Striker879

Not a good plan in more than one way. First, quicksave is a known corrupter of save files. Second, you have absolutely no fall back position. Only use the save from the Esc menu or console named saves, and never overwrite a save ... always save to a new slot or for named saves your next sequential number (e.g MySave01.ess, MySave02.ess ... ). Autosave keeps one backup I think ... not sure about quicksave. Look in your Saves folder to see if you can find something like Quicksave.bak and rename a copy to HopeYouSaveMyBacon.ess (or something that won't get overwritten next time you quicksave ... if there is a next time you are that foolish).

Nah ... your DVD is read only ... that's not the problem. Have you been either quicksaving or overwriting your saves, or have you been saving into a new slot each time?

A big wave from across the pond Ike ... must be nearly next year for you. My sleep package might execute before the "big happening" and it had better not be without pathgrid or I'll wake up in my computer chair almost crippled.

A working game doesn't turn into a non-working game without some sort of help. I imagine you have Windows set to auto-update whatever it feels is necessary, so that's one possibility. Another is something that was occurring in the game. I had an instance where when my Imperial Dragon armor was ready the game would crash. Thing is, there was no indication that the armor being ready was the problem ... I only deduced that after getting past the problem. In my case I had ample time to open the console and use the "coc center, wait" trick. If you truly have only a couple of seconds that may not be an option, depending on the actual cause of your problem. Have you tried starting a new game to see if the problem persists?

Thanks Vyper ... I always say it takes a team to troubleshoot.

Unless you can recall a mod or list of mods you've added just before you noticed the problem there's not much other way. You could use the old "disable half" method to whittle the list down quicker. I agree that with 8GB RAM I doubt you're hitting a running out of memory problem. There hasn't been anything like driver updates has there (often done automatically, which makes it hard to know what is causing problems when they arise)? If you installed a big whack of mods all at once and didn't test thoroughly in between mods you're getting a good lesson on what is quicker, the tortoise or the hare.

Start a new thread ... give details like what mods you've been trying, how you've been trying to install. Your thread hijack just says "I'm trying to do stuff I don't understand and it doesn't work". Pretty tough to start helping you with all that info.

Not all mods have an ESP, so not all mods will appear in the vanilla Data Files. Your game must be up to date or mods will be silently ignored ... version 1.2.0416 will display in the lower left of the game main menu if it is the latest version. Use OBSE Tester to confirm that OBSE is working. Download it to a temporary folder, extract the download to the same folder with 7-Zip. You'll see a folder named OBSE Test and inside a file named OBSE Test Plugin.esp (if you don't see the .esp extension don't worry ... you just have "Hide extension for known file types" selected in your Windows Explorer options). Right mouse click on OBSE Test Plugin.esp and select Copy from the right click menu. Now navigate to your game's Oblivion\Data folder, right click on Data and select Paste from the right click menu. Open the vanilla game launcher and in Data Files put a tick beside OBSE Test Plugin.esp to activate it. Start the game and load a save or new game ... OBSE Tester will report your version of OBSE if it is installed correctly, if not you have a problem with your OBSE install.

What sound card are you running? Info on your operating system, installed RAM and whether or not you are using any music replacers/additions (they won't show on a load list) would help as well.

I've seen what you're talking about as well. I figure it's somewhat related to the swimming through the air thing. Don't see it a lot ... it will go quite a while without surfacing and then be more likely for a while. Don't think NPCs will execute their AI packages if there's no path grid.

I used to use the vanilla launcher to access Data Files for activating/deactivating mods and then the OBSE launcher for playing the game (I've since moved on to Wrye Bash and use it for activating/deactivating mods). You can either create two desktop shortcuts, one starting the vanilla launcher via OblivionLauncher.exe and one starting the game via obse_loader.exe or just have the single desktop shortcut that uses obse_loader.exe and then from your Windows Start button launch the vanilla launcher. The key thing to remember is you can't start the vanilla game launcher to access Data Files and then click Play. I used the Windows Start button system myself because of the extra steps it took to get to the vanilla launcher, making it less likely I'd have a brain cramp and try to start the game from the Data Files launcher. This two step shuffle is the only way around the situation without using a mod manager. Nexus Mod Manager has issues with a lot of Oblivion mods so it's not recommended (by me at least). Oblivion Mod Manager will work and Wrye Bash is the best way (it can do a lot more than OBMM). Myself, I still don't launch the game from any mod manager ... I make my changes, exit WB and then launch the game from my OBSE desktop shortcut.

Boy, and I thought my "manual install except for a few mods through BAIN" was complex (I keep an "Installed Mods" folder up-to-date with my installed mods, as installed, including replacers and BAINs, each by mod name).

Go to a vampire dungeon, you'll likely get infected and then don't cure yourself. Sleep and you'll start progressing in the disease. If you haven't done the Azura Daedric quest it's a perfect opportunity with a nice reward.

I like Umbra, and I'm hoping through the mods I use (Give a Gift by Emma mainly) plus a bit of console magic (addscriptpackage to give her a sleep package) to manage to pickpocket the accursed blade from her. If you're not interested in saving her you can get the sword from her at any level (most people use the jump on the pillars trick to stay out of her reach when they're on a lower level character). My first guy used the pillar trick. My second character didn't do that quest (or many of the other Daedric quests). My current guy has been smitten by her charms and has made it his mission to save her. I seldom use enchanted weapons, so don't have a great need for filled soul gems. My biggest use for soul gems is enchanting armor/clothes after I've gotten access to an enchanting station (usually Frost Crag's ... my first guy's the only Mages Guild character I've played).

For my current character (who does not yet "own" a house but is squatting in Shetcombe Farm and is shacked up with Umbra when near the IC and I guess technically "owns" the place at Aleswell) I use the more conveniently located non-respawning wilderness chests found at many locations around Cyrodiil. I won't be at my gaming computer for a few days but the ones I can recall easily are; the barrel by the pond with the statue in Anvil, the chest at Dasek Moor (hop onto the "roof" from the road and then work your way around to the west on the ledge), the chest next to the "back door exit" to Ceyatatar Gorihame, the barrel on the second level of the outside of Fort Empire behind the statue (not that far from Aleswell, so of little utility once you have access to the room there), the chest near Fathis Aren's Tower (near Bravil) found on the inside of a curved piece of ruined wall just off the road as you go up the hill toward Leyawiin and the chest located just SW of Telepe next to some rocks. There are plenty of other non-respawning containers that can be used, but those are my main ones. If you want to make certain you have the right one just put something of little value in it that wouldn't normally spawn in a chest (I use three iron arrows). Don't go near the area for more than three days so the cell resets and go back and check for your three arrows. Back when I was learning which containers were safe I used to move the three arrows out of the chest and leave them laying on the ground next to the chest to mark the container as safe.

I knew Drake would know. Hope your Christmas was good and New Years opens new chapters Drake.

Would it be possible to make a new hair + ears + circlet? I'm out of my pay grade here ... just asking.

I think I've seen posts in Alternative Beginnings complaining that the adventurer wasn't at Fort Ash. Don't believe there was any resolution to those posts. I wonder if those people got through the part that's holding you up? If anybody, Arthmoor should be the best at knowing what can and can't be done with alternative starts. I read his explanation of what was wrong with another alternative start's method on a mod troubleshooting thread and could understand enough to know there are pitfalls to be avoided with the Main quest stages (and thus complexities to navigate). Generally Arthmoor has got around to answering questions like this in the Alternative Beginnings mod comments. Perhaps after the holidays.

Not an issue as the game will load Oblivion.esm whether you have it ticked or not.

Would the game start fine before you added the new stuff? Did you re-BOSS and rebuild your bashed patch?

You could try renaming Oblivion.ini to Oblivionini.bak and let the game rebuild a new Oblivion.ini based on what it detects now for hardware on your machine.

An alternative for you is the save command from the Oblivion console. I used it myself to keep one character's saves separate from my old guy's saves, until I started using Multiple Oblivion Manager MOM. The downside with what I call "named saves" is that you need to remember the incremented save number yourself (so if you loaded your named save MyNewGuy117.ess you would need to remember that it was 117 you loaded so that when you console save you'd name the new save MyNewGuy118.ess). I was always opening the Load menu just to see what the next number should be.

What you've described says something in the launcher. I'm a non-Steam type myself, and I know that launching the Steam version is different than the disk versions I'm used to. Have you seen anything like this mentioned in the Steam forums for Oblivion? On the OBSE co-saves, they are needed for OBSE and must be kept in the same folder as your saves. My gut feeling is that it's not an OBSE related issue but some setting or something in the Steam launcher, but I could be wrong.

Well I'm stumped ... can't recall hearing of anything like this before. What version of the game are you using (e.g. Steam or GotY disk version)?