ArchiveInvalidation Crashes My Game : Fallout 3

» Thu Sep 29, 2011 10:44 am

I don't ask for help often guys, but I really need it now. My game has the Archiveinvalidation crash. Whenever binvalidateolderfiles is set to 1 either manually, through FOMM or with ArchiveinvalidationInvalidated!, my game crashes on startup.

History- I have had Fallout 3 installed for two years and have been happily enjoying an ultra-modded game. Two weeks ago, I wanted to start a new one, so I uninstalled all of my old mods and put in the new ones I wanted to play with. Started my new game and CRASH on startup.

It's gotta be a missing master I've overlooked, I thought to myself. Nope, I eventually deactivated every single plugin including the DLCs and with only Fallout3.esm enabled, crash on startup. Fearing the worst, I deactivated AI in FOMM and what do you know, game starts just fine.

I completely reinstalled my game and it seemed to work again. I installed most of my mods and it was behaving properly. I just finished installing my last three small mods and texture replacers (Breeze's and a couple small clutter retexes) and now my game crashes on startup again. Uninstalled the mods I installed today and it didn't fix things. Only deactivating AI in FOMM allows my game to start again.

Why is this happening? Nothing on my computer has changed in months. I have Windows updates turned off and I haven't installed any new software or hardware. My OS is Win 7 x64 and Fallout 3 (GOTY) is installed outside of Program Files. I have deleted my ini multiple times.

Of the very few people I have ever read who have suffered this crash, one was able to repair their game by reinstalling and two could only play again by buying the opposite version of FO3 that they originally had (GOTY or vanilla). The others never solved the issue. I am willing to purchase another copy of the game but I fear that it won't fix my crash.

Does anyone have any insight as to why this could happen, especially why it would suddenly begin after years of working correctly? Any suggestions of things I could do to try to fix my game will be happily accepted. Thank you for your time.

» Wed Sep 28, 2011 9:34 pm

I found a couple things on this, but no concrete solution, try your mileage with this though:

Anyways, an Oblivion player had a similar problem (same engine).

He figured out that it was because the mod files had an earlier creation date than the newly created/downloaded original files.
He just set the date on his mod files to a newer date (Today?) to make them work.

Try that, maybe by running a test with one mod first, to see if it works...

Some folks have also pointed to specific mods causing the issue for them, some claim it to be UI issues. Sadly, there is no known cause or true solution to it that I could find, but that was the only tid-bit I dug up that you didn't include in your post already.