I've been absolutely frustrated and confounded by this abrupt defiance of logic for the past two days.

Simply put, I have a mod that adds animal-people races. Everything was working fine until I installed FCOM, and I noticed the raccoons were missing their tails. I assumed it was an issue with FCOM, so I disabled the mods. Still no tails. I did a clean install of Oblivion and added the mod. The raccoons are still missing their tails.

I looked at the mod in the construction set; the file-path for the raccoon race's tail model points towards the proper file. Textures file-paths are not broken. I tried to change the raccoon's tail to a tail used by another animal race. The tail did not appear. I set a different animal race to use the raccoon race's tail. The tail did not appear.

I re-downloaded the mod and replaced the raccoon's tail files. It still did not appear.

I'm trying very hard to keep myself from devolving into an unintelligible string of curses. For no fathomable reason, the tail has ceased to exist. I can view it in NifSkope without issue. Textures on the .nif file are perfect. No races can use the raccoon tail, and the raccoon race itself can't use any tails. I believe Oblivion hates me.

Please, I'm practically begging for help right now. I have no clue why this isn't working anymore. Anything would be appreciated.

How's your Archive Invalidation? What method are you using?

The bsa for ArchiveInvalidation never worked for me, so I use OBMM's BSA alteration.

Thats your problem. BSA Redirection is the safe method

You can use Alteration, it works, so long as you remember the order you installed everything, a methodical rewind of your installation order needs to be adhered to, and you must update the BSA changes after installing or removing any replacer mods - otherwise problems such as yours can occur.

have a good read of http://devnull.sweetdanger.net/archiveinvalidation.html

For people who understand all the information in that link BSA Alteration can be used, but Redirection does the same job successfully and without the occasional user foobar with complex installations.

Did you make back-up copies of your original game BSA's before switching on Alteration?, if not, and if BSA Alteration has permanently invalidated the game textures, the only solution is to re-install the game from scratch. Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings.

OBMM and Wrye Bash use BSA Redirection by default for good reason.

I'm hopeful for that solution; thanks, Alternity. I have backups, but I'm not sure if I've modified them or not since it's been so long. I'll reinstall overnight and report what happens.

Well I would ensure you switch back to Redirection first so you dont go round in circles

then try overwriting the game bsa's which have been altered with your backups - at least http://www.bild.me/bild.php?file=7065688Untitled.jpg, maybe the dlcs and knights if you have those installed too (I dont know how altered your bsa's are so to be on the safe side)

then deactivate and reactivate all your mods in the desired order - might save you having to fully re-install. Good luck.


Edit: I haven't used OBMM as primary installer for ages ... I have got so used to Wrye Bash fool proof methods with BAIN installers I am a bit on unsteady ground here ; If anyone has any further details I'm missing?

I reinstalled Oblivion overnight, did some research and enabled BSA Redirection in Wrye Bash, and put the mod in.

I started the game, and... the raccoons are still missing their tails.

Did I enable redirection wrong? I'm a little iffy about programs that don't give me some sort of confirmation that something happened. All I know is that BSA Redirection is checked, but I don't know if it's enabled.

Err...make sure you arent wearing any item that goes in tail slot.....aka, capes and whatnot would cause this.

Also, check that none of your mods are force equipping an item into the tail slot....

The only mods I have are the DLCs and the mod I'm trying to make work. I'm not wearing anything in that slot, either- every other race except the raccoons have their tails.

At this point maybe a link to the mod in question could help. There are multiple causes for tails not appearing, from the wrong skeletons being assigned for the NPCs, missing normalmaps/textures, up to an invalid structure of the NIF, which NifSkope will work with totally fine but Oblivion's engine is far more picky with.
You not being able to get even existing tails to show up on this race just adds to the confusion.

I was wondering how improper Archive Invalidation could be causing any issues with a custom race that has no existing files to invalidate in the first place, but with Oblivion you never know so it's good this was taken care of.

Very well. If you get the raccoon (wood elf) tail to work or find out what's wrong, praise be to you; I am absolutely dumbfounded.

http://www.mediafire.com/?8q27ap36lqr4m1i

Note that it replaces vanilla races except for Khajiit and Argonian, so you might want to back them up first.

Oh man, my apologies its a custom race, I have contributed to sending you down the wrong path too

Have you got a link to the original mod - Theres no readme/description with that download .... Found out it was removed from TESNexus, reasons unknown, probably a bad idea to link this seeing as the author obviously wanted it no longer available (immature audience probably? - and is it advlt content not appropriate on gamesas?) - going to PM you with another link which is bigger file size, maybe content you are missing. It has an esp not in the download link you have provided called FurblivionRobert'sMaleReplacer.esp

Edit: PM sent, the file is on rapidshare, I would keep both sets of downloads though just in case - The one I sent seems on a cursory glance through to have all the same files plus the extra esp, but maybe an older version who knows without the authors support. There could be file corruption for instance too with the one you have, and maybe the appropriate files from this could solve that... might have to systematically compare files sizes/dates. But it may just be the missing esp.

Edit2: Disclaimer; I found it via a furry related forum - The comments were a bit of an eye opener to say the least - So cant guarantee the content of the file

I don't remember if I had it functioning without the missing .esp before. The version I uploaded is one where I had tried to cut the advlt content out of the original that you linked. I don't particularly want to see the things that the body replacer adds. The one you've got on Rapidshare is a hack upload by someone who had other mods mashed into it since they didn't have the pure original download.

The author also took it down because he thought that it was horrific; I like it, for one.

Anyway, I'll go try it with that .esp...

EDIT: Tried it with the .esp; no tail. Cringed and tried it with all the files; still no tail. What baffles me was that it worked perfectly before, and then all of a sudden the tail stopped showing up, even after clean reinstalls...

No more clues unfortunately, all other possibles have now been mentioned, you just have the game plus mod installed so no other potential complications with race/beautification mods, you are using OBMM I think so the skeleton tweaks Wrye Bash provides are not an issue when not used correctly ...

Could there be a loose skeleton nif left behind that your re-install has not overwritten, so is still being picked up and used by Oblivion?, or for that matter any left behind tail files ( I have seen a few read-only related problems recently too with OS upgrades or transfering files for example from a usb hd which has ntfs format, and files protected for a different owner ... even though the owner is you , maybe stopping overwrites? )

I do know from past personal experience using OBMM it can lose track of loose files installed (the main reason I switched to Wrye Bash BAIN method of installation), so you may think OBMM has fully un-installed a mod but it hasn't (and further complicated with BSA Alteration for some cases - but not in your case as was later realised) - I should have mentioned this earlier but to do a clean re-install especially if using OBMM as your mod manager, deleting the whole Oblivion folder after un-installing and before re-installing would ensure any left behind files were also cleaned out. (Sorry as mentioned previously .. a bit rusty with OBMM)

If a complete clean re-install, and only using that mod still gives the same problem, the only source of the problem is in the mod files you are using.

Or if after a clean re-install you get them working - Slowly re-introduce your normal setup one bit at a time and test each to narrow down the culprit. PITA but the only sure fire way.

Thank god! Thank god! It's working again!

I did another re-install, but I didn't include OBMM and turned Wrye Bash's BSA Redirection on. Then, I opened up FurblivionFixes.esp and toyed with the model for the raccoon tail and changed it to one that was pretty much exactly the name except in filename. I tested it in Oblivion, and...

The raccoon had a tail.

I was nearly shocked. I went back into the construction set and set it to use the other race's tail and the raccoon tail's texture. It has the tail and the texture fits perfectly.

I couldn't be happier. Thanks a lot everyone, especially Drake (the tip about an invalid .nif) and Alternity (how to use invalidation). You guys just made my day.

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg159/FelixKarakazov/ScreenShot48.jpg

:biggrin:

Thank heavens for that - Thats the last time I go searching through fluffy stuff I have been tainted