I was playing, then a crash to desktop (not unusual)

So I went back into the game, clicked load, chose my last quicksave. The progress bar gets to about 25% then *crash*.

So I tried the backup quicksave from a few minutes earlier. Crashes also.

So I tried the streamsave before that. Crashes also.

The streamsave before that (43 minutes, thanks a bunch 7 minute timer) will load.


I'm wondering if it is the area that is broken, and any save loaded there will break, or if 3 consecutive saves were corrupted (never had a single corrupt save before, let alone 3).

I tried running without any mods checked. Same results.

What is going on here? Are there any other steps I can try to diagnose this?

Even if I use the old save, what if it crashes once I get to the point I reached, and can't be loaded there again?

Hmmmm!

I used the old save and headed straight for the spot where my game crashed. I made a new save there from the console. Exited to main menu, tried to load it and it crashed!

Seems to me like *puts shades on* there's something Weird in The West Weald! YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! *cue The Who*

I have no clue what to do next.

Sounds like the area either has a bad spawn or some mod conflict.
You can test by going to an indoor location, wait 3 days respawn period, then try to walk up to the area again.

I tested that and the resulting save in that spot would load successfully.

I have also updated Unique landscapes because I believe this location is in one of the new places. However, this didn't make my buggy save loadable.

Now is there any way to reset the cell in that save file without going into the game? Or else a way to edit the save to change my location so I resume somewhere not broken?

Eh I looked around but found nothing that could do what I want. The time I spent looking for a fix was getting to be more of a hassle than replaying that part of the game.

I went to the oldest working save and used the console to warp to the imperial city and I'm going to stay out of that area for 3 days.

Something I found that can be useful in helping to determine what's going on --

Procmon (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-en/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx).

You can configure it to monitor oblivion (it generates TONS of output, so minimize it while oblivion is starting). The important things it monitors are registry and disk -- though for oblivion related crashes, it's usually the disk ops that are key. I've found that with most crashes, if you look back to the last thing it was doing just before all the threads exit (if you monitor threads it will show a bunch of them exiting all at once when it is going down).

But it will also show you the last file ops -- and likely you'll see one or more just before the crash that failed -- From one, I saw
textures/... door.nif or something, another time was textures/magiceffects/..., another was sky/ (not generic sky).

None of these files were in the directory and I couldn't find any sign of them in any of my extensions(searched through indexes of them). Only in one case, did this actually help me -- when it was referring to some outdoor textures that thought might be associated with the Better Cities collection -- an extension that gives me reliable problems whenever I add it to my mix. What I've noticed is that Wrye bash can't replace files when it doesn't know their source.

So if an extension overroad some oblivion game files, it's not usually the case that information is in wrye bash about who owns those files -- so it doesn't even know damage occurred.

Anyway -- procmon can let you know what files it was tying to reference and that may give you a hint as to the extension involved.

I think what is happening in some cases, is that extensions are creating archive invalidations, but when they get uninstalled, those invalidations aren't removed. Thus the game looks in the wrong place (i.e. the file might be in the main .bsa file, but the game was told not to look there).

Trouble is I don't see how archives are being invalidated w/o a text file to tell it. (Am NOT knowledgeable about Oblivion extension stuff -- am trying to find out more)...

Anyway I have several save games that wouldn't load due to missing files -- and I know they loaded in earlier games with fewer extensions, so I scratch the dir and start again. Sure enough... I can get them to load again. So not sure which extensions do what... but some _essentially_ remove content but don't restore it when you uninstall them. ARG!....

Thanks for the tip about Procmon. Can't believe I overlooked that.
Uh, you do know that most resource files are dynamically extracted from the (several) Oblivion BSAs, don't you? (Extracted they reportedly take up another 5.9 GB.) And most large mods like Better Cities have their own BSA file? Files on disk are used in preference for files from BSAs. You seem to understand this. So for completeness you have to search the related BSA(s) before saying the absence of a file is your problem. Perhaps I am belaboring the obvious, but when troubleshooting it's important not to make assumptions.


See the 'http://cs.elderscrolls.com/index.php/Oblivion_Mods_FAQ#Archive_Invalidation' on the CS Wiki to understand archive invalidations. The preferred method used these days by OBMM and Wrye Bash is 'BSA redirection'. Some mods might use ''http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10724" (also linked from that CS Wiki article). You didn't say if your primary installer is purely manual, or OBMM, or Wrye Bash (actually the BAIN component). BAIN in my experience does the best job of restoring files the way they were after using it to remove a mod. OBMM does NOT, and Wrye Bash/BAIN knows nothing about anything OBMM installed. All those installed files are part of the original game as far as it is concerned. And with manual installs it's strictly your responsibility. If you use a mixture of these methods, you are going to get very confused unless you compulsively document each and every mod install at what save game stage.

I have a heavily modded game (214 and climbing), and my experience is that if I remove a mod, my best shot at continuing in a stable environment is to back up to a save prior to installing that (now removed) mod. Part of this is because (as was pointed in an older thread), mods can make changes to the save game that are not possible to back out simply by removing the mod, which then cause problems and crashes later. Wrye Bash makes determining which save to back up to relatively easy because it can examine a save game and list the mods it uses.

It's well worth the time to learn to use BAIN and install everything with that. I spent 8 months trying to figure out why my game was CTDing before even getting a save game to load by removing mods a couple at a time and testing. After removing 260 or so mods (I was using WB's CBash), I finally decided 'might as well rebuild from scratch', and went completely with BAIN this time. (The only thing I have installed with OBMM is the Sensual Walks Animation Installer, because it can't be done with BAIN.) Which is how I learned the problem was (apparently) OBSE plugins that were no longer being used, but not removed. BTW: Post installation of OBSE plugins BAIN still does not appear to deal with. It installs them (now, but not when I started), but doesn't appear to 'anneal' or remove them as they don't appear in the BAIN list of installed mods once installed. Hopefully this will be dealt with in the BAIN update called 'BAIT'.)

As for Better Cities, I don't have any problems with the full integration set. But it is essential to follow their 'safe save' procedure when upgrading.

Sometimes, starting over (correctly this time) is the best solution.

-Dubious-

I ought to try the part of my firewall that monitors changes as well, although I'm concerned that it would slow everything down.

About Wrye Bash removing files properly.. What happens if a file is updated since installing?

Case 1:
Mod A adds door.nif, it is placed in the data folder
Mod B adds door.nif in the data folder, overrideing Mod A's.
User uninstalls Mod B through Wrye Bash.
Are you left without a door.nif now?

Case 2:
Mod A adds door.nif to the data folder
User manually edits door.nif
User uninstalls Mod A
Does Wrye Bash know that the file isn't the version it installed and leaves it alone or does it get removed?

Uh, you do know that most resource files are dynamically extracted from the (several) Oblivion BSAs, don't you?

What do you mean by dynamically extracted? You mean at install time.

It takes a long time to unpack an archive -- and if it was done at run time, the performance hit would be HUGE...

People's HD's aren't that fast... Do you know how long unpacking another 5.9GB would take on most people's system?

I **can't** believe things are unpacked to disk at run-time...unless...oh... Well I could..
Now maybe I understand the setting in the ini-file -- use diskcache... They DO have to unpack from the bsa's, but the bsa's are arranged to
be unpacked on the fly -- not to disk. Maybe that disckcache param in the ini controls whether or not unpacking caches things on disk.
I suppose it depends on your cpu vs. your disk speed. If you had fast SSD's and a pigslow Celeron (Ha!)... then yeah, caching on disk
might be of use. vs. if you have a 4-6 Core i7/Xeon running over 3GHz, that isn't even using 20% system cpu, then writing to disk might
just slow things down...

Agreed! Though, I didn't unpack the BSA's, as if the file is missing out of the BSA, then something was messed up in the mod when I loaded it in the first place. The BSA's, AFAIK, are dynamically used by the run time but it's not possible for a file that was there to suddenly "NOT" be there, unless 1) I am editing the BSA's (which I don't know how to do but could probably figure out given the tools available), or 2) something might have done some invalidation or 'redirection' so the game isn't looking in the "right" BSA.

Anyway -- as for your ideas of 'starting over'.... lets see... am on my 4th or 5th install in about the last 2-3 weeks as I've tried to bring up all the stuff I wanted... Hit the wall on the last install --- never done a wrye bash merge, and hit the 256 mod limit... I could start new chars, but not load my old chars... and trying uninstalling all the mods still didn't work.... so something corrupted the game dir on that one.

As for my methods... I stepped up quickly...this would be my 3rd time getting into playing (if I ever get there and happy with new extensions I like). The last 2 times were using manual install methods only -- but last time I played through was about 4 years ago. Modding has advanced alot since then.

So this time I started with obmm... realized quickly it had major shortcomings. Moved on to Wrye Bash -- where I currently am and try to use for most things -- some things are only packaged in obmm -- and when I try to turn them in to archives in obmm, I end up with an archive that has no configurable files. I hate those... That and some of them come with obmm scripts that are just too much a pain to
convert into a WB archive. (N.B. -- (Note Bene/Note Well) -- When I say a 'pain', you are talking to someone who took the time on her last install to turn Oblivion into 2 WB installables (the exe's and the stuff in DATA), and the DLC+SI into another installable (the cleaned DLC's BTW!). the OBV-DATA mod -- I hope never needs to be annealed from -- but it's installed 1st in install order, so it looks like a normal install to the rest of the mods that come after -- but at least WB will know if something is overwritten (or CAN do a checksum). It seems to go off of time/date stamps and monitors the directory for changes if you let it stay running, but the mod is 4GB. Ouch...at least a few minutes to
reinstall -- especially since the installers are 32-bit. Even OBMM and WB could get at least a 15-20% speed boost by going to 64bit.

For a while , when I only used OBMM, I subb'ed in the 64-bit version of 7zip, it gave about that much of a boost...maybe more, but the libs were messy with WB, and they use some weird interface '7zunicode'... 7zip is already unicode?!?... so I dunno what it was supposed to do but trying to sub in 64 bit there, didn't make WB happy....OBMM was fine though.
-----------------------------------------

Yeah... I'm aware of the limitations... but some things .. like the all-race 2K texture installer comes with an EXE installer that installs 5 choices / body/ (standard + ~ 7 other races). I can come up with a single selection, but just hand coping all the right files into place seemed like it would be error prone and even less optimal than using the EXE to set the options. I try to keep non-WB usage to a minimum, because I know
it can't restore content if it doesn't know where you installed it from (which was why I made sure to put the Bethesda content in the system -- so it would be protected from random acts of extensions... .


Well, I could.. but some of my 'backing up' would be recreating an environment from 4 years ago. I think I have all the extensions...BUT....
do I really wanna go there? I have been able to load chars from those old games in installs that had 'few' mods loaded. But many of those save
games had alot of game time on them.... they aren't really playable -- as some of them have done everything (at least everything in the game guide... ).... Played it linearly and with quests in parallel. Never could have done the quests in parallel the first time -- too many interrelated quest bugs... many fixed now... but (THANK BETHESDA!), they made the console available. That's the only way I got through the game the first time with some of the game bugs that were in it at the time -- some of the quests would dead-end if you had done something else and you could never finish them.


Right... but as you mention/hint at... just removing a mod might not be enough. If it deleted files not under WB's control (or overwrote files not under WB's control), then when it is removed, the originals don't get magically restored....


OH... Bethesda, why didn't you include help error messages!?!? .. instead, when it can't find a file -- exit (or crash) to desktop... only by tracing can you find the file -- and even then, no clue about where it was **supposed** to be --

I think that's the key -- it was in a BSA, and either it was one that redirected 'to', that got removed, (and redirection didn't get undone), or
something was redirecting from a valid location to elsewhere.....


More than my attention span to be frank. I'm a casual gamer. I usually do programming and scripting for fun and that keeps
me busy full time, but sometimes get sick of it, or a good game comes out .. and I wanna switch. I may have bought my last
game though. After a failure to install and a complete let down on Skyrim, (they had no 'offline version' -- and unlike EA, STEAM doesn't support proxies. So I had to return my copy that I had desperately been waiting for for 8 months. There were other reasons -- like there was no PC release (only an XBOX release adapted to the PC), but my screen is 2560x1600 -- going with 1920x1080 XBOX res hurts.

But the 2nd straw was on ME-III -- the installer downloads and updates itself through my proxy just fine. Then it refuses to load the game --
no error message. Nothing. It just loads the installer, and exits. So I try to contact support -- I find that my email address no longer works
on the support site (I can still login to the game site, with 'ea@mydomain', but the support site gives an error when you try to use a name that corresponds to the company. It worked for years... then when they break their installer, they change it. LAME!!!)....

So no way to contact them (ok, I can probably call their corporate office, not that it is listed anywhere on their website), I just gave up and decided to go back and try oblivion again cuz I'd gotten in the gaming mood and am getting frustrated. It's really not worth buying games these days. They don't work and I either return and get a refund (if I am lucky), or I wait too long, or keep thinking I'll get something to work... but
no go. They sure locked this girl out of games with their DRM... nice and protected FROM the CUSTOMERS!!!... Funny thing about
the DRM .. both this game and one of ME's games -- AFTER I'd bought the game, I still ended up d/l'ing a cracked version just so I
didn't have to keep my disk in the drive. No idea where they are now, as recent install was from DVD's which don't get lost -- but it really makes me wonder why I bother trying to pay for the hassle of returning games -- it's just not worth it. And I hope Bethesda reads this and considers the flip side of the hassles of DRM. Also, I was insulted at paying a console price for a game for a PC, that wasn't even adapted to the PC -- not to mention they take an extra $10 in profit for not having to pay a licensing fee. I HAVE bought console games for $30 for the PC -- and that was about the right price for a console game on a PC. I knew I was playing a console game -- it required an X-BOX like controller (actually had to be X-box compat) -- which I **liked**, for what it was... but it wasn't Oblivion. Completely different headspace and gaming style. Too much on that side-topic... sorry.

[ And to gamesas, if you are reading, I would pay *another* $30 for an upgrade that just gracefully handled missing content and gave informative error messages -- and maybe up to $40-45 if you redid the game using DirectX10 + 11 -- and gave me photo-quality graphics like those in ... probably ME-III (haven't been able to play it yet), but in DragonAge II (think it used Dx10)... But games for the Xbox that I can't even play because you tied it to steam or Xbox versions for PC? Ouch! ]

You'll have to admit, it was fairly low key for 'venting'...


^^^ Yup!.. a pain..!!


Done it several times... But my modlist is 'complicated...... Right now.... it runs for a while, then crashes .. but I **think** it is graphics hardware related (have a GTX590, that just runs too dang hot!... 98C just aint right!) So I think it is throttling one of the GPU's to minimum to hold down temps and occasionally let's it run -- but think the throttling is making it flakey... Nvidia designed a **near** lemon with the 590 -- they didn't cool it enough for the power in it... so it throttles alot (or if you are a reviewer and overclock/overvoltage it, you burn up the card)...
I'm only running at 'stock speeds' -- in fact i got one of the speed tweek utils to try to 'clock down' the thing since 1 GPU always runs at
full speed even at idle -- becaue I have 2 monitors hooked up. The 2nd monitor needs to be 'active' only because it is the one that sitting behind my 'stereo' -- so sound goes through the stereo to that monitor... and Nividia not only disabled power-saving on 1 GPU whenever you run more than 1 monitor, (I have a feeling that's contributing to the heat problem), but also made it such that it they turn off their Digital sound drivers whenever you turn off the monitor -- even though you can play sound through HDMI without a picture (my older card did that just fine -- but it was Made by a audio company, so you know they would get that right. nividia -- thinks 'no picture -- kill sound'... NEP!...a bug in their driver disables sound when no video is detected -- even if sound is still hooked up (which it also can detect)).

I did come here for a reason... posted some Q's under the WrB thread, which I went to look for but found this first.

It crashed on me and ate my config file -- now my install order is all mucked up. Just wonderful.

Sigh...Making progress... but it is painful...

And this is fun?? Ah... but if it all works... ahhh... had 380 hours on my top save @ with the file size @ 5.5GB

As you appear to have worked out, I did mean 'at run time'. I don't know that the game engine actually unpacks files to disk (other than cache), unless there is some algorithm that lets it decide it will need it again. But the evidence suggests it only unpacks the specific files it needs at the moment directly into memory. The BSA is structured the same as the Data folder on disk, so the engine just changes the (virtual) drive it's looking on for the specific file it needs. You can retrieve a single file with pretty much all the modern archivers as well, so there is nothing marvelous there. And if you are using the 'disk cache' parameter it will speed up subsequent retrievals for that game session. The only reason I see not to use caching is because you are short on disk space. No need for SSD or other extreme speed devices.

I suspect this is your problem as well. Unfortunately it's an area I haven't been forced into 'repairing' myself, so afraid I can't help you there. I would expect that any BSA extraction tool would work on an 'invalidation' or 'redirection' archive just as well. Just that I haven't noticed anything about WB dealing with that when uninstalling mods, but I haven't had problems with it either.

You asked earlier about two scenarios and how WB (BAIN in this instance) would deal with them. The answer to both, as far as I know, lies in the 'annealing' process. There are two options: 'anneal' (implied as just the currently selected [manually highlighted] mods), and 'anneal all'.

If you remove a mod, you should 'anneal all' if you know it affects other parts of the game: such as replacers or overhauls. That causes BAIN to check the CRCs of all the files against the ones in the installed mods list, and restore any that do not match, according to how it has determined the INSTALL Order 'winners'. Since the Oblivion / SI / DLC files are part of that 'installed mod list', any components of them that are not overwritten by a mod 'winner' will be restored. As you can imagine, this can take quite some time depending upon how many mods and how extensive they are, so use it judiciously. But when in doubt, it's the safest course.

If you have just updated one or more mods (meaning they have the exact same name as when they were installed), or you know it only adds 'new and unique' stuff to the game, then you want to select just those mods and use the plain 'anneal'. Only the files touched by those mods are checked, so it is very quick. (I prefer to keep version numbers on my installed mods, so I usually just uninstall and install new. I've found that as long as the ESM/ESP filenames are identical to the old version, WB will automatically redate them to the previous LO date/time. Of course, uninstalling doesn't hold true for quests but I have few installed beyond the DLCs so far and those few have been nice enough to use separate ESMs as 'resources' that are seldom changed to store the quest progress information. So as long as those files are not replaced, no progress is lost. But you have to read their documentation closely to be sure.)

(And here's hoping Lojack doesn't see how 'loosely' I've explained this, so he doesn't feel compelled to spend time clarifying. As long as it makes sense to you and is generally correct, of course. )

One final thing: I don't know about Skyrim, but all the older TES games are written as 32-bit code. That means they have several constraints that ignore multi-core processor capabilities. Most notably, they do not use threading so all code runs on a single CPU/core; and they cannot address more than 4GB of RAM. Even on a 64-bit version of Windows, they run as 32-bit code on the 64-bit system (called 'Windows on Windows' or WoW). So only system services like disk IO are benefiting from the faster 64-bit instruction sizes. Where you get a real benefit is that much of your system memory footprint is moved out of the low-order space used by the 32-bit code, and with the LAA patch the game can use memory beyond the 2GB 'soft barrier' of typical available app RAM. But it is still restricted to a maximum of 4GB of RAM because that is all a 32-bit instruction is able to address. Which is why you are limited to about 3GB at best in practice (the 32-bit code expects some system addresses to still be low order.) And why faster core processor speed is still (and will remain) more important for 32-bit games than the number of cores. Consequently, you can only expect just so much improvement on a 'better' box. These days, processor speed is more of a limiter than the video card(s).

Best of luck.

-Dubious-

My experience with some of what youhave said is not the same -- I have seen it use up to 220% cpu (using practical unix irix terms, not MS terms where 100%=1 cpu in use, 200=2...etc machines have 400-600% capacities, -- and can be
better quantified against different core machines at similar clocks. But most of all you can tell how much parallism
is going on. With all the threaded effects turned on, I was never able to get much more than about 220%... I don't
know what I am getting now, but at 20-30% total usage, that'd be in the same ballpark 140-210...

Oblivion can't use more than 2GB address space for itself.. the upper 2GB is for system space -- which can allow the sytem to store more memory (on behalf of the program), but I don't think it does. I did try setting the 3GB aware switch on OB, BTW, but it caused my sound to cut out -- so whatever drivers MS included in their WOW system to feed the driver -- they seemed to hve crippled them to not be large address (>2GB) aware). That was their whole supposed rational for clipping WinXP's ability to access the full 4GB for programs and limit physical memory to 4GB due to 'broken drivers' in consumer space (their server edition of the same os Win2000, ran up to 96GB of RAM (only 4GB/program), but alot more instances of full memory and more buffer space). It's odd that they would write a driver for a 64 bit environment that emulates a bug of not being able to play sound out of the upper 2GB of a 4GB address space -- almost like deliberate sabotage of the model -- since they were well aware of how to write 32 bit drivers that would be fully compatible with all of the memory in a 3-4GB address space, and on win 7, there is no guarantee that the program won't be loaded (in fact it it is likely that it won't be loaded) in the 1st 4gb of memory ... So something else is going on there.

If that would work -- then OB would have 50% more headroom... which would be a big difference I'd think.

So are the # threading parameters in the init file "havokthreads" and inumthread in the iOpen section ignored?
They default to 1 and 3. I thought you might get more parallelism by cranking those numbers -- say on a 6 core
to 3 & 8-9 (conservatively)....


p.s... Damn Report but looks alot like a Reply button and is in the right place for one .. early in the morning with sleepy eyes...

Grumble grumble.

Reply belongs there and Report belongs under Backtotop -- not as a normal button...grumble grumble UI design in dark ages, grumble, half asleep users not tested...grumble...
'-)

I guess what you're saying is that uninstalling Mod B will leave the data folder without that file. Even if Mod A put its own version of that file in first. And so Anneal will recognize that A's version is missing and restore it.

I'm afraid to Anneal because of case 2. I have a couple of texture files that were put in place by a mod, and I've edited the texture in Photoshop to change colours. So if I annealed, it would delete my custom versions and replace them with defaults. I'm also afraid of doing that with .ini files that are part of the mod, and I've enabled/disabled certain parts of the mod through the .ini file. Enhanced economy, nGCD, Progress come to mind.


+1 to not liking how the game was not adapted for PC controls. I don't think I could play Oblivion or Skyrim without DarkUI, QZ Easy Menus, Enhanced Hotkeys (Oblivion), or SkyUI & Numpad Bindable (Skyrim). Controls are more important to me than graphics. The way they catered to the limited capabilities of consoles is shocking to me as it severely gimps their PC game. Anyway, that's off topic!

Perhaps I'm confused, but this sounds like you are editing files in the Data folder directly and not packaging those changes in your own mod. I believe all you need to do is create a 'dummy/fake' ESP file (just the name, no content) and include your tweaked files in the proper folders from 'Data' on down in your own mod package. Then add it in BAIN last (highest number) in the INSTALL Order and thereafter WB will have them always 'win'. Just 'hide' your dummy ESP so as to not waste a LO slot. Just be aware that putting them last runs the risk of overwriting files altered by other patches. It would be better to put them just after whichever mod installed the version of the files you had to 'fix'.

As for the INI edits, I simply back them up (originals and tweaked) so I can replace as needed. But more recently I have taken to creating my own INI Tweaks files and loading them through the WB 'INI Edits' tab. They are simple text files and very easy to create. The key is the filename convention, easy enough to work out from the existing files. You can browse for the INI you want to load, and WB then will display the Tweaks that match it's name. But you still need to compare your versions with any update INIs for differences and update your tweaks and backups as necessary. Which is where BAIN 'projects' come in very handy.

Edit: Actually, the newer versions of WB now automatically create "older settings" tweaks when an updated INI is installed. You can easily rename those files to more meaningful ones. However, they are stripped of the comments, so it's still a good idea to keep backups for reference.

-Dubious-

You don't need an ESP file for this sort of thing at all.

Just create a folder in your Bash Installer's folder called...well, whatever. Something you'll understand, and then create the proper structure.

Ohh...lets say I was going to alter the texture for the Female Lowerclass Skirt 04 (since I've been working on that model and I can remember the path off the top of my head)

In Bash Installers, make a new folder called "PSI's Texture Adjustments" (for sake of argument), then create the proper subfolders:

textures -> clothes -> lowerclass

And place your modified texture (pants04f.dds, I believe) in the folder.

Now, in Wrye Bash's installer's tab, at the bottom you will see a new package, noted with a diamond instead of a square, which means its whats called a "project" not an "archive". Right click on it and install it, just like with an archive. Now you have your modified texture in the proper part of the Data folder.

You can do this with anything, even things added by other mods. Its how I test my DMRA conversions, for example.

Yeah I could do that, if I remembered all of the files I edited before I understood the mountain of info required to play the game with good mods. I spent a week researching before I ever started playing and was only scratching the surface.

I only know one or 2 of the files I replaced but I know there were more. I'm going to try to finish the game with this setup and only install mods that won't overwrite anything I've put in. This is the most stable my game as been and I don't want to mess with it much.

(although damn another save got corrupted yesterday! I don't know where this is coming from!)

Are you using any form of 'autosave'? Timer based saves can get corrupted because they don't take into account things like quest scripts that may be executing at that exact point in time. Check out http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1228478-relz-duke-patricks-safe-save/page__pid__19135465__st__30#entry19135465 thread. His app is designed to try to avoid those situations, though in the end he recommends you just use the 'nag' feature to remind you to manually save.

-Dubious-

I'm using Streamsave's timer saves + quicksaves. I've been playing oblivion since August and had 3 bad saves in a row in a certain area (above it turned out to be some kind of bad spawn). And a few days later, another bad save in a dungeon. Why is it happening now all of a sudden if I've been doing this method of saving from the start?

Don't use autosaves/quicksaves.

Simply put, the longer you play, the more complex the possible mod interactions and the more likely corruption. Just think about it. Hundreds of INDEPENDENTLY developed mods stepping all over each other, taking turns updating their status but acting as is they are the only process at work. It's a wonder anything works together.

-Dubious-

Hmmm my saves are now 11.8mb, a week ago they were about a full meg less. Maybe they're getting too big to save.

So what do you guys do? Go to the menu every few minutes? That suuuucks. I've got to get this game played through before it all falls apart.

Duke Patrick's 'Safe Save' mod uses a 'points for activities' system to calculate when you have done enough 'save worthy' things to then nag you to save using the menu option. You can change the trigger point value in the INI to suit. Or ignore as you wish.

WB's 'Saves' tab has a 'Remove Bloat' context menu command. Make a backup of your latest save file just in case, select the save file and give it a try.

-Dubious-

My saves are currently 18 MB each (grown from 4 MB to 18 over 200 hours of gaming). I am trying to figure out if there is a limit after which they could implode. Any thoughts, anybody?

I use WB's remove bloat (never had any, thanks to the following mods), kuertee's cleanup, kuertee's Auto Save and Time, and OSR. Mods are way too many 450+ (not complaining, stable game).

I ran the bloat remover. Down from 11.852mb to 11.844mb. Meh, better than nothing. I have 386 hours and 115/137 mods.

What I did recently to get things working again... (it's working to a limited extent...)...

Is removed all the mods my character didn't need (i.e. had equipment from).... or such...

Got brave and even removed a few of those... each time after 3-5 mod removals, went in and my save file shrunk!

Was at about 3M, now down to about 2M... but that was with all mods removed... -- I was trying to make sure the game
would still load my main char -- I've gotten rather annoyed more than once at none of my old save games loading and having to start afresh...

Already playing a custom race, so that's a point against me already....but it seems to work pretty well...(demon race)..

took a while to get the skin tweaked to near normal... first few endeavors were a bit less than perfect, but now, she could pass for human ... well cept for the horns and wings... but very attractive!... Just wish she's smile more, but I couldn't get a smile on her face that didn't look goofy. Just brought up the race menu and changed her look again...looks less pale.

But now...it's random crashes....sometimes can play for over an hour, other times, (often on fast travel) Exit to Desktop (no crash message).

but the main problem I have now is when IIenter darker interiors, they go all black. Inside oblivion -- enter a tower... I saw it for a second -- probably due to a fire atronoch staring me in the face, but then it went all dark.....

Once that happens -- only can quite -- since leaving -- when I go outside i get what looks like horizontal bands flickering across the screen...

So some indoor shader is poopin.. Am also getting a slow-motion effect -- which is annoying...though frames are staying ~30.

I don't have OBGE loaded or any of its components -- was causing too many probs... so why it goes dark inside -- not sure!

;-/

1. Did you manually remove any OBSE plugins that your removed mods had installed? (BAIN doesn't.) BOSS will list your OBSE plugins. Suggest you post that list, with versions.

2. Current Load Order?

-Dubious-