAM, monitoring it with a tool like GPU-Z, what shadows and AA mean for performance, recreating my .ini files, disabling mods and so on, but these keep getting suggested to people every day here.

Head over to the Nexus site and it's even worse. The poor guy who produced Skyrim HD needs a medal for all the repetitively inane comments if you ask me.

I haven't installed any mods to Skyrim at all, but recently when I played it from my last save game, I noticed that the graphics are messed up. Bunches of squares(pixels) are showing incorrectly. Parts of walls are mostly see through.

The only thing I did was install a completely different game that required direct x 8. I verified my system was still using dx 11 though.

+Petrose

I was having this issue, but found a fix... to my particular problem, at least. My insta-crashes after the bethesda logo were being caused by the "Half Elf" racial mod from workshop. the author has since updated to refer you to a mod in nexus which is a racial compatibility mod. This fixed the issue! It seems that patch 1.5 may have changed the way the game looks at extra races or something.

For details, check out my post at http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1360445-game-will-no-longer-start-since-15-update/ . I am post #4 and have links to both mods there.

1.5 works great for me. No fps drops, graphics seem a little improved in a couple of places (may just be my eyes), no crashed even when playing old saves that used old mods I don't use any more. No crashes or anything with current mods.

All in all very pleased

Sneaky Edit:
Ofcourse I made fresh ini files (added my tweaks to the new ones), made sure my load order was right even though it's a pain on the ass right now, updated mods as needed and rebuilt my bash patch for [censored]z and gigs

I'm not a moron, it is irrelevant what mods I had in the past, I even scoured my registry of everything TES or gamesas related in between the last two of my clean installs. The ini files I am using are stock and unedited, the save games are all from the new iteration of skyrim. To me a clean install is just that, clean. It is 1.5 versus the last version for me, I've been keeping old versions of skyrim on a portable hard drive since the launch version, and the version previous to 1.5 still works flawlessly for me.

Not looking for help on a fix, just waiting for a new patch honestly, there is always someone smarter than you but being in IT for 15+ years leads me to believe that I truly have exhausted all possible fixes short of reinstalling windows and reformatting my entire pc.

Alright, alright, calm down, just trying to help, won't make that rookie mistake again. If you're playing with old save games then it can be relevant which mods you had in the past, see RWT 2.0 for an example. If you're getting problems with brand new save games then that's a whole different matter.

It doesn't matter what you think is relevant. Old mods can still affect saves, leave behind stuff that shouldn't be there.

When you say clean install of skyrim, did you actually delete the skyrim folder in the steam directory? What exactly is the problem you're having?

Obviously, clean means skyrim and everything related is gone. Clearly old mods effect old saves, but I really don't understand how difficult the concept of a truly clean install is. I crash at a load from a death, or about 1/4 of the time I try to load outside. No error message, right to desktop, no crash dump or error report recorded whatsoever. This is with Vanilla 1.5 skyrim, as if I just bought and installed it. Previous versions work fine. And the previous version is on a portable hard drive which is not connected, before you jump on me saying it isn't a clean install.

Not really worried about it, as my old version works and is stable beautiful and modded, but it is annoying.

Patch 1.5 made my sun invisible, but other than that... I haven't noticed anything bad, but only more good things.

You obviously have issues with both the game and social skills, we're trying to assist you here but after this I can't see a queue of willing volunteers. Yes, we all know what a clean install is, but you are talking about loading saves in. That's why we talked about corrupted saves. Here's your original post:

As a non idiot, I believe I can say 1.5 is FUBAR. With mods, without any mods, three clean installs, and I still crash trying to load a save game from death, or about 1/4 of the time I try to go outside, this is after playing hundreds of hours pre 1.5.

At the time, you weren't clear on whether these saves are old, pre-1.5 saves, or from a brand new 1.5 game. Anyway, I'll leave you to your angry little world.

My game crashes after the intro video wtih my mods running, but it runs fine with a vanilla launch. Any ideas of what I can do about my mods to figure out what is causing the problem? I use boss to sort the load order but it seems since the most recent update something is crash happy.

screenshots of my mods list.

He also said that the save games he's using are from the "new iteration of Skyrim" which reads to me like he's experimenting from new saves made under his clean install.

Honestly, it's the same two or three people coming into every topic saying nothing is Bethesda's fault and that it's your naughty mods screwing up the game. Two of those two or three people are in here doing the same thing.

Given the sorry state the PS3 version of this game shipped in, I'm hardly one to give Bethesda and their programmers the benefit of the doubt when it comes to well tested and QA'd code anymore.

I'm not having crashing issues with the new patch, just visual issues that are annoying and make the game less spectacular to play, but it gets annoying reading the forum and having the same handful of people constantly blaming the users and the mods without any thought to maybe people do know what the hell they're doing and maybe . . . just freaking maybe . . . Bethesda actually has released a buggy mess of a patch.

Just found out what my issue was More Craftables - More_Craftables_2_3_1-Crafting_300_Compatibility was causing crashes right after the bethesda intro video.

I was aggravated because I was not asking for help, I am reporting a problem. The difference is that in most cases, the problem is in the fault of the user, while I assure you mine is not. Sometimes the software is just broken, and it can be for an infitesimal reason that is only present in .2% of users. I'm only angry because when reporting something that is certaintly an issue after spending several hours testing the issue with different controlled scenarios, I am basically told it is because I'm computer illiterate and do not understand how to uninstall a program. Bethesda are great designers, and terrible programmers, I don't understand why people think they walk on water. They are a group of people like any other.

But that IS what the problem is...

So let me also be one of the ones that says.....

I installed the game 11/11/11, I am still using that install. Longest straight run to date is 19 hours straight . I run a few mods. (25+) My charater has made it thru every single patch unscathed. My Saves still load after 1.5 The game will rarely crash. I fast travel . I can Die. Skyrim will use 3.5 gb system RAM, wile loading 6 GB of textures to 2 video cards. The game is sixy stable. It does have some Quirks.

Of the now possibly 4 people that are here trying to help, because they can keep the game running, their must be millions that are not here ...their happy playing a game that works well.

Things I always do when a patch is gonna hit...(by the way ...thanks for the warning with the Beta's Beth )

Get Beta....test it will work with my current mod set. IF there was a serious problem, I could then have a way to back out of the beta. Giving me back my stable game. IF that next patch is going to be messed up , i can then put steam into OFFline mode and not have to worry, because backing out of the beta gives me the previous patch.

When a patch can get thru this, I then update SKSE, Load the game....open console and "saveINI" I exit the game and compare the new INI to my existing extremely edited INI. (by the way the new INI entries are interesting)

I then edit the new INI with my edits. Run Wrye Bash , Generate a new Bash patch. and play for hours. I will not let them break my game.

Alright, I luckily solved my Skyrim issue that caused Skyrim to crash to the desktop when I was trying to load my current save game file, the issue was The Unofficial Skyrim Patch.esp from the Skyrim Nexus website, because when I unchecked The Unofficial Skyrim Patch.esp, my current save game file loaded perfectly and it got me in the Skyrim game perfectly, hooray!, but, the in game issue that I'm getting in the game is that when I try to enter "The Four Shields" tavern in the Dragon Bridge area my Skyrim game then crashes to the desktop, please help me fix this issue.

Mods are not what broke Ambient Occlusion.

but thats not part of the game. The topic is about 1.5 breaking Skyrim.....its not broken....all tho I am missing my sun right now ..but it still plays without crashing.

To the OP...

Try waiting in an interior (player home best) for at least 73 hours (resets scripts) if that doesn't work..Wait 32 more days...IF that does not work...Start a new game.

It would be a pain to start new , but look at the long run....a year from now the patches will have been sorted....we can then start the Character we can play for the next 5 years!!

Strangely enough it was the Bethesda texture pack, steam was downloading it automatically each time I reinstalled skyrim, axed it and now I'm stable and modded. Replaced it with 2k textures, bettet snow, better water etc., game seems prettier and smoother, go figure. I suppose to an extent you guys were right about mod conflicts, but imho it's a broken system where steam downloads that crap automatically without warning, never mind something being labeled as dlc stopping my game from functioning. Very odd, used it since release, such are computers.