Why is there no mod debugging or error logging?

[SymbolicFrank]

I still play F:NV and even Skyrim, because of the mods.

But, that mostly only works if you add the mods one-by-one, and play for a while in-between. Because, the game simply crashes if there is any conflict. The only way to figure out if some mod caused the problem is to disable it, start a new game and try to make the game crash in the same way.

The same location? The same NPC? The same item? The same magic? Just try it all.


As a programmer, that is quite frustrating. I would at least like to get an error message. Or, better, log it all.

But that's looking at the symptoms. The main issue is, that there is no checking and reporting of (potential) conflicts during load. Which is very strange to me, because that's what more than half my source code does: verify everything and try to work around errors.

 

[Xor]

Basic error handling is beyond the capabilities of Bethesda.

 

[Excidium II]

But that's looking at the symptoms. The main issue is, that there is no checking and reporting of (potential) conflicts during load. Which is very strange to me, because that's what more than half my source code does: verify everything and try to work around errors.

Isn't that what LOOT does?

 

[SymbolicFrank]

Well, that's what LOOT (the sorting from the Mod Organizer) tries to do. But, it doesn't actually loads and instantiates the objects, it looks at what is overwritten.

 

[Excidium II]

The actual LOOT program is more in-depth than what's bundled with mod organizer, but not to that degree I guess.

 

[Destroid]

Make a mod that does this.

 

[sullynathan]

there is something for that

 

[DosBuster]

I still don't know how but I managed to get the Fallout: New Vegas debug log running which actually exposed some errors.

It seems like all the debug console commands are disabled in the Release executable so I'm guessing that's the main issue.

 

[Old Hans]

I Added 2 mods that do the same thing. What could be the problem

 

[Turisas]

LOOT serves only as a starting point, relying on it and it alone is a sure way to failure. Did you even read each mod's notes for conflicts/compatibility with other mods, get patches where necessary, clean the mods and make a bashed patch?

 

[SymbolicFrank]

I just did a very extensive test, and while it does help, it doesn't prevent the random crashes at all.

Removing all the new mods did.

 

[DosBuster]

Oh, almost forgot, when the game crashes it should give an error in the windows event logger.

 

[I'm Big Into Anal]

posting in a thread i have no business being in

 

[Beastro]

Mods will fix it~

 

[SymbolicFrank]

Well, I have tested all the options I know of, and it is still very buggy and really hard to debug.

That's why I never finished Skyrim: by the time I'm happy with the mods and satisfied with the playability, I have to restart the game to be able to actually play it, and I will be able to play about two hours in one session.

But, that time becomes shorter as the game progresses, until it starts crashing on loading.

At that point, using the various tools to fix the save game and juggling the load order doesn't help anymore.

And while LOOT is great and helps a lot, it doesn't really fix the problems, as you have certain mods and files that need to be installed in a certain order to work. While LOOT orders it first by release date and then reorders it to remove obvious conflicts. It doesn't know about those sequences and there is no way to specify them. And it doesn't have the creation and exception information the Skyrim executable does.


All in all, it is like how Microsoft Excel imports CSV files: very inconsistent and a huge mess. Many tools make it better, but it is still very broken. I am very certain that it could be done in a far saner way that actually worked.

 

[SymbolicFrank]

Ok. I tried it all. Mod Organizer, LOOT, Tes5Edit, Wrye Bash, BodySlide and Save Cleaner.

I removed everything doubtful, made sure everything else was clean and in the best mod and plugin location, enabled logging and debugged it by fixing or removing the items / scripts that caused CTDs.

And, it did fix some specific crashes, like around / in Falkreath. But that was about it. It still crashes within two hours, regardless, after a fresh and cleaned install. Adding a new mod still has a high chance of requiring a new game. Removing a buggy one as well. And even without all that, the best you can get is a playtime of ~2 hours, just after starting a new game. That time will decline.

Then again, with a pristine, unmodded game, that will be about the same. Bethesda clearly favors the Microsoft view of developing. (Inside joke, Borland tried to work around bugs, Microsoft crashed your program at the first bug-sign.)


And yes, I am a software developer and did study the logs. So I'm a professional.

 

[SquidLord]

Because good debuggers are hard to write and Bethesda lacks the talent.
Hell it's clear they don't even (know how to?) use them in the main game why would they provide one for others?

 

[DosBuster]

No there are debug tools in the they're all just disabled because none of us have dev kits and the game's executable is compiled in release mode.

 

[DosBuster]

I think I found what you are looking for?

Under
[ARCHIVE]
add bCheckRuntimeCollisions=1

 

[Hirato]

In Skyrim.ini, put this section at the end.

[Papyrus]
bEnableLogging=1
bEnableTrace=1
bLoadDebugInformation=1

That'll get net you some log files, you'll find them inside My Games\Skyrim\Logs or somewhere

Since you're undoubtedly using SKSE, don't forget to put this in Data/SKSE/SKSE.ini

[Display]
iTintTextureResolution=2048

[General]
ClearInvalidRegistrations=1
EnableDiagnostics=1

[Memory]
DefaultHeapInitialAllocMB=1024
ScrapHeapSizeMB=384

And if you're a filthy pirate, don't forget to pass "-forcesteamloader" to the skse_loader, otherwise those memory fixes won't take effect.


Fallout New Vegas stuff seem to write logs into the main install directory, but it's up to mods to actually make sure of such features.
From a cursory glance, it would seem only NVSE and associated extensions actually write log files, so someone probably should make an NVSE mod to log shit (not that it will see any use now, but I digress)

I think modders for the most part in Bethesda games just print stuff into the prompts that show up, or use on screen message prompts, aka the classic "place prints everywhere to debug your code."