Fallout 4 (Old Gen): Game Crashing every few minutes. NPC Pathing Error is the likely cause but unsure how to Fix it or find which mod is the source.

[Summerset Banjo]

So after trimming out some mods (mostly some weapons, some music, and a couple of npc mods that I accidently had two of the same esps active) and reordering the load order to something more stable. I resumed my playthrough of Fallout 4. I recently entered the new worldspace added from the mod The Forest by Zorkaz. Things ran fine at first until I got near the large lake with the ferry landing by the farm. After that the game started crashing to desktop every few minutes of playing. I thought that maybe it was a crash zone so I fast traveled back to the commonwealth but the game still crashed even there.

my loadorder
https://pastebin.com/RHz9E6bc

So I took a look at the crashlog
https://pastebin.com/i1jcL0Kf

and it said Unhandled exception "EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION" at 0x0156940E1B20

So then I used the mod Classic Crashlog Scanner by TheSoundOfSnow
https://pastebin.com/XuU6vQ7F

and it said a static NPC pathing crash might be the cause. But the stack doesn't state which plugin is the cause. How do I find it if it won't tell me?

I don't know how it would affect two separate worldspaces (forest) and (commonwealth) but it was the same kind of crash in both places.

I'd like to know how to fix this in order to continue my playthrough. Did I break something when I reordered the mod loadorder? do I need to start over with a new game and the problem will go away?

I'm frankly quite stumped and don't know what to do. Anything will help!

[Zekiran]

The forest is a VERY taxing and not particularly well optimized mod. I had to remove it since it kept breaking my main map too.

I'd suggest start fresh with it wherever it's supposed to go, and only after you know that's working...

Though with that load order including not only a slightly-broken mod like that, but SS2, AND south of the glowing sea, and ... like, way too many others?

Nuke your mod list. Carefully read the mod descriptions for where they must go.

[Zekiran]

Yeah you've also got marshland and stuff dude you're trying to put WAY too much stuff that has heavy scripting into your game.

[genu]

no matter how great a mod is, if it does anything with navmeshes its out of my modlist. Too often games have crashed because of this and I've had to start all over again.

[gregnewman2022]

That surely qualifies one of if not the biggest mod list I've ever seen .
Did your game start crashing after installing a mod or mods ?

You could try my method of sorting which mod is doing this , assuming this is a mod issue .
And with your load order , this could take a couple of weeks .

Decide how mods to disable ( not delete ) ( maybe 25 at a time ? )
disable that first group of mods . then start your game up and see it your game crashes . If your still crashes , re-activate your mods and move on to the next group of mods .

Keep doing this to your game until your game suddenly starts up and doesn't crash . then
re-enable your mods ONE AT A TIME . then when your game crashes again you just ( hopefully ) the mod that's doing this .

The only problem with this , if there more one mod doing this , this will render this rough guide useless . .....

[Fluffy_Llama]

is this game even meant to support 500 plug ins?

[Zekiran]

It is not.

[genu]

The game can load much more than 500 plugins.
The question is whether this makes sense or not is something completely different. Every mod increases the risk of something is not working properly.
You don't necessarily notice this immediately, but after many, many hours of playing.
Even if you test all mods in a running game and they run without errors, the result can be completely different in a newly started game.

In short: less mods less problems.

[Summerset Banjo]

Originally posted by gregnewman2022:

That surely qualifies one of if not the biggest mod list I've ever seen .
Did your game start crashing after installing a mod or mods ?

You could try my method of sorting which mod is doing this , assuming this is a mod issue .
And with your load order , this could take a couple of weeks .

Decide how mods to disable ( not delete ) ( maybe 25 at a time ? )
disable that first group of mods . then start your game up and see it your game crashes . If your still crashes , re-activate your mods and move on to the next group of mods .

Keep doing this to your game until your game suddenly starts up and doesn't crash . then
re-enable your mods ONE AT A TIME . then when your game crashes again you just ( hopefully ) the mod that's doing this .

The only problem with this , if there more one mod doing this , this will render this rough guide useless . .....

The game only started crashing after I had cleaned up the mod order and removed a bunch of mods. Before that it was running crash free for nearly 30 hours of game time.

[Summerset Banjo]

Originally posted by Zekiran:

The forest is a VERY taxing and not particularly well optimized mod. I had to remove it since it kept breaking my main map too.

I'd suggest start fresh with it wherever it's supposed to go, and only after you know that's working...

Though with that load order including not only a slightly-broken mod like that, but SS2, AND south of the glowing sea, and ... like, way too many others?

Nuke your mod list. Carefully read the mod descriptions for where they must go.

I have gone over it carefully and spent nearly a year putting together this mod list for my first playthrough. If I saw something that said mod x didn't work with mod y. I didn't download it. Now that said maybe I did download too many mods for fallout 4.

So do you think the crash might go away if I simply started a new game?

or do you think starting over completely (new mod order and everything) is what needs to be done?

[genu]

Mods aint light switches, They are 'baked' into you savegame. You cant remove a mod during a gameplay without having issues.

Your game is crashing now because something is missing. restore the mods you have deleted or start a new game to fix this.

[socialmediaaddress3]

I never had any issues with The Forest but you say you are on Old Gen aka .163.
I am too.
Which version of The Forest are you using?
There was one that was unstable but has been superseded...
Try to go back a version or forward a version (overwrite current)

[Zekiran]

I have gone over it carefully and spent nearly a year putting together this mod list for my first playthrough.

your.

...

your FIRST PLAY? And you did not play at least 1 full time of VANILLA?

yeah no, dude. reinstall the entire game from the ground up and don't use mods until you know 100% for certain that the game will run with your hardware and os.

[genu]

Do yourself a favor. Trash your modlist now. You have too many conflicting mods on your list.

Ask yourself some easy questions:
- How many ammo mods do i have installed and how checked them they are not conflicting?
- How many raider overhauls do i have installed changing the appearance? Do they work together?
- Do i have a plan for sim settlements 2 and america rising 2 in what order i have to do quest not to break them?
- Have i checked Overhauls e.g. Goodneighbour navmeshes at the CK aint overlapping?

If you cant answer all of these questions with a big yes trash your modlist now.

[Summerset Banjo]

Originally posted by socialmediaaddress3:

I never had any issues with The Forest but you say you are on Old Gen aka .163.
I am too.
Which version of The Forest are you using?
There was one that was unstable but has been superseded...
Try to go back a version or forward a version (overwrite current)

The current version 5.3

[Summerset Banjo]

Originally posted by Zekiran:

I have gone over it carefully and spent nearly a year putting together this mod list for my first playthrough.

your.

...

your FIRST PLAY? And you did not play at least 1 full time of VANILLA?

yeah no, dude. reinstall the entire game from the ground up and don't use mods until you know 100% for certain that the game will run with your hardware and os.

Oh no no. I did play through the first hour of the game before I even put down one mod to make sure the game ran on my os. then after all the mods I started my first proper playthrough. sorry for the confusion.