Skyrim legendary edition Infinite Load screen or crash

the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim

I have tried literally everything available on internet for Skyrim infinite load screen (ILS) glitch but it doesn't fix it. It was running perfectly fine the other day and I was on level 15 and half, but today I tried to run it but it just wouldn't run. Also, instead of the ILS my game sometimes crashes too.

Here are my pc specs:

  • Processor: core2quad 3.00ghz
  • Ram: 4gb
  • Graphics card: nvidia geforce 730gt

Best Answer

Firstly, welcome to the community, thanks for posting.

To get into your question, as the comments have already specified, there are so many things that could cause this and we're not going to be able to pinpoint the exact cause here. The simple fact is the engine behind Skyrim is very old and prone to issues like this. As a developer it's frustrating how poor the engine is. But, as a gamer (whose favourite game happens to be Skyrim) nothing will stop me from enjoying this game.

But, if you've scoured the internet as you suggest there's two key points you have most likely come across:

  1. If you have mods installed, uninstall them one by one starting with the most recently installed one and working backwards. If you installed quite a few at a time (never a good idea) then uninstall in batches of, say 5, and that'll narrow down the culprit to a smaller number of mods. After uninstalling each mod (or batch) start the game and see if it's running. If so, great, you've found the culprit. Go to the mod page and read thoroughly through the installation documentation and requirements to see if you need to do something or have a specific dependency installed.
  2. If you don't have any mods just reinstall the game. Make sure you save your save game files to a backup location (unless you use Steam cloud) and just reinstall it.

You may need to reinstall anyway even if you have mods. Heavily modded games can become very bloated and cause any number of problems. If you're using a mod manager (NMM, Vortex etc.) they can alleviate a lot of the aches of reinstalling all your mods after you've reinstalled the game. An important note; if you do reinstall the game then make sure to delete the entire game folder ("/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steam apps/common/skyrim") as any files added by mods won't be removed upon uninstallation, and there're the most important to remove. Also delete the "[Username]/Documents/My Games/Skyrim" folder (as long as your saves are backed up first).

Personally I find a regular (every 4 - 6 months or so) reinstallation makes for a healthy Skyrim, especially if you frequently install new mods.

Good luck on this quest and I hope you find the solution swiftly.

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