Merchant 42750 gold bug in Skyrim

Question

I've experienced a bug with multiple merchants in Skyrim. If you get the merchant above 42750 gold, say, with training, you'll run into a problem when you sell to them. After the merchant's gold is reduced to 42750, you'll no longer gain any gold from selling to them. They will still take your item, and no warning prompt is given.

I've experienced this bug with both Florentius and Tolfdir. Someone else has experienced this with Babette.

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Thread:833388

On that thread, someone mentioned that merchants get bugged once they go above 30k gold.

I already have unofficial legendary edition patch. So I wish to ask the following questions.

1. Does this apply to all merchants?

2. Do the merchants break above 30k gold, or above 42750 gold?

3. Why does this occur?

4. Can this be fixed?

5. Are there anything else I should be careful about when dealing with merchants?

Answer 1

Questions: Does this apply to all merchants?

Do the merchants break above 30k gold, or above 42750 gold?

Why does this occur?

Can this be fixed?

Are there anything else I should be careful about when dealing with merchants?

Answers: Possibly. I haven't had the time to go around to every merchant and add 30K gold to their salary ha-ha. All I know is that it effects most merchants that you can either train with them, or they sell expensive items.

It usually breaks around 30K gold - 40K gold. It's due to the fact that NPCs don't hold much data. It's pretty hard to explain, but I don't think Bethesda programmed the merchants to hold more than 40K gold.

It probably can't be easily fixed. From user mojodajojo on nexusmods:

However, you can script a merchant's chest to remove excess gold when it gets over a certain amount.

Probably not to train too much. You can easily level up by just using your weapon, or lock picking. Hope this helped!

Answer 2

In order to express negative values in a binary System one uses signed Datatypes. Means the first bit is the sign (0 means +, 1 means -).

Unsigned word(or integer) 32767 + 1 = 32768 / signed word 32767 + 1 = -32768

That is why this so called 'bug' happens if you go above 32767. It was unwise to use:

1. a signed Type since there are not negative gold amounts and
2. only give it 2byte size

No known fix unless someone is able the recompile the core is guess. There are, like mentioned, only mods that bypass this issue, but not fix it.

Answer 3

1. Does this apply to all merchants?

Yes.

2. Do the merchants break above 30k gold, or above 42750 gold?
3. Why does this occur?
4. [...]
5. Are there anything else I should be careful about when dealing with merchants?

From the UESP wiki's "Merchants - Bugs" article:

If the vendor's gold goes above 32767 (the internal 15-bit limit), then you sell items to them, you do not receive any gold (but will receive Speech experience). This is likely to trigger whenever you buy a lot of expensive items from the merchant (or high level training) before selling your goods.

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4. Can this be fixed?

Yes. You can install a mod to fix this bug:

• Barter Fix (PC original/Legendary Edition)
• Barter Bug Fix (PC Special Edition)

Both of the above mods require Skyrim Script Extender (SKSE).

Barter Fix

This is a SKSE plugin which fixes an issue where the player can't get any money from selling when merchant's on-hand golds reach a certain value.