Save files 200MB

[adams_apple]

Yes you read that right, 200MB EACH. I don't know how this happened but all my save files suddenly became enormous. They're taking nearly a minute to load on my SSD. The oldest save I have for this character is a quicksave from a few days ago, which is 154MB. Actually I think that's what caused it because the ess.bak version is only 12MB, which looks a lot more reasonable. I remember the whole game stopped for like a minute when I hit the quick save key. I tried using FallrimTools to clean the save but it stops responding when I load the files. What happened to my game??

[cheshirm]

this has happened to me a number of times. those large saves are corrupt. dont use - problem will get worse. go back to the 12mb save and start from there.

[adams_apple]

That's what's probably gonna happen, but it will set me back about 18 hours. I really don't want to go through the Soul Cairn again. Still, I think there might be a problem with the save to make it blow up again. Do you know what I can do to prevent this from happening in the future?

[smr1957]

First, Fallrim Tools will not fix a save that is broken or which is suffering save bloat. This kind of issue is usually caused by a poorly made mod, and the only way to fix it is by removing that mod and going back to a save made prior to installing that mod.

The best thing you can do is check your mod list to see if any of your mods are listed in the following:
Masterlist : Dangerous, Outdated and Superseded Mods by Nazenn
http://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/523890681422555089/

If you do not see any of your mods listed there as a problem, post your LOOT sorted load order so that it can be looked at. To post, just click on the 3 vertical dots in the upper right corner of the LOOT screen, select Copy to clipboard from the drop down menu, and then paste in the reply box here.

Also, it is best to make manual saves as opposed to using quick or auto saves (just go into the in-game menu and click Save, but do not overwrite any older ones - make a new one).

[adams_apple]

Originally posted by smr1957:

First, Fallrim Tools will not fix a save that is broken or which is suffering save bloat. This kind of issue is usually caused by a poorly made mod, and the only way to fix it is by removing that mod and going back to a save made prior to installing that mod.

The best thing you can do is check your mod list to see if any of your mods are listed in the following:
Masterlist : Dangerous, Outdated and Superseded Mods by Nazenn
http://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/523890681422555089/

If you do not see any of your mods listed there as a problem, post your LOOT sorted load order so that it can be looked at. To post, just click on the 3 vertical dots in the upper right corner of the LOOT screen, select Copy to clipboard from the drop down menu, and then paste in the reply box here.

Also, it is best to make manual saves as opposed to using quick or auto saves (just go into the in-game menu and click Save, but do not overwrite any older ones - make a new one).

The only mod I have that's on that list is UFO, which I've had forever. As for the load order, it's managed automatically by Vortex which has LOOT integration already, so there's not much for me to do there. This is what I have now.

# Automatically generated by Vortex
Skyrim.esm
Update.esm
Dawnguard.esm
HearthFires.esm
Dragonborn.esm
Unofficial Skyrim Legendary Edition Patch.esp
OSA.esm
TKChildren.esm
WM Flora Fixes.esp
HighResTexturePack01.esp
HighResTexturePack02.esp
HighResTexturePack03.esp
Unofficial High Resolution Patch.esp
EnhancedENBNightEye.esp
FNIS.esp
TKChildren.esp
Convenient Horses - Faster Sprint.esp
Skyrim Particle Patch for ENB - Flame Atronach Fix.esp
EnhancedLightsandFX.esp
ELFX - Exteriors.esp
CollegeOfWinterholdImmersive.esp
Complete Alchemy & Cooking Overhaul.esp
3DNPC.esp
Better Stealth AI for Followers.esp
Chesko_WearableLantern.esp
Convenient Horses.esp
CWIELnFXPatch.esp
DYNAVISION Dynamic Depth of Field.esp
ELFX - Weathers.esp
FrostHorseWhite.esp
Headtracking.esp
IHSS.esp
Populated Cities Towns Villages Legendary.esp
Inconsequential NPCs.esp
Immersive Speechcraft.esp
UFO - Dawnguard AddOn.esp
UFO - Heartfire AddOn.esp
UFO - Ultimate Follower Overhaul.esp
Skyrim Flora Overhaul.esp
Modern Brawl Bug Fix.esp
RevampedExteriorFog.esp
Serana.esp
Simply Stronger Dragons.esp
Skysan_ELFX_SMIM_Fix.esp
SkyUI.esp
SpeechTree.esp
Stealth Skills Rebalanced_COMPLETE.esp
UniqueDogs.esp
UsefulDogs.esp
XCEMwW.esp
Enchanting - IDWIW.esp
iNeed.esp
Immersive Citizens - AI Overhaul.esp
Relationship Dialogue Overhaul.esp
RDO - UFO v1.2i Patch.esp
RDO - USLEEP Patch.esp
Serana Dialogue Edit.esp
ELFXEnhancer.esp
Immersive Citizens - ELFXEnhancer patch.esp

[smr1957]

Yeah, UFO is just outdated a bit, but would not cause this. Nothing in your load order looks like it would be causing this issue either, so it could just be as Cheshirm said - some freak thing. But it would be nice to know what is causing the issue. Just make sure that you save often, using manual saves, so at least you have them to roll back to - just in case.

[adams_apple]

Huh, well how about that... I just made a manual save and it's only 20MB in size. Just like that. It's still a little bit large considering my level 68 character has a 17 MB save but it's still a lot better than what it was. I'm going to do what you guys suggested and turn off autosaving and not use quicksave from now on. Thanks!

[Alucard †]

Using Autosaves / Quicksaves is pretty much like playing Russian Roulette with save corruption.
And when having quite few mods installed. Yea quicksaves and autosaves can get bloated very quickly.

Manual saves / Console saves all the way.

EDIT:
They are the safest.

Reason for that i remember someone explained this to me.
Is the fact that scripts don't get paused properly when saving via quicksave / autosave and can go into a loop or cease to work entirely causing problems later on that may include save bloating , consistent crashing that will get worse over time and eventually affected saves will fail to load.

This can mess up your game at any point.

So its best to use manual saves or console saves from the begining of the playthrough and never touch autosave or quicksaves

What's sad is the fact that this was a problem since Oblivion and even Fallout 4 still has this issue with quick / auto saves , chance is lower but its still a gamble.

[adams_apple]

Yeah, something about bringing up the menu gives the Papyrus scripts a chance to end while autosave and quicksave don't. As for the person who said that ReSaver doesn't fix or reduce save bloat, consider this. The main cause of the problem was CACO (Cooking and Alchemy Complete Overhaul) which for some reason had generated thousands and thousands of active scripts for potions or something like that. There were probably more active scripts than potions in the entire game. As soon as I terminated those scripts with ReSaver, the save file dropped from 55MB to 20MB instantly. When I ran the game to see if anything was affected, the next save dropped again down to 16MB, and the next time to 15MB. Now the rate of growth is only a few kilobytes per save instead of megabytes. Most save bloat is caused by Papyrus script instances from mods, it is not something that is baked into the game itself. You CAN fix your game if you know what to look for.