Crash to Desktop During Throat of the World

[FrozenWolf150]

After putting it off for long enough, I decided to advance the main quest. However, I can't finish the quest 'Throat of the World' due to this crash. It happens at the same exact location every single time. I learned Clear Skies and managed to get across the first footbridge. There's usually a goat there that walks into the mist and gets frozen to death, but it doesn't cause any problems. Further along, on the eastern side of the mountain when the path curves sharply to the right before continuing up, there's another mist cloud and a frost troll. It doesn't take long for the frost troll to see me and come after me. It's at that very moment that the game suffers a CTD.

I restarted the game and reloaded, got to that same point, and it happened again. I tried using the "pcb" console command, but there was no difference. I have all the unofficial patches installed. My savegame size is only about 13.5 MB on average, and I've played a total of 242 hours according to Steam. I tried turning the graphics options down, but that made no difference, and I don't have performance issues with the game at all.

I've looked up this problem on other sites, but nobody had any advice that was helpful. I don't want to have to cheat by using the console to skip to the quest target, or skip the quest altogether. This is the only time Skyrim has consistently crashed at the same exact location under the same circumstances. Has this happened to anyone else? Does anyone know of a solution?

[VirtualWeasel]

This can happen in Elder Scrolls games—I had a save in Oblivion where a specific stone fence outside the Imperial City made the game fully CTD, for no reason. I've experienced similar things in Skyrim, and my best advice would be to try and go around the problem. Given this is the Throat of the World, and it only has one path, use the tcl command to walk past where the problem seems to be, and give yourself a wide berth away from the problem area. Hopefully that fixes it, if not, it may be an issue with the hardware not handling certain situations.

[FrozenWolf150]

I did some more testing. This time I fired off the Clear Skies shout into the fog obscuring the path where the crash typically occurs. The moment the shout interacted with the fog, the game crashed.

Looks like I have no choice but to cheat.

ETA: And that doesn't work either. First I tried "movetoqt mq204" but that only teleported me to an arbitrary location on the side of the mountain, from where I couldn't reach anything without falling off the side. Then I tried "tcl" to move past the problem area, but the moment I moved anywhere around the mountain, the game crashed again. So yeah, I can't finish the main quest.

[VirtualWeasel]

It's possible there's some kind of problem with the top of the mountain, rather than that particular spot with the fog.

I could give you the setstage quest fix, but unfortunately you'd just have to do it every time you have to meet Paarthurnax, which would be a pain. However, if this problem is being caused by the quest itself malfunctioning, then you might as well try.
Use this command:

Code: Select all

setstage MQ204 200

Yes, it will skip the entire quest, and that sucks. But, again, if it's a problem caused by the quest itself, it's worth a try. Just make sure to make a clean save before doing it.
You won't learn the first/second/third word of Fire Breath, however; you can also use the console to give yourself the word if you'd really like. I realize that you could view this as cheating, but in my eyes, if using a console command or two can save your game, it's worth doing.
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[FrozenWolf150]

OK I found something that did work. I used "movetoqt mq204" again, and then used "tcl" to fly the rest of the way to the landmark at the Throat of the World. Paarthurnax appeared as normal, and I was able to continue from there. This seems to indicate that it's a glitch with that specific part of the mountain and the way the frost damage fog interacts with the player, or any creatures caught in it.

Thanks for the suggestions. While I ended up not having to skip this quest, it will be helpful to know in the future.

[VirtualWeasel]

OK I found something that did work. I used "movetoqt mq204" again, and then used "tcl" to fly the rest of the way to the landmark at the Throat of the World. Paarthurnax appeared as normal, and I was able to continue from there. This seems to indicate that it's a glitch with that specific part of the mountain and the way the frost damage fog interacts with the player, or any creatures caught in it.

Thanks for the suggestions. While I ended up not having to skip this quest, it will be helpful to know in the future.

Better to actually do the quests than skip them, especially since there's a lot of plot exposition in this particular quest.

[FrozenWolf150]

Okay, it's not just the Throat of the World. It's the entire area around Ivarsted. When attempting to fast travel to Ivarsted or anywhere nearby, the game immediately crashes to desktop. I can't even travel to Geirmund's Hall anymore. I kind of want to travel there because there's a Dark Brotherhood quest target in Ivarsted.

I tried disabling my mods, which for now only consist of the unofficial patches, but that didn't help. I don't want to have to start a new game yet, since I'm so close to the end. I guess the DB quest isn't vital, but there's no reason for the game to crash like this.

ETA: Well, it turns out this also means I can't finish the Dawnguard expansion, because one of the quests requires me to recruit someone from the Ivarsted area. So yeah. Damnit.

[FrozenWolf150]

UPDATE

In my most recent game, using the latest versions of all unofficial patches, the crash did not occur. Previously, the damaging mist on the eastern side of the mountain was glitched, in that any interaction with the fog, whether a creature moving through it or the Clear Skies shout impacting it, would cause the game to instantly crash. This time, it did not crash.

There are several things I did differently, though I don't know which one might be a factor. I already acquired the Elder Scroll (Dragon) way ahead of time as part of the Dawnguard questline. I saved this part of the main quest for the very last, after completing all other faction and expansion quests (except the Companions). Also, I only used Clear Skies on the fast-moving wind, not the slower mist. I was able to walk through the slow mist without taking any damage at all, due to my high spell absorption and magic resistance; my health regenerated faster than it could be damaged.

So while I'm relieved that it no longer crashes, I still wish I knew what had caused it in the first place.