Skyrim Carry Weight Bug: Here Is How To Fix It!

Skyrim has its fair share of bugs and glitches, some are bizarre, some are caused by mods, and some are caused by players abusing the console commands. In today’s post, we’re going to be dealing with the “carry weight” bug, it’s not exactly clear how this bug happens, the only thing that all of the players have in common is that their capacity to carry items is significantly reduced. This bug can affect both your character and your followers. Having said that, let’s see how to fix the famed “carry weight” bug in Skyrim. 

What causes the carry weight bug in Skyrim? 

The exact cause of the carry weight bug in Skyrim is hard to discover since multiple of those have plagued the game from day one. Most commonly the bug is caused by invisible items being added to the player’s inventory either by adding items through console commands, installing mods incorrectly, or simply picking up the dummy items as we loot our way through the world of Skyrim. It’s important to note however that the third cause happens extremely rarely. 

Carry weight is dictated by Stamina. Every effect that affects Stamina will in turn either increase or decrease your carry weight. This is not a bug it’s simply one of many features. Fortify Stamina spells for example are used to increase your carrying capacity while drain spells are used to decrease it.

A number of diseases can also affect the Dragonborn which can result in your character becoming exponentially weaker as the diseases progress. These, of course, are not bugs or glitches, the biggest indication that your carrying weight has taken a hit by disease or some other magical effect is the fact that your carry weight is red and you can easily locate the effect affecting you in your magic effects menu. 

The most simple way to determine you are being plagued by a carrying weight glitch is to simply empty all your inventory (save for quest items as those cannot be removed) and to check your status once this is done. If your inventory is empty and you still have some weight on you, or you are over-encumbered, it’s time to consider other options. 

How to fix the carry-weight bug in Skyrim? 

The cause of this bug is complicated and the solution can be as well, as it’s possible that no single solution will work for all players. Luckily we have a few options to consider. The following are ways through which you can fix the carry weight bug. 

1. Reload the previous save 

This is the most straightforward solution, and the players playing the game on consoles might be the only one. Simply locate the save that you made before the bug manifested itself and reload it. You might lose some significant progress, however, and the bug might re-appear. Even though this is the simple solution the players often push back reloading after everything else has failed. 

2. Use commands to remove dummy items from your inventory 

This is a multiple-step solution and involves the use of commands. The logic behind it is that you can use commands to show EVERYTHING in your inventory including the dummy/hidden items and then to “drop” them by using commands as well. To do that follow these steps. 

1. Empty all your inventory in a safe container  
2. Open console by pressing “~” 
3. Type showinventory 
4. Items will appear, most likely quest items that cannot be dropped, if there are some other items in your inventory on that list that you cannot see, they are most likely dummy items that are causing your problem. You can scroll up and down through the list of items by using PgUp and pgDn keys.
5. Click on your character and type Drop <itemID> <quantity>. Replace the itemID with the ID of a dummy item that is causing your problems. 
6. If everything was executed successfully, your carry weight should return to normal, and/or you should no longer be over-encumbered

3. Use console commands to increase your carrying capacity 

This solution only masks the true problem and puts off dealing with it. This can have unsavory consequences in the future but it’s good of a solution in the short run as any other. Especially if you’re in the middle of something important. To increase your carrying capacity with console commands follow these steps:

1. Open the console by pressing “~” 
2. Type player.modav carryweight 700 this should increase your carrying capacity, you can always reset this value once you deal with the problem. 

How to fix the carry weight bug on your followers? 

The carry weight glitch can affect your followers as well. Usually, it’s caused by items multiplying due to a bug in your follower’s inventory. If you decide to inspect its inventory you will notice 40000 rings or 1000000 iron arrows. Naturally, this needs to be solved or your follower will not be able to carry your extra loot any longer. 

We made a guide on how to reset your follower’s inventory a while back, however, what works best is the solution we’ve provided in the first part of this post. To fix the carry weight bug that’s affecting your followers in Skyrim simply use the combination of showinventory and drop <itemID> <quantity> commands. This is only a temporary solution as the bug will reappear once again in most cases. 

As you can see, there are many approaches to solving this problem, some might be more effective and some might be less effective. If you’re interested in more guides covering how to fix issues in Skyrim, check out our guide for solving water flickering!

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