I got a new merchant in a mod set up, they work... but they only speak after the greeting not during it like others.

What do you mean they only speek after the greeting, not during it? Are you sating you have to talk with them twice to get theit dialogue?

found the problem... have to pull the sound files and record them into new entries and pack them with the mod... but Greeting should I thought trigger a default hello from the npc.. may be wrong.

course so used to text only work, rarely did any npcs in oblivion either (other than ones trying to kill ya)