can't load saves that were working yesterday

[JuniorToo]

same thing has happened for fallout4 vr...

[Fistandantilus]

And you did not change your modlist since then? (because save files can turn ununsable if they need a certain mod, that you removed mid-game)

Also a general rule for saves: Never use Quicksave. These are more prone to get damaged than full saves. (EDIT: And deactivate the autosaves when entering/exiting buildings. These moments are prone to CTD and if that happens during such a autosave the save can be dead)

And then there are mods, that are believed to destroy savefiles after a certain amount of playtime (because of unclean usage of scripts that are never fully removed, but get more and more and more over time. And that are saved with the save file and that bloat the save file until it becomes unloadable.)

There is/was a bird mod that does this. And its also claimed about the mod that creates footprints. Though some claim that was fixed and is no longer dangerous to use.

Unusable save files can be fixed with this tool: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/5031

But it does not work in all cases and you also can destroy saves with it. (thats why it warns to not overwrite the original save)

[JuniorToo]

both games were working yesterday. i have not touched ether one. i did mod verification on skyrim and fo4 over 4 months ago.

never use quicksave for ending a session. don't have anything about birds or footprints (in the snow i think).

all ready backed up current save files. i will look into '5031'...

find it really weird that 'both' games suddenly stopped working at the same time....

[Fistandantilus]

Very strange.

Several older saves and saves from an independant game. All at the same time.

I do not know what that is.

What does happen if you try to load these saves? Anything the game reports back? Do these saves crash or do they load but you cannot move? Maybe NPC stand there in "T-Pose"? :-/

EDIT: Also, if you start a new save, it works? Or is the game completely out of order?

[JuniorToo]

both games ignore the save. both want me to start a new game...
going to try '5031'.
if that doesn't work, going to try starting a new game(s) and see if i can figure what mod isn't working, if it is a mod. (what is common to both. first look, nothing)...

[JuniorToo]

well not 5031. click link and get 'adult content' warning?? search for for it - finds nothing. don't understand that.
this did happen before; sort of. a couple years ago. i hadn't played skyrimvr for about 6 months. when i tried to pickup where i left off, got a warning that some (favorite) mods weren't working and game wouldn't load saves. removing those mods i could play the game again.
at this point ii am confused. down load and install software and then it quits working. how does that work. i have to go into vortex and ask if there is any updates. are these mods on a timer; never seen any warnings that they will stop working.
i really like vortex, but don't understand wants going on. tried to re-enable those mods; but could 'not' figure out how...

[Fistandantilus]

someone with the same problem or possibly you, 5 month ago?
https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/14prth5/help_to_explain_an_idiot/

That did not lead to a solution either.

I described the problem to several different langage model AI (Microsoft Copilot, Google Bard, Chat GPT 3.5 (free version).) They all suggested the possibility of malware or a defective harddrive to do something like this.

Of course there is the question why that would only destroy the files of these 2 games and nothing else.

Mods are not on a timer. And SkyrimVR is not updating and Vortex does not auto update the mods. Nothing should change.

Also updating mods needs you to know what you do. Because there is many mods, where VR needs an older version of the mod. Vortex will keep telling you to update this mod but if you do, the game will stop working.

So you need to recall wich mods are save to update and wich mods not to update.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Maybe it could be a solution for you, to use Wabbajack.

the advantages of using Wabbajack are this:

- if you do not know how to mod, you still can play the game with a heavy modded list after couple hours of downloading. Everything is done for you.

- The modlists of Wabbjack are usualy stable and work. (Wabbajack has quality management. They do not allow modlists that frequently cause problems to many people)

- Wabbajack demands the mod list autors to provide technical support to the mod list users. Usualy with discord. (something that some Wabbajack users seem to not know by asking on public boards for solutions with a certain Wabbajack problem instead of the support of that Wabbajack list)

- You can update mod of Wabbajack lists and it will only update what the Wabbajack list autors greenlighted to update. It will not update mods that need older versions in VR.

thats a video explaining how to install FUS with Wabbajack.

https://youtu.be/cu3i8s-H5qw

You can of course also use other wabbajack lists aslong as thats VR compatible lists.
FUS is known to be very stable and runs well, even on weaker hardware.

You can add other mods on top of it yourself.

If you need NSFW mods, you either add them to FUS or use modlists that offer this as optionals like Tahrovin:

https://youtu.be/cBeunuYTxBM

Or "Minimalistic overhaul", wich comes in a normal and a NSFW variant.
But its autor is banned from Wabbajack (and many Social media accounts) for toxic behavior or something.

But its still, somehow, possible to get that modlist (but its very unoptimized and needs a extreme powerfull PC. Autor says 3080 and up. Others say, better 4080 and up.

https://youtu.be/YQ_Kfuv07dQ

[RiceMilk]

This happened to me too. The timing is really odd. Maybe it has something to do with a steam vr update? I know I updated windows lately too so maybe that has something to do with it?

[JuniorToo]

i am thinking the same thing...........

it is simple for me. been stare at it for the last two days.
for fo4 the fos files are GONE...
for skyrim the ess files are GONE...

i certainly didn't delete them....

[Fistandantilus]

But why isn´t this a mass phenomen?
We all got Steam updates. We all got Windows updates.

Still, I do not see any threads full of people who complain about their game stopped working on say, SkyrimVR reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimvr/

The board has over 60000 SkyrimVR players registered. Its amoung the top 5% Reddit boards and is read by 100 or more people simultaniousely.

If any steamVR or windows update broke their favorite game, I am sure, it would be like poking an ants hill with a stick. Yet, there is no talk about such a thing.

[JuniorToo]

i agree. but i certainly didn't erase them... could be virus. (so two of us have it?) nothing found on drives. and then - 'targeting just those files'.....

steam: autosaves. thought i disabled it. still; very odd bug and tjtf? but then lately, a lot of long steam/vr updates.

vortex: very odd bug and tjtf?

mods: sksevr and f4sevr; don't they generate those files? then why would both erase them?

windows: here again tjtf?

i experimented with skyrim. i had been going thru vortex and it had several mods with updates. so disabled all; started a new skyrim play thru; re-enabled mods singly and groups. (one wouldn't work). took the ess and changed the file name to the last saved file. in game i was excited to see the last saved with area and character name. however, when i loaded the file, i was back in the new game. so, knowing how the file is created, it might be possible to reconstruct a working ess file. problem for me, months ago, had a problem with a mod. posted the problem on vortex and never was helped; so i don't expect anything better.

i have nearly 300 hours in both games. going to try some more experiments to save them.

[Fistandantilus]

Never experienced something like this.

I have 1300+ hours in SkyrimVR and play it since release in 2018 (release of the PCVR version).

800+ mods in Vortex.

In all these years I experienced the "I can not move and all NPC are T-Posed" thing once. Because I removed some mods the save file needed.

And I experienced a crash to desktop every single time I loaded the save file. It was also not repairable by fallrim tools, but since I make a NEW full save several times per hour (just to be save LOL), I was able to just use the save files that had been 20 minutes older.

I never experienced all my save files to be out of order or that the save file leads to a new game.

[JuniorToo]

i hadn't seen anything like this before either. the last time i had a problem, hadn't played for about 6 months. but when loading, game reported that there was a problem with a mod. that mod had changed but couldn't get it to work again. here again. it was working the last play thru; why did quit working? here again, one of the mod updates, couldn't get it to run again. another why?

this is like 4th 5th play (both) thru with 2660 hours on skyrim. another 3004 hours in FO4. only have around 30 mods in each. i have set up to bu save files, cause i got them working again;)

delete file recovery......