Flying Insects will not Spawn

[Ertosi]

I just switched over from XBox to playing Skyrim on PC through Steam. After playing a while I realized that I hadn't ever seen any flying insects spawn. I googled the issue and saw someone with the same issue pointing to the latest Unofficial Skyrim Patch. I unchecked it from my active mod list in NMM and sure enough, I had flying critters all over just like they should be.

 

I posted the issue on the Unofficial Skyrim Patch page on Nexus and they sent me here.

 

I'm using the latest versions of everything: Skyrim, Patch, NMM. When I first started playing I didn't have any other mods installed, just textures, and my load order matches what I read it should. I deactivated and reactivated the patch several times with the same results; patch ='s no insects for me.

 

I've had to deactivate the patch in order to be able to play and see all of the little insects flying around. I'd prefer playing with the patch but the scenery just doesn't look alive without the butterflies and dragonflies. Come to think of it... I still haven't come across a single live torchbug.

 

Thank you all for your time and all of the hard work you've put into the patch.

[BlackPete]

This isn't something that the patches would cause. Do you have any other mods that make changes to the critter scripts?

 

Also, do you have the patches sorted in the correct order? This can be done automatically by using LOOT.

[alt3rn1ty]

I like most people who frequent this site, have used every version of the Unofficial Patch Projects, and cannot reproduce this problem.

 

 

Moths / Luna moths / Butterflies / Dragonflies / Torchbugs / Fish .. any critters - They are all fine, and the Unofficial patches have never been the cause of them not being.

 

There was a time when a lot ( an awful lot ) of scripting work was done to improve their 'behaviour' and eradicate papyrus errors related to them, but those issues have long been fixed and did not cause critters not to appear. Here is one of the posts from The Critter Thread if you want to have a look at the work that went into those.

 

 

I would suggest you either have - Another mod causing the problem / Or you are complicating matters by having MO extract all of your BSAs and so the scripts that should be working from these patches are either being written over as loose files or given a lower load order priority one way or another to another mods scripts ...

 

Or .. Perhaps you are trying to continue a save game that was dependant upon mods you have removed from your setup in the past, and now have problematic or corrupt saves.

 

 

Whatever your problem is though, playing with JUST the Unofficial patches, no other mods, and with a NEW game start .. Will prove that the Unofficial patches are not to blame. ( You would also have to ensure that any loose files from other mods in your data folder are also eradicated .. ie get the game back to vanilla state plus just the Unofficial patches )

 

If you follow that last paragraph to the letter, and still can produce the problem, then that would be worth reporting to the UPP team.

 

I am not saying that anyone here expects you not to have any other mods in your setup, I am just suggesting the method to disprove the Unofficial patches are to blame for this issue, instead of relying on random reports elsewhere, by people who quite probably are using the same mods and / or making the same mistakes as yourself in modding the game.

[Arthmoor]

We've seen reports of this sort of thing before, but have never been able to reproduce it. I've loaded up the USKP-only test folder countless times and have gone to where I know critters should be, and they're there. I've done the same with my regular play folder, and they're always there. In fact, on balance, I'd say there are MORE of them than when I played back in 2011 without any mods whatsoever. Which shouldn't be a surprise since one of the many things the critter script fixes did was to correct the respawn mechanism.

 

I suspect what you're running into is a whole lot of old critters that despawned but have not yet been removed from the game. Give it some time. As you run around, those old critter will reload and update their stored instances of the scripts. The spawners will do the same. By the time you go through those areas again, everything should be fine and there should also be much less spam in your logs too.

[Ertosi]

I appreciate all of the replies. Lets see... there were lots of suggestions of what it could be above but I don't see anything that applies to my specific situation.

 

When I first started playing I was only using the main Skyrim esp, update, unofficial Skyrim patch, the three add-ons (DG, HF,  DB) and their unofficial patches. I didn't have any other mods installed back then but still no flying insects were spawning, so I know the issue wasn't caused by interference from another mod. I've used Loot from the start to sort my load order so I know that's not the issue. I've never used MO (Mod Organizer?) so I know that's not the issue (ie complicating matters by extracting my bsa's - never messed with that). I ran around and gave it plenty of time for any insects to show up (70+ hours on my longest saved game file). I have started a new game with just the unofficial patches to double check the issue as suggested above, after fully deleting all folders and files (twice, including the data folder, saved games, and all settings), just to be sure, before coming here. The only thing I haven't tried is to make a Wyre Bash patch, and I'm reading up on how to make one of those now.

 

Note that fish and birds have always been unaffected by this problem - just insects. If I save near some flying insects, exit, re-enable the unofficial patch in NMM and reload, those insects will be there but no more will spawn either at that location or at other areas when I run around.

 

If some people have reported it, and you all haven't been able to replicate it, given that we are all using the same programs could it be from some specific hardware or operating system conflict?

[alt3rn1ty]

I run the game on three different machines, my minimum spec laptop, my eldests more capable laptop and the home family desktop which can handle anything I wish to throw at it .. so a bit of a diverse range of machines just in this household.

For an even more diverse range of machine capabilities .. see the unique downloads number ..

I dont think anyone has seen 2 million reports of the same problem, and they would certainly all be moaning.

 

In other words I'm not so sure you are going to pin it to hardware or OS, I think there are enough users out there, that there will be a fair amount of groups of people with similar hardware, and enough in any one of those groups / percentage of people to cause a lot of noise with the same problem

 

 

My only other thoughts were pirate software ( which nobody would be able to solve problems with ) .. But then you already mentioned playing skyrim through steam ..

 

Or INI tweaks - Setting UGrids higher than vanilla, or tweaking memory budgets either of which will destabilize the game

 

If you have played with INI tweaks in the past .. Have you tried deleting 

Skyrim.ini

SkyrimPrefs.ini

Rendererinfo.txt

 

After deleting those, the next time your run the games launcher, they will be regenerated optimally for your machine setup / capabilities.

 

 

If that does not help, or you have never messed with INI tweaks anyway, I think we are out of all possible suggestions, and its something which may be discovered in the future.

 

 

Have you given any particular place plenty of time to respawn as Arthmoor suggested ?

See "Schedule" UESP Skyrim : Respawning

"For any area to respawn, you must not enter the area during the specified time period. Each time you enter the area, the respawn clock is reset."

 

Leave the area alone for at least 10 days ( in game time ), before you revisit the same cell again.

 

 

I'm off on a bug hunt again, throwing unrelenting force about and upsetting guards / chaurus and anything else in the near vicinity

See if I can make anything stick at not respawning on my minimum spec machine.

 

If I fail to report back, you can assume I did not reproduce the problem.

 

 

Also note : There are some really puzzling problems this game has which can only affect a range of people with seemingly nothing in common, whereas everyone else can march through the same areas / quests without ever experiencing the same - Here is one example, if you have a read of the mega thread which is linked from this topic you will see how frustrating that one has been, and still no code solution to the problem has been found, apart from doing certain things, or not.

 

As Hana puts it the cause is "Skyrim being Skyrim"

 

Dragons facing the wrong way around on their word walls is another bizarre one, and randomly sorts itself out as time goes on.

[Ertosi]

Well, its not a pirate copy... I did get it from Steam. Its only one of two games I like enough that I bought it for multiple systems; the other being Terraria. I'm definitely a sandbox guy.

 

When I did the full re-install all of my old ini files were deleted. I also recently replaced them when I set everything up for RealVision to work. Man, It looks pretty now! My sis came over for a videogame day and we were switching tv inputs back and forth from Xbox to PC to see how drastic the difference was.

 

I tried waiting for area respawn twice. The first time I rested for 30 days and then went out for a peek. The second I loaded up Falskaar and took an extended vacation from the mainland. No luck either time.

 

I've seen the dragons sitting backwards on the dragonwalls a few times so I had assumed it was their choice how to sit; I didn't realize it was another glitch. How does the old joke go again? "Where does an ancient dragon sit?..."

 

And being an IT guy I know how frustrating bug reports are when you can't replicate the issue yourself so I certainly understand everyone else's perspective.

 

Thanks again, everyone, and happy adventuring.

 

Edit: Oh, in case it helps... the guy who first suggested to try deactivating the Unofficial Skyrim Patch esp said he only had this issue with the latest version. Previous versions hadn't caused this issue for him. I've also seen numerous reports of the Brawl Bug Patch causing this issue but I've never downloaded that one.

[Arthmoor]

Not sure why it would make any difference whether someone was using 206 or 207 since we haven't had to touch the critter scripts for several versions now.

 

What makes it even more bizarre is we've had people tell us that one version was broken, the next update fixed it, but we hadn't touched it for like 3 versions.

 

I truly think this is a case of Skyrim being Skyrim, aka Skyrim Sorcery as Thomas puts it.

[alt3rn1ty]

Tried my best to make all flying critters extinct, waited 12 days, and then went and revisited all the route around skyrim I took on the killing spree .. They all respawned so cannot reproduce the problem here.