Questions re: Skee64.dll (racemenu/XPMSSE)

[Ambugaton]

tl;dr: Can anyone give a basic explanation of what skee64.dll does, and why it is required for the xpmsse skeleton?

Not long ago I was having an issue where the game would crash on start up from the skse launcher loading a savegame, but relaunching from the skse launcher and selecting the exact same game, it would load no problem. Tried everything, and re--installing SKSE resolved it, but I couldn't figure out why. Which means that in actuality I didn't resolve it.

Then, starting a new playthrough I started noticing save times getting progressively longer, which freaks me out because it usually means a corrupted save down the line. The thing is--because I run some script heavy mods, and encounter mods that also rack up a *lot* of dead bodies-- I'm careful about script and save bloat both.

Did some digging around, and other people having the same problem had the problem go away by deleting the skee64.dll file from the SKSE folder. I tried it out, and sure enough, nearly instant saves again. The only reason I have it is that it's a listed requirement for the xpmsse skeleton. I tested things out, and no fonctionality seemed to be lost. But, just to be safe I put it back again, and went back to the save game before it was removed.

The odd thing is, still getting instant saves. That strikes me as very odd, and I'm beginning to think my first problem may have been related, and that re-installing SKSE worked only because in the process I took out and re-installed the skee64 file.

So, does anyone here have a basic understanding of what the file does, why it's listed as required for xpmsse, and why taking it out doesn't seem to have any direct effect on the functionality of the xpmsse skeleton? Or any one of those three?

[craigsters]

try asking here https://steamcommunity.com/app/365720/discussions/ or contact one of the team members

Contact the SKSE Team
Having crashes on startup after a game patch? Remove the files from Data/SKSE/Plugins and try again. Mods using plugins probably need to be updated.
Before contacting us, make sure that your game launches properly without SKSE first. Also, attach skse.log, skse_loader.log, and skse_steam_loader.log (found in My Documents/My Games/Skyrim/SKSE/) to any support requests.

Entire Team
Send email to team [at] skse [dot] silverlock [dot] org

Ian (ianpatt)
Send email to ianpatt+skse [at] gmail [dot] com

Stephen (behippo)
Send email to gamer [at] silverlock [dot] org
Standard Disclaimer

above from this link http://skse.silverlock.org/

[Ambugaton]

Originally posted by craigsters:

try asking here https://steamcommunity.com/app/365720/discussions/ or contact one of the team members

Contact the SKSE Team
Having crashes on startup after a game patch? Remove the files from Data/SKSE/Plugins and try again. Mods using plugins probably need to be updated.
Before contacting us, make sure that your game launches properly without SKSE first. Also, attach skse.log, skse_loader.log, and skse_steam_loader.log (found in My Documents/My Games/Skyrim/SKSE/) to any support requests.

Entire Team
Send email to team [at] skse [dot] silverlock [dot] org

Ian (ianpatt)
Send email to ianpatt+skse [at] gmail [dot] com

Stephen (behippo)
Send email to gamer [at] silverlock [dot] org
Standard Disclaimer

above from this link http://skse.silverlock.org/

Thanks for the info, I will if I don't get at least some clue to the mystery through other means.


Thing is that it looks like it's related specifically to the skee64.dll, which is part of Racemenu, not part of the SKSE download. I've contacted both the mod author for Racemenu and the XPMSSE skeleton (since they list it as a requirement ), but while both seem responsive to users, both also seem to have their hands full. So, thought I would ask here also in case anyone knew.

[Ambugaton]

So Groovetama, the XPMSSE author answered with "Moving the weapons, via the styles system would not work?".. which I assume is an answer. Kind of par for the course, given their messages re: whether or not everything is installed correctly ( "you failed again" or "you barely managed" or whatever they are)

Edit: Their further explanation: "The installer lists what parts require which dependency. Anything that moves, scales, rotates stuff in XPMSSE would not work anymore, anything related to styles and racemenu sliders. Also racemenu itself wouldn't work properly anymore."

I'm going to test again. I got the messages on the "installer" talked about, but again I didn't see any loss in basic functionality. Obviously the mod author knows better than I do, but verifying never hurts.

[Ambugaton]

And the author of Racemenu responded with:

"Yeah removing the DLL isn't a fix. Doing that will destroy all XPMSE and BodyMorph data and basically half of RM will not be functional. If you do it be aware that it will destroy that data and you should put it back at some point if you intend to continue using RM. Nobody has given me a save and co-save file where I can see why this might actually be a problem. "

Makes perfect sense. But at the same time it's very clear that removing the skee64.dll resolved the long save times for several people.

[Fungi]

The issue that I've run into is when I try loading SkyrimSE through the SKSE loader I get a popup asking me if I want to continue loading or not it says: skee64.dll is disabled due to being incompatible with game version.

I have the new updated SKSE but for some odd reason skse64 doesn't want to work. If I load the game up it works just fine until I use the ingame pause menu that's when it crashes is there any fix to this or am I just screwed?

[imp]

Originally posted by Man:

The issue that I've run into is when I try loading SkyrimSE through the SKSE loader I get a popup asking me if I want to continue loading or not it says: skee64.dll is disabled due to being incompatible with game version.

This is the issue I am dealing with right now, trying to find the chain of events to see if there's a safe fix, I tend not to go with forcing the game to load, that always leads to CTD's for me.
If I find a fix I'll let you know, until then might have to just disable racemenu for now.

2 Issues : skee64.dll
Fuz Ro D'oh.dll

[Hymzir]

Originally posted by Ambugaton:

Not long ago I was having an issue where the game would crash on start up from the skse launcher loading a savegame, but relaunching from the skse launcher and selecting the exact same game, it would load no problem. Tried everything, and re--installing SKSE resolved it, but I couldn't figure out why. Which means that in actuality I didn't resolve it.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by: "the game would crash on start up from the skse launcher loading a savegame" vs. "relaunching from the skse launcher and selecting the exact same game, it would load no problem"

Do you mean that starting the game and selecting "Continue" would crash the game, but selecting the last save from the save tab wouldn't?

Or do you mean that launching the game and starting a new game, or loading some random older save, and then loading the latest save would work?

Or do you mean something different? Like it would crash on first attempt no matter waht, and then work on the second?

Also, about those long save times, did they also produce unexpectedly large save files?

Originally posted by Ambugaton:

The odd thing is, still getting instant saves. That strikes me as very odd, and I'm beginning to think my first problem may have been related, and that re-installing SKSE worked only because in the process I took out and re-installed the skee64 file.

Did this also fix the original issue? Is the game still crashing on startup on those old saves?

While I don't have any insider knowledge on what Skee64.dll contains, the explanation the RaceMenu author gave you sounds pretty much what I'd expect it to do. RaceMenu and XPMSSE have all sorts of features that require you to be able to manipulate the values of your skeleton on the fly, and a way to store those changes. And none of that is supported by base game functions. hence the DLL.

If you don't use any of those features, then not having it shouldn't really impact your game. But if you do, then not having it is just a CTD waiting to happen.

The more I mull this over and re-read your post, the more it sounds like corrupted data in your save issue. Those things can come on multiple levels. Not all of them being the "abandon the ship" variety. The thing with Skyrim is, that it saves a stupid amount of things into your save it has no business writing down. It's just the way it's coded. This can lead to all sorts of really weird issues. Taking a looksie with a save editor, and seeing what errors those saves might contain, could help in solving the conundrum. Or not. Skyrim saves a ridiculously complex, so shifting through the records to find out what's what is really difficult.

There are also various generated files and values that work the same way and might have been the root cause of the issue. Going through the initialization process without the DLL and then once more with it re-added, might have sorted that temp stuff out, Probability as a plausible explanation depends a lot on your build though.

Such a data error could also, in a round-a-bout manner, explain why you encountered those long save times when you started a new game, and why removing and re-adding the DLL solved them,

The key thing here is, that if I understood you correctly, you started a new game after all this fiddling and no longer have these issues.

If that is the case, then a data error might explain the issue. If so, then the probability of it reoccurring is highly dependent on the mods your build contains. Without more information on the particulars involved, anything else I might add at this point would be just speculation.