I attempted to check out the sticky board above, but the forum to which it linked is no longer active. I have had this problem for a very long time now, and have been unable to play Oblivion for a few months, alternating between trying what I can to fix it to simply giving up for a while. Its starting to get really frustrating, because I have gotten so that I want to play it again. I re-installed it completely, after having the game uninstalled for a while, and the problem has recurred, which was a huge disappointment to me, as I had been looking forward to it.

Anyone who can help out in the manner would be deeply appreciated. I want to solve this problem once and for all. This goes beyond all the glitches and stuff I had fixed previously.

Try disabling music in the .ini, and see if the problem persists. (yeah, I know, sounds completely 'off' doesn't it?)

Oddly enough, that seems to have worked... is it a problem with the sound player then? Seems a bit off, as no music had been playing during the character creation mode...

In any case, thanks a ton! So much simpler a fix than I thought it'd be.

Its a codec issue. Unfortunately, we don't know WHICH codec. I just remember this fix from a while back with another member having the same issue. Sometimes it will work, and others.... well, not so much.

I play without music in any event, as I don't want the 'hints' that I am in trouble, when the combat music starts playing. Life doesn't come with a sound track.

Agreed.

The game worked fine for a while after I switched the music off. However, it has started locking up again in the same method as mentioned before. I checked to make sure the music was off, and it indeed was. Am I going to have to turn off -all- the audio just to play the game?

Couple things you can try. Installing the klite basic codec pack has worked for some. (as has uninstalling it, and reinstalling the latest version.......) For those on XP, there is nightmares codec reset utility, but, no one has written one for Vista/Win7. For those operating systems, the alternative is to get a codec utility, and start disabling codecs in batches, and see if you can find the offending codec. If you try this method, and find it, PLEASE let us know which one was giving you trouble.

I'll see if I can't hunt this offending codec down. If I find it, I'll definitely say here, cause if I can help others with the same problem, I'll certainly do it.