Striker879

Without your mod list there's a pretty small chance that someone can just guess this.

Well XP shouldn't be a problem then, but I wonder if Wrye is checking operating system or just install location when it spits out that traceback report. I suggest posting your original post plus the info that you're running WinXP and that you have installed to C:\Program Files in the Wrye Bash mod comments. The top sticky post says to post troubleshooting requests for Oblivion in the Wrye Bash mod comments. The second sticky post has a bunch of troubleshooting tips and instructions on how to generate bugdumps etc. Probably worth it to read through.

Your willingness to both keep grinding on the problem and report back his greatly appreciated GravityWave. :thumbsup: That Steam.exe needs to run as administrator is both news to me and welcome news. Now I'll have something to offer when other Win 8.1 victims ... err I mean users hit the same wall. I've said it before and I'll say it again ... I won't ever use Microsoft's "phone/tablet" operating system. When/if my non-gaming laptop dies one of the criteria it's replacement must meet is it will run Windows 7. If the answer is no I'll just keep looking. Fortunately I'm not a laptop gamer, so any desktop I build will be Win 7 safe (already have a copy of Win 7 waiting for the next build). As far as I know that OBSE Tester will work and report the OBSE version number even on Steam machines. When it can't find a working OBSE install it gives that outdated warning/report. That utility was last updated long before Steam got their claws ... err acquired the rights to Oblivion.

You have the full version ... the only version that I'm aware of. The problem is the Windows user account you are logged into when you start your computer (it's a limited user account). If you have the administrator password you can run OblivionModManager.exe as an administrator (if the administrator account is password protected that is ... if not then same steps except the password part). Right mouse click on OblivionModManager.exe and select "Run As ..." from the right click menu. You'll be presented with a Windows dialogue box with "Current User" selected and some blah blah about protecting your computer. Select "The following user: " down below Current User and the focus will shift to that section of the dialogue. Administrator will be already selected in the dropdown box (well unless you have a user name on your machine that's alphabetically before "administrator"). If your machine's administrator account is password protected put in the password and hit OK. Now I'm on Windows XP so they may have changed a bit of the naming of various things, but any Windows version I've heard of will have a similar option.

Do you have the game and Wrye Bash installed in C:\Program Files (x86) or C:\Program Files if using 32 bit Windows?

OBSE version 0021 and Steam plus Windows 8.1 seems to be a real headache, at least for some people. If you can get to the root cause I'd be interested. From your log post it appears you have avoided the default Program Files install location trap. Did you try OBSE Tester (linked in my first post on the thread)? My OBSE log reports the version number in the first line ... it says "OBSE: initialize (version = 21.4 010201A0)". Did you copy/paste from the log or are you paraphrasing?

That guide is mostly geared towards the disk versions of the game, so with the Steam version you won't be able to use it as a step by step guide. The registry cleaning part will still apply, especially if you've moved your Steam/Oblivion install location some time in the past. Sounds to me like you already have a pretty good grasp on what folders and files to backup.

Have a look through Bben46's wiki article Oblivion reinstall procedure to see if it mentions anything that you should be doing that you aren't (or haven't in the past ... sounds like this uninstall/re-install cycle isn't your first) Removing the folders manually will only leave a hopelessly tangled Windows registry ... not surprising that you can't start the game from the desktop. Oblivion Reloaded has quite a bit of documentation to read before you'll fully understand all it's capable of and also what can be used with it and what can't. The memory management option with less study involved is Memeory purger - extended if you're already using OBGE. Improved Water has some requirements you need to understand first before using that option. Neither Oblivion Reloaded or Memory purger - extended fall into the "drop in Data and forget about it" category.

Have a look at Memory purger - extended. Note that it requires either OBGE core or Improved Water and the most recent iteration of it's functionality is now incorporated into Oblivion Reloaded.

I've never used it, so I don't have any personal experience with it, but I believe the key chain mod has a reputation for adding to the crashing problem. The memory is a bit foggy, but I think the Fort Grief key was also a problem ... not sure if it's only a problem with the key chain mod or just by itself. My current guy hasn't tried saving Aleron yet, but previous characters have and carried around the Fort Grief key without any grief (but then again I also haven't tried dropping it out of my inventory either to see if it makes a difference). Crashing is a "feature" of modded Oblivion, but by all means work towards reducing the crashes.

When you open TES4Edit it will have a dialogue with all of your ESPs selected. Right click and Select None and then put ticks beside the mods you want to check and hit OK. TES4Edit will load your selected ESPs and their masters. When you see "Background Loader: finished" at the bottom of the messages in the right hand pane with the Messages tab selected, in the left hand pane you'll see your selected ESPs and their masters with a plus sign beside each. Click the plus and all the various categories will be displayed, each with their own plus. Click on those and you'll either have more plus signs to dig down through or all of the entries will be listed. Conflict, identical records etc. are indicated by highlight and text colours ... the Information tab has an explanation. If you click on a conflicting etc. record in the left hand pane the details of that particular record are shown in the right hand pane with any ESPs containing that record heading each column. I've had mixed success using TES4Edit to change a record ... you will get a warning about it. Details on scripts is pretty cryptic ... I couldn't make heads nor tails of that part (but it might point you towards the right script to look at in the CS). TES4Edit makes backups of any ESP you change in Oblivion\Data\TES4Edit Backups, but I always make my own backup before messing about. - Edit - Did you get my birthday present for you in the OCO v2 thread?

You are well on your way Spyder. You wouldn't believe how many "experienced" modders have stumbled on the OCO v2 install. You're getting the hang of this. When getting stuff for Vija to wear the same rules apply that Ike pointed out. Right now all females in your game use the Roberts female mesh, and MUST use Roberts female clothes/armor. There is a way to change that for individual NPCs (or on a per race basis) using Blockhead, which you now have installed and working. It's simply renaming some files and putting them in the correct folders, so if you run into something you just absolutely must have for Vilja (or your character if you play female) let us know. - Edit - As long as your posts don't break any of the Terms of Service for the site you won't run into any moderator trouble ... this is your thread (and you can have as many others as you want). Ike and I could get into a bit of hand slapping if we get to our usual kibitzing and poking fun at one another (called thread hijacking) ... but unless someone complains that's not too likely even when we're breaking the letter of the law. And by the way Ike ... what makes you think I'd have any knowledge of naked female characters ... have I developed some kind of false reputation or something?? HaHaHa

You're learning Spyder, you're learning fast. What me??? No way ... musta' bin Ike.

I'm guessing you're more interested in female stuff than male stuff. Start with EVE HGEC Eyecandy Variants Expansion. It comes with either E cup or C cup body sizes to choose from, and more importantly it comes with a clothing and armor replacer that is compatible with the HGEC body. The way body replacers work is all females in the game will be whatever size you install. There are ways to get the player character her own size ... it's a bit more involved and I wouldn't recommend starting out trying it. Get your feet wet and learn a bit and we'll get you up to speed on it later. You can also add BBB (Better Bouncing Boobs) to EVE. The BBB system has requirements, all of which must be met before you'll get any BBB. First is a replacement skeleton.nif (that's the file the game uses to hang your body, clothes and armor on ... looks more like a stick figure than an actual skeleton). I recommend Universal Skeleton Nif. Install the ControlableSkeleton version, not the TotalControlableSkeleton version. If it turns out down the road you install a mod that requires the TotalControlableSkeleton version you can make the switch easily then (there are limitations and workarounds required for the TotalControlableSkeleton version that you need to be aware of). I personally use the ControlableSkeleton version from BBB Ragdoll Breast Physics - Growlfs Skeleton ... adds a little extra and is based on the same skeleton as Universal. The skeleton.nif won't do anything without replacement animations. The defacto standard is NoMaaM BBB Animation Replacer ... use it. So now you'll need to upgrade EVE with BBB upper body mesh replacements. If you installed E cup for body go with BBB for EVE HGEC stock replacer and if you installed C cup then use BBB for EVE stock replacer - Ccup. Note that only the E cup version includes both armor and clothing (C cup is only clothing ... might influence your choice way back there where we started). To get the game to use your new animations you'll need to do something called archive invalidation. By default the game will only use stuff from it's compressed archive files called BSAs (think a ZIP file format but Bethesda's version of it). The simplest way to activate archive invalidation happens to be with the same tool you'll need to use to install NoMaaM ... Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM). NoMaaM comes in a format called OMOD, which is also a compressed format similar to ZIP but is specifically designed to use install scripts designed for it in OBMM. Archive invalidation is found on the Utilities menu -> Archive Invalidation. Select BSA Redirection at the top, click on Reset BSA Timestamps if you use the Steam version of the game and finally click on Update Now down near the bottom and then close the Archive Invalidation dialogue. While you have it open (and I'm assuming you've done the archive invalidation before you install NoMaaM) it would be a good idea to click on the Help button. Everything I know about using OBMM I learned from there. The installation of EVE will also be simplest if you download the OMOD version (the script will walk you through the options, just like NoMaaM's script does for it). The skeleton.nif and BBB replacements are manual install only. That'll get you started.

That will depend on the mod. I have no experience with that kind of "pretty up" mods so you'll need to get that answer elsewhere (Ike ... are you up buddy??). I always examine a mod after I've downloaded and extracted, looking for things like possible file overwrites (same file name and extension in the same folder path as I already have installed). The other thing is how complex is it. Is there an INI file? Does the readme or INI file have good documentation on what the INI options do and how to set them? Does it come with an install script I can examine and garner clues on whatever options are there? Wrye Bash's installation utility (called BAIN) is probably the best you will find at correctly uninstalling mods that conflict. OBMM can uninstall, but it can't do what BAIN can do. If you install mod A and then mod B, and mod B overwrites a file that mod A also needed, when you uninstall mod B with OBMM but want to leave mod A it will uninstall the file that mod A needs while uninstalling mod B. Wrye Bash's BAIN keeps track of those file overwrites, and when you uninstall mod B it will put mod A's copy of the overwritten file back. In my opinion (and it's just that ... an opinion, and you know what they say about opinions) Quarl's would be a perfect candidate for BAIN installation. I'm not suggesting today, I'm just suggesting that from what little I know about it, Quarl's is not just a simple install.

One last word of advice I gleaned from Wrye Musings then ... and this one's hush hush, so keep it under wraps OK ...hehe. Never load a save without exiting the game to the desktop. Sound tedious as all get out, but I used that, the no quicksave and never overwrite advice to reclaim my first characters saves from your situation or probably worse. When I last played him he's got well over 1600 hours and still going strong. At about 200 hours (maybe a bit more) he couldn't cross a cell load boundary or go more than 5 to 10 minutes without a crash (I learned where all of the cell loading boudaries in Cyrodiil are). Didn't get fixed overnight, but I stuck with it and that's the result. All he'd ever get in way of crashes after healing up was the normal modded game type crashes. If you get into the habit of saving and exiting to the desktop every hour and a half or so (once your save get stable enough to make that long) you'll be doing all you can to take care of your character's save health.

Good to see Ike's been on the job while I've been off picking daisies (not really, mod beta testing ... about as fun as watching paint dry, but somehow fascinating at the same time ... I do know how to break things). Spyder, when you're testing make sure to give a good long test as well as those quick, short forays outside the sewers. What may seem to work well when the game only has you and a few mudcrabs to work on may not work so well when it you, 15 NPCs and maybe some quest scripts running along in the background. Read over my "before you exit the sewer" save advice from a couple of days back. Test thoroughly after installing any mod ... remember, slow is often the faster way to mod your game.

OK ... that rules out any possible A-Bomb (stuck animation) problem. Long ago I read in Wrye's Musings that overwriting saves can cause problems. Your's would be the first time I've seen anything like that (if indeed that is the cause). I always recommend to save in a new slot each time. Whether what I read in Wrye's Musings is true or not it at least gives you options. If you're low on hard drive space then clean out your saves folder more often. Delete saves you think you won't need any longer, keep some backup for the inevitable problems. I have hard drive space out the whaazoo so I'm a packrat with my saves. I just move my older ones to my backup folder on a separate drive (I have a hard drive just for downloads, backups etc). I'm not a load order expert, so I generally only ask questions about someones load order that either make no sense or aren't even close to the problem. That said, here it comes ... are you supposed to use both Enhanced Water v2.0 ND.esp and Enhanced Water v2.0 HD.esp at the same time? Improved Fires and Flames - Increased Sound.esp ... does it require anything (perhaps a Improved Fires and Flames.esp as a master ... I don't know, I'm asking)?

Missing master crash for sure (look at your DLCs way down near the bottom and your UOPs for them above all DLCs). I see a bashed patch at the bottom of your list ... have you made the jump to Wrye Bash? If so we can get you set up with BOSS and then school you on "The Way" ... install, BOSS, bash ... in that order.

No it's not something you do every time you load the game. When the trick works it does so by taking your character completely out of the normal game world and by waiting you allow all running scripts to sort themselves out before your character returns. It won't fix all problems but is simple to do and makes a good first try at solving those type of issues. Your problem doesn't sound to me like it happens at a particular location all the time (supported by the fact that coc center didn't solve it). I have a few questions for you. Do you quicksave or do you use the save off the Esc menu or save from the console? If you use either save from the Esc menu or console save, do you overwrite your saves or always save in a new slot? Does this particular save line have a lot of hours on it (say around 300 or more)? - Edit - It's a site issue of some sort ... I'm getting it too. Nope no way to delete posts (admins can but don't generally appreciate requests to do so as far as I know). What you've done about it is as good as it usually gets.

Give the "coc center & wait 72 hours" trick a try. Open the console using the tilde (~) key. At the console prompt type "coc center" (without the quote marks) and then hit Enter. You'll be transported to an open plain with some trees in the distance. Using the game wait menu wait 72 hours (that's three full days) plus a bit for good measure. Open the console again and type "coc weye" (again, no quote marks) and hit Enter. You'll be transported to inside the fisherman's shack at Weye. You can use a different location to get back if you know the correct location code for that location. Once out of the fisherman's shack go back about your business and see if it helps.

As soon as I saw Alex's post yesterday I was certain he'd nailed it. Good job Alex ... welcome to the team! :thumbsup:

Another load order trick is just looking at the file dates for the ESP files and the ESM files. Generally Oblivion.esm will have the oldest file date (but if it doesn't don't worry ... that's what the game will load first regardless). For all of you DLCs (e.g. DLCShiverIsles.esp) the corresponding UOP should have a newer date (and right down to the second counts, especially after you have your load order sorted by a utility like BOSS). For example my BOSS sorted DLCShiveringIsles.esp is dated 8/12/2006 12:56 PM and my Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch.esp is dated 8/12/2006 12:57 PM (so in my load order the UOP is lower on the list than the DLC). Don't worry that your dates and times aren't close to mine. BOSS (Better Oblivion Sorting Software) changes the dates and times to adjust the load order. The game doesn't care what date or time a particular ESP or ESM is, it just requires that the master file be loaded before the ESP file (and in this example DLCShiveringIsles.esp is the master for the UOP that patches it). Bben46 has a wkik page with step by steps using either Wrye Bash, OBMM or LOST (the links to each at the top of the page for each of those are still pointing to the old pages ... thus you need to copy the mod number part ... 2097 for OBMM ... and paste or type that into a working Nexus Mods Oblivion page ... but you already have OBMM, so moot point).

Don't worry Spyder ... Ike just dated himself. It was called File Manager back in the Windows 3.0 and 3.1 days (just a couple of weeks ago, eh Ike). It was also affectionately known as File Mangler, perhaps why Microsoft changed the name.

Awesome!!