How can I find the cause of a NRE?

[RocketSquid]

One of my saves, but none of the others, has been brought to a state of unusability by an enormous number of Null Reference Exceptions. The main difference between it and the other saves is that it was originally a 1.6.1 save, while the others were all created in 1.7.1. I do not have to be focused on a craft for the NREs to occur. Is there any way for me to determine the specific cause of the NREs so I can try to fix it? 

[Just Jim]

Hmmm... that shouldn't be happening.

I have a question, and a request, please

First, was this a stock game, or modded?

And can you post a copy of it, or pm one to me, please? 

[RocketSquid]

1 minute ago, Just Jim said:

Hmmm... that shouldn't be happening.

I have a question, and a request, please

First, was this a stock game, or modded?

And can you post a copy of it, or pm one to me, please? 

Modded to hell and back. When you say “post a copy” do you mean the whole thing or just the save?

[Just Jim]

7 minutes ago, RocketSquid said:

Modded to hell and back. When you say “post a copy” do you mean the whole thing or just the save?

ahhh... it could very well be one of the mods not playing nice. Are you sure they're all caught up to 1.7.1?

And just the save is fine. No promises, but I'd like to take a look at it

Edited June 8, 2019 by Just Jim

[RocketSquid]

2 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

ahhh... it could very well be one of the mods not playing nice. Are you sure they're all caught up to 1.7.1?

And just the save is fine. No promises, but I'd like to take a look at it

Some of them doubtlessly aren't, but they haven't caused any problems in the other saves using those same mods.

The persistent.sfs file is here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TX30Zr5CX-TbZV_DJ_arOcJ5Ht3LPEn-/view?usp=sharing

I have a lot of mods, but only a few (The WBI suite, the near future suite, Universal Storage, TAC-LS, Stockalike Station Parts Expansion, and tantares) see wide use. I've considered going through and removing any reference to mods I've deleted (principia and KSPI are the big ones), but given my poor skill at sfs editing I feel like that's likely to do something even worse and put me back to square one. 

[Tonka Crash]

@RocketSquid You need to post a Log to see what errors are being thrown. I prefer the KSP.log located in the install directory of the game. You can see every error thrown and hopefully there is information in the message that tells you where it's coming from.

It sounds like you've deleted mods during the save that has problems. Often this can leave remnants of the mod in your save (or craft files) that cause errors when the mod itself is no longer installed.

[RocketSquid]

Just now, Tonka Crash said:

@RocketSquid You need to post a Log to see what errors are being thrown. I prefer the KSP.log located in the install directory of the game. You can see every error thrown and hopefully there is information in the message that tells you where it's coming from.

It sounds like you've deleted mods during the save that has problems. Often this can leave remnants of the mod in your save (or craft files) that cause errors when the mod itself is no longer installed.

Does the log have more information than the in-game debug screen?

[Tonka Crash]

10 minutes ago, RocketSquid said:

Does the log have more information than the in-game debug screen?

I don't normally look at the in game console. It looks like the messages are a little different. I'm seeing some status messages to the console that aren't being recorded in the log. In the game I have open right now I can't "force" an error to see what's different.

The big difference is the Log is complete from start of the game where the in game screen only has a limited number of lines.

[Just Jim]

OK, I tried loading it in a stock 1.7.1 game, and while I got a whole bunch of errors concerning the vessels, which is not unexpected, I did not get the NRE or an input lock. 

I'll keep looking into this, but I suspect it's one (or more) of the mods misbehaving.

 

1 hour ago, RocketSquid said:

Does the log have more information than the in-game debug screen?

They should match, but personally I prefer log files over the in-game console because they can get quite large, and you can take your time scrolling back and forth through a log file. 

Edited June 8, 2019 by Just Jim

[RocketSquid]

I’ll try removing every reference to principia from the save, and also maybe trimming back on some of the mods to make the whole thing load faster.

Edited June 8, 2019 by RocketSquid

[Just Jim]

I wish there were more I could do, but I'm fairly sure it's mod related. If it happens again, save and attach a log file here. That might have a clue.

Here's the full troubleshooting steps, including how to get the log file, if need be

 

[RocketSquid]

Yeah, the main problem I’m having is that I can’t tell which mod is causing the problem. The first step, of course, is to make sure all my mods are as up to date as possible. The next step is to copy some craft files over to another save and see which craft (if any) makes the errors start. If I can’t reproduce the problem in another save or make it stop in the original one, I might just try copying the ships and science into a new save and seeing if that works. 

[RocketSquid]

Okay, by looking at the main log, I've found that the culprit is...

TAC-LS

First step is a clean reinstall. If that doesn't work, either I'm looking around for a fix or I'm lobotomizing the mod.

Edited June 9, 2019 by RocketSquid