Ok so, I'm not sure if anyone's actually figured this out or not, but i found out i was 123lbs under-encumbered today and i didn't think that was quite fair. so i went comparing 2 save files, one with me holding a bunch of items and one with me having none. I edited the differences on the test file and saved till i noticed a difference in my encumbrance. as a result i've found the exact location of the encumbrance data for the player. its is a 32bit long data type. to set it to 0 encumbrance simply change the boxes i have outlined in the picture below to be 128 000 000 000.

http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/8541/enberancefix.png

the first 4 bytes of the last 8 bytes are the encumberance data. the last 4 of those 8 bytes are your maximum encumbrance.

Obviously I'm using the Morrowind Enchanted editor and if you're about to ask where that spot is in the save file, look on the left first to see what data tree branches are opened.

Finally, this only took me 15 minutes at most. I know this isn't ANYONE'S problem to fix, but why hasn't a fix for this been made yet? It's been plaguing my friend for years till i fixed it today for him. :-/

:goodjob: Interesting, it is always good to know new methods for solving problems.
A couple of related links on the subject for anybody interested.
A http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/19089-25-fixing-messed-encumberance of the problem/console fixes
A http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=7520 helping to fix positive encumbrance.

And you did it for me too
I had a savegame with this problem for ages... Today it's a free savegame again
Thanks for the tip and explanation, very appreciated.

I just think it's funny that 15 minutes of effort on my part caused by me thinking i'm cheating the game (even tho i'm using a mastersword mod i made that allows you to fire sword beams at full or really low health) is the reason this fix was found. it always seems to be like this cause this isn't the first time this kinda stuff has happened lol. the reason i am treating this as a better fix is because it allows you to reset the encumbrance to exactly 0. whether you had negative encumbrance or 0.01 lbs extra. This allows you to actually SET you exact encumbrance. if you guys experiment a bit you can find out how to set the encumbrance value to exactly whatever you want.

Also, I was thinking that the guys who made enchanted editor should incorporate my find into it so you can edit your encumbrance. who's with me on that?

Very doubtful that any further work will be done on EE.
It's been a finished product for over 5 years and I don't think the makers are even around here anymore.

It's not hard to improve the format structures in EE, it's designed to read the format from ESTemplate.ini.

Encumbrance appears to be a float, so you can change:

[REFR.ACDT]
UnknownData = http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1178418-how-to-fix-your-encumberance-down-or-up/Byte,80
...

to

[REFR.ACDT]
UnknownData = http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1178418-how-to-fix-your-encumberance-down-or-up/Byte,72
Encumbrance = Single,4
UnknownData2 = Single,4
...

The real problem is distributing and combining all the refinements. Wrye had an improved version up on his page, but it's a dead link now.

Yea, a float makes more sense now that i think about it. I am just used to 64 bit floats so i immediately associated the data as a long. Anyway, sounds like if Wyre's informed about this he might be able to make an unofficial update maybe?

ALSO, turns out the next set of 4 bytes is the maximum encumbrance. my strength is 100 so my maximum encumbrance is 500 and that's what that data is.

so change

[REFR.ACDT]
UnknownData = http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1178418-how-to-fix-your-encumberance-down-or-up/Byte,80

to this

[REFR.ACDT]
UnknownData = http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1178418-how-to-fix-your-encumberance-down-or-up/Byte,72
Current Encumbrance = Single,4
Max Encumbrance = Single,4

makes it look like this.

http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/9418/enbrance.png

Wrye is no longer an active modder. (as far as I remember)
Hence the dead links.

oh, well nvm then. atleast anyone interested can manually add this feature now that we know where it is.

Nice work, I think it would be useful to upload somewhere (I suggest TESNexus as current Mash version is available there but anywhere will do, file is tiny) the updated Morrowind\Mopy\Extras\ESTemplate.ini before this disappear due to forum pruning.
No http://wryemusings.com/Wrye+Mash.html#ReuseandCredits as I http://wryemusings.com/Wrye+Mash.html#Extras it, just credit contributors.
[EDIT]fixed links