What causes crashes when entering the cave with my companion mod?

[OliviaYM]

I finally got the custom companion mod I wanted working, but now my game crashes whenever I try to enter the specific cave where their questline starts. I’ve checked that my load order is correct and I’m not getting any script errors, so I’m stuck wondering if it’s a conflict with another mod that edits that location.

[Jeffrey83]

I had something similar after I finally got a custom companion mod to work. I stepped into that cave where the quest starts and the game crashed hard, even though I thought load order was fine. it turned out another mod edited that same dungeon cell and clashed with the companion’s scripts. once I disabled that mod, the crash disappeared so it can hide in location edits you don’t notice at first.

[ChloeCJ]

My fix was simple but annoying: disable every mod that touches that cave location, load a save before entering, and test. if it runs, re-enable mods one by one to see which one triggers the crash. if you’re really stubborn you can test with a clean profile.

[Aaron35]

If you can grab the crash log at the moment it crashes, look for the script or object name that gets mentioned. often one mod will spill a reference to the cave or the quest state from another mod and that’s your clue. don’t panic if the first names don’t ring a bell.

[Nora.C]

Sometimes it isn’t the quest at all but something like the cave navmesh or a patch in that cell. I once chased memory and texture issues, only to find a tiny patch file from another mod caused the first-enter crash. still not a sure fix, but worth checking dependencies and maybe re-exporting the cell.