Jump to content

[Skyrim] Engine Bugs


lmstearn

Recommended Posts

This is just going to be a WIP and is expected to gwow bigtime. The first milestone will be DayDreamer's 87. :P
Here's the original post:

 


On the search for a definitive list of Engine Bugs...
Some mention was made a-whiles back, and having a reference on hand would save time for all submitting and confirming bugs.
 
It would be a substantial list with categories similar to this- containing at least 20 and as many as a hundred. The majority of entries can be extracted from the "Will Not Be Fixed" in Tracdown. I'll have a go unless someone else volunteers.
 
Well here's one: NPC pathing pop-in popout.
 
Suppose a courier wants to deliver a message to the Player, but the participants are separated by a body of water, typically a river. If there is no way for the courier to cross in N cells spanning his trajectory, then he/she will just pop-out of existence at the edge of the cell in the player's frustrum, soon to pop back in some time later. Here's a save that reproduces this.
 


 
Game

 

Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library Error: Happens on some setups with the Dawnguard plugin active. Does not occur once the Arvak or Impatience of a Saint quests have completed so the suspect is in some resource used by those.
 
Actors: Dialogue Flags on a default sleep package appear to affect dialogue when the package is not being run.

"Say Once" flag checked for dialogue may not work when voiced responses are repeated on a game reload. (Related: Repeated Dialog)
 
Object specific: Certain trapped chests play warning sound too early.

Object Specific: Function TetherToHorse() works on a cart once and only once. After loading, or re-attaching a cell during the game, you have to replace the old cart in place, then tether.

 
Audio: Fake "breathing" swimming in underwater caves.
 
Animation & Object Load: Player's perspective can get stuck in the perspective of his/her horse. Workaround here.

Animation: In 3rd person view, Player swims at a slight tilt.
 
Animation- Rare: During combat with at least two dragons in the air, at least one dragon will slow down to float, still fighting
 
Animation: NPC specific: NPC walk speed does not match player walk speed. A nice workaround here.
 
Animation- location Specific: Swimming in this location angle your camera upwards, Player begins to plummet as the water vanishes.
 
Animation: NPC motionless when sleeping. Borderline bug technically as the animations were never implemented.
 
Animation: Player blink not present fixed by this.
 

Animation: NPCs in dialog will either not move lips in sync or move them at all. Untested workaround here. This works on the usual suspects Xander Eris and Dorian on the EEC Solitude docks. Another fix using SKSE here.


Dialogue: While saying hellos, NPCs, notably guards can teleport through a door Player has just activated.

Object Load & Animation & Havok: NPCs in sitting pose not loaded in correct position and likely to clip into surrounding objects. Addressed by HDT Sitting Height Fix .


Object Specific: Ash piles won't clean up on cell reset. Most likely cause is some NPCs were reanimated that are placed dead at the beginning of the game.

Location: Summoned NPCs turn to unsearchable ash pile upon cell transition.

 
Magic: Weapon or armor enchanted by two distinct spells from different magic schools gains bonuses for both schools when an ability affecting only one school is applied.

 

Visual Effect: When saving while casting Clairvoyance, the effect is still seen after the spell expires in subsequent saves. This removes the effect, but also renders the spell useless.
 
Placed References- Flora Harvest Respawn: Travel to a previously "harvested" cell that has undergone the 10 day reset. Save & reload will revert to it's previous harvested state.
 
Perks & Skills: Picking up a dropped stolen item adds another count to the stolen items under crime statistics.

Perks & Skills: Tap "Run" key and hold down "W" to run forever on empty stamina exploit.

Perks & Skills: Tap for silent roll. Other sneak bugs and exploits discussed here.

Perks & Skills: Player advancement by trainer is set, but not displayed until an encounter.

Faction specific: Masked female dark brotherhood initiate shows chin when talking.
 
Shadow striping can be a problem in certain configurations. Fixed by increasing fShadowBias, or with this or that.

The Invisibility Eye Glitch happens when the sclera, cornea and pupils of the player eye show pronounced artifacting after undergoing invisibility (shadow warrior, shadow stone, invisible potion, etc.)
There are a number of fixes, the most recent is this.
 
Casting a psionic like spell on NPC while in dialogue causes subtitle freeze. (From USKP at Nexus:

 

I was wondering if it would be possible to take a look at this bug: if you cast a spell like calm on an NPC
while they are talking there subtitles will get stuck and block any other subtitles until they complete
a new dialogue or you change cells.

 

Movie Animation: Clipping in sitting animations is a common complaint addressed by e.g. FNIS mods.
 
Movie Animation: Wrong mining or chopping tool to the equipped one.
 
Movie Animation: Blacksmithing ingot misplaced in animation with shield or 2 handed weapon equipped.
 
Movie Animation: Cut piece of wood stuck on Player.
 
Movie Animation: Player mining in sneak mode stuck in "mining animation UI".
 
Movie Animation: Player gets stuck in "killcam UI".
 
Havok problem with rattling items adjacent to NPCs fixed by reset Havok in Save game script cleaner.
 
Havok problem that projects humanoids upwards when killed by giants. Fixed by Official Patches "mostly".

UI Related: Any visual effect attached to a weather (not the precipitation type, but visual effect), i.e. the one attached to the NNAM field, will be disabled if entering->exiting the worldmap. Can be fixed by papyrus with SKSE

UI Related: "Heart consumed" message when no longer a werewolf.
 

Black Square on City Local Map: Mentioned in bugs. Discussed here, here and here. We might assume it's GPU driver related as everyone doesn't get it.


Texture limitation: Terrain, notably grass doesn't receive light from non-ambient light sources for the shadow calculations and render would be a big FPS drain.

Save Problem: Saves made during a carriage ride will not load properly.
 
Save File limitation: Max allowed strings cannot exceed 65535. A StrCt Save Breaker demonstrates this.
 
Texture Limitation: One object can only have a maximum of 4 lights on it.

Plugin Number & Character String Limitations: Addressed by this.
 
A vanilla <NULL form> error in Papyrus is most likely related to a premature unloading of a form stack.
 
In-Game Load can introduce unexpected effects and can affect save-game integrity.
 
UI? Loading a saved game when in front of a cave or pass with the white text "To <location>"  centre screen has that same text showing in the newly loaded game. Enter any cave or pass, or quit to desktop clears the text.

UI?: SkyUI have addressed some issues in the Active Effects Widget, not sure about this.
 
UI? Audio: Discovery sound of new location does not synchronize with discovery text.
 
UI?: NPC audio glitch when accessing menus.
 
Creation kit
 
Limitation: The large world Havok bug. Fixed by adding to Skyrim.ini:

 


[HAVOK]
bUseCharacterRB=0
 


Many of the SM event nodes do not function.

Some of the throne ambushes in the prefab warehouse are broken. Is this just an incompatibility in form version?

Draugr Ambush bug.

Faulty Weapon racks. Again this might have just been an incompatibility in form version.
 
Editing an actor will produce a darker skin tone on face. Fixed here,
 
Some unconfirmed CK bugs with Forcegreet at the bottom of this post.
 
On Game Reload Game Engine Ignores Moved Topics: See below for details.

Order of Info Lists Attached to Dialogue Lists Scrambled: See below for details.
 
Questiunz:
 

Is the actual engine bug clipping the ice floes while swimming? I think it was... just a verification.
 

Sorry to dredge these up again: anyone know if they have been fixed by any of the officials before 1.932?
 
http://www.afkmods.com/index.php?/tracdown/issue/436-stamina-regen-food-allows-free-shield-bash/
http://www.afkmods.com/index.php?/tracdown/issue/199-heavy-armor-conditioning-perk-bug/
http://www.afkmods.com/index.php?/tracdown/issue/171-unhindered-light-and-conditioniong-heavy-perks-make-the-entire-carried-stack-of-armor-weightless/
http://www.afkmods.com/index.php?/tracdown/issue/110-unrelenting-force-shout-causes-npcs-to-stagger-backwards-even-when-hit-from-behind/
http://www.afkmods.com/index.php?/tracdown/issue/406-you-can-begin-trespassing-during-quest-dialog/
http://www.afkmods.com/index.php?/tracdown/issue/433-staffs-suspend-magicka-regeneration/
http://www.afkmods.com/index.php?/tracdown/issue/156-handmade-potion-price-issues-one-for-the-bethesda-team-maybe/
 
Is there a way to dump the entire tracdown to text? Edit: All the tracdown links have changed with the new bug tracker, unfortunately.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Heh, what you're talking about with the courier popping across the river like that actually isn't a bug. It's a designed feature to prevent NPCs from getting stuck due to bad navmeshing or other things that might be blocking them. You don't see it much out in the wilds, but get into a more crowded situation and you'll start seeing them popping around obstacles or other NPCs. It's a bit jarring, but quite normal and necessary.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Heh, what you're talking about with the courier popping across the river like that actually isn't a bug. It's a designed feature to prevent NPCs from getting stuck due to bad navmeshing or other things that might be blocking them. You don't see it much out in the wilds, but get into a more crowded situation and you'll start seeing them popping around obstacles or other NPCs. It's a bit jarring, but quite normal and necessary.

 

Understood. Albeit vanishing at a cell's edge is a bit of an immersion breaker- perhaps a fade-out or a backtrack to go on the enhancement wishlist?

 

Sometimes it doesn't actually work and he does get stuck

 

Better than Oblivion's. :P

 

Edit: Will start a list in the above post. Aiming to categorize those into HUD, GUI and Core engine, although mods like SKSE and Skyui are now being used to such an extent that ad hoc categorizations necessitate some scrutiny and of course, the good old in-game torqueo

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for doing this...

 

Once upon a time, in the bugzilla version, I had a category for game engine bugs. IIRC, it was up to 87.... I'm not sure how they translated to this bug tracker. But the Won't Fix will be a good start.

 

Then, of course, we need to fix the game engine!

 

BTW, I cannot believe that I went so long without checking that I actually missed downloading a version of the patches (2.1.0). Noticed 2.1.1 today. I'm pretty sure I've got every other version (and some of the subversions and betas) going back to 1.0.3.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Here's a doozie for you: Bug #19049. The original fix was for Bug #18540.

 

This regression wasn't because of anything we did wrong. It's because the engine simply disregards the changes after the game is reloaded for the first time after starting.

 

When I put the fix in, I used my usual methods to shorten arrival times. Used LAL, started in Ivarstead, went to talk to Narfi. Got told to see Wilhelm. Was told Reyda was dead. Found her skeleton. Took the stuff. Went to see Narfi again. Was able to properly choose whether she died or was coming back later. All seemed fine, so I figured that was that.

 

Oh boy. Not quite. See, in order to fix the issue of the dialogue being all screwed up I moved the topics to the branch they should have gone to. The CK can see that this has been done. The ESP data visible in TES5Edit correctly indicates they've been moved. I even had to copy and rename the audio files because of the stupidity of how voice files work in this engine.

 

The problem is, if you reload for any reason, even if it's a death reload, the game completely ignores that you told it to move the topics. It instead attempts to run them from the original branch, which now has nothing linked. So it just dumps out of dialogue and leaves you stuck. The quest of course stalls and can no longer be completed.

 

Pretty sure we ran into this once before but got lucky and found a way around it. Not so lucky this time.

 

This is just like an old Oblivion bug where if you removed a persistent flag from a reference the game would ignore the change and revert the reference back to its original location if you reloaded while still in the game. The only difference is that this Skyrim bug still breaks even if you drop out to the desktop.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

Another dialogue related one.

 

Due to the fact that Skyrim has at least 3 form versions that handle INFO records, if you have more than one file attempting to alter the same list of INFO records attached to a DIAL (responses for a topic), you will not be able to produce a list with a reliable order.

 

Order of INFO records in an esm or esp is determined by the PNAM subrecord. Two of the form versions I've seen so far do not use this subrecord, whereas the current form version 43 does. Any dialogue edits done with the current CK automatically cause a PNAM to be set. If your file is the only one altering the list, no problem. As soon as you attempt to have a second one altering the list, you will end up with a scrambled order because the CK will not know what your intentions were.

 

The workaround is fairly simple, though highly annoying. Simply make sure your second file touches *ALL* of the INFO records in the list. Only then can you be sure the order you want is what will show up in the CK when you next load the pair of plugins. You may need to load your mod into TES5Edit and intentionally add editor IDs to anything it shows as an ITM because otherwise it will clean them out and then your order will become scrambled again later.

 

This bit us twice in a row with cycle 2.1.3 on the unofficial patches. The first instance for the UDGP required some intentional editor IDs, the second for the UHFP just required making sure all the INFOs were touched in the CK.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A bit of an addendum to the above:

 

It seems that it doesn't matter how many files touch it. As soon as you want something in a specific order, and only some of the resulting records have PNAMs, you can't get a reliable result without touching EVERYTHING in the list.

 

Shades of Morrowind dialogue editing....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's interesting.  I assume Oblivion doesn't have the PNAM subrecord, that PrinceShroob mention in his last post in that thread, due to the quest triggered topics that exist in Oblivion.  Correct?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 8 months later...

And here we have a doozie: There's a string count limit in Papyrus that limits the number of strings that can be stored in a save file due to the use of a 16 bit integer field (god dammit Todd) instead of a proper 32 bit integer field. It's a nasty one that results in permanently corrupted saves.

 

Details here: http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/3924850-corrupt-saves-strcount-0xffff-ctd-on-load/

 

If a save is bitten by this bug, it's permanently hosed. You may as well throw it out because there's nothing you can do to fix it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And here we have a doozie: There's a string count limit in Papyrus that limits the number of strings that can be stored in a save file due to the use of a 16 bit integer field (god dammit Todd) instead of a proper 32 bit integer field. It's a nasty one that results in permanently corrupted saves.

 

Details here: http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/3924850-corrupt-saves-strcount-0xffff-ctd-on-load/

 

If a save is bitten by this bug, it's permanently hosed. You may as well throw it out because there's nothing you can do to fix it.

Ah yes, it was discovered some time ago on sexlab forum (link is pointing to SFW thread)

http://www.loverslab.com/topic/56588-corrupted-saves/page-7

 

By the way they named some of your mods as the biggest offenders after analyzing strings "owners" in a save file. The only currently workable solution from Sheson is to use PapyrusUtil SKSE extension which can access json files and store your data in them instead of script properties in a plugin.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Should talk to Utumno/Lojack and Tannin about it to talk them into adding a warning in the savegame tab of their mod manager to warn users who get close to the max string count.

 

 

Edit - While I'm posting here, i'll add one to the list (not as critical as the strCount thing ^^) :

Any visual effect attached to a weather (not the precipitation type, but visual effect), i.e. the one attached to the NNAM field, will be disabled if entering->exiting the worldmap. Can be fixed by papyrus with SKSE.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Function TetherToHorse() works on a cart once and only once. After loading, or re-attaching a cell during the game, you have to replace the old cart in place, then tether:

tourCart.DisableNoWait()
ObjectReference newCart = tourCart.PlaceAtMe(TourCartPassengers, abInitiallyDisabled = true)
tourCart.Delete()
tourCart = newCart
tourCart.Enable()
Wait3D() // loop on !tourCart.is3DLoaded()
tourCart.SetMotionType(tourCart.Motion_Dynamic)
tourCart.TetherToHorse(tourHorse)

Before onPlayerLoadGame(), this was a hopeless situation.

 

Second bug, the attachment status is either not saved or loaded. Therefore, although you can save during a ride, you cannot successfully re-load. Also means the idea of having autonomous carriages passing you (or visibly moving in the distance) quits working on save/load.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ah yes, it was discovered some time ago on sexlab forum (link is pointing to SFW thread)

http://www.loverslab.com/topic/56588-corrupted-saves/page-7

 

By the way they named some of your mods as the biggest offenders after analyzing strings "owners" in a save file. The only currently workable solution from Sheson is to use PapyrusUtil SKSE extension which can access json files and store your data in them instead of script properties in a plugin.

Not sure where they came to the conclusion that my mods would aggravate this problem. Yes, some of them have a lot of properties, but none of them should be on the scale of something like Interesting NPCs or DynDLOD.

 

Anyway....

 

Another one I'm adding just for the record:

 

If you have more than 508 esp/esm files in your Data folder the game will not load ANY of your mods. This happens even if the plugin files are not active. ShadeMe came up with a solution back in the day and it still works: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/19556/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 7 months later...

Will be jumping on the Skyrim SE ship sometime so it will be an interesting exercise for a tabulated comparison list. (IPB Pleeeeez)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

Creation Kit 64bit :

 

The text for "add activate choice" in perk entry is truncated everytime you exit the perk entry window, only displaying the first letter of the word(s) entered.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The terrain lighting bug still exists by the way:

 

cXlPFUJ.jpg

 

yWFQceE.jpg

 

There's a mod on SSE Nexus already that removes torches from guards so that it's not as prevalent/noticeable. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think this is a new bug, and it's a terrible one.  I noticed that tree LOD reflections in water are not using their alpha.  I reset my INIs completely, uninstalled everything and it didn't change anything.

 

EWLFYRQ.jpg

LDD7oKR.jpg

 

I outline the billboard for the tree in the second picture, and outline the actual part that's the tree.  I definitely do not remember this being a problem in Oldrim. 

 

 

Edit:  It's also possible this is an issue with just the 1.3 beta.  I've added a post to this topic:  https://beta-community.bethesda.net/topic/8675/lod-trees-in-water-reflections

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You went a bit too close to those trees at some point (or have uGrids up) so the LOD trees are unloaded (Tree reflections actually DISAPPEAR as you get close to trees...).  Though you do have the issue in other trees:

 

kUwpS0V.jpg

 

(They must be behind the hill)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My favorite ones are still missing:

 

(1) The misplaced animation bug:

see http://www.afkmods.com/index.php?/topic/4791-lets-say-hello-to-an-old-friend/

 

(2) The strange inability to get angles calculated correctly, which can make weapons floating above the racks.

My guess here is that they stumbled somewhere upon their own (idiotic) definition of the heading angle, which is zero for pointing northwards and increases clockwise, whereas for all trigonometric calculations the angle is (by definition) zero for pointing eastwards and increases counterclockwise.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You went a bit too close to those trees at some point (or have uGrids up) so the LOD trees are unloaded (Tree reflections actually DISAPPEAR as you get close to trees...).  Though you do have the issue in other trees:

That was with a vanilla game and non-altered uGrids. I did use player.setav speedmult 500 to quickly find your exact spot (though not really necessary it's still good to use the same spot in my opinion) and ran around the area a bit. Does that matter? I can retake that screenshot without that too (later this evening).

Edit: I revisited that spot and I can see no difference.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I went to the same location and observed the same problem. So it's definitely a real issue, and one that cuts across hardware boundaries. It'll probably end up as the new lip sync bug though. :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...