archiveinvalidation DIY

[Barkester1]

To much time with work down for Covid, so got a second OS going. Windows was a hassle, so went with Ubuntu which seems to have alot more game support now (Arch is my work OS).

 

It does run Oblivion and pretty well at that from the testing I've done with Lutris and Fallout and new Vegas look easy as well... in vanilla.

 

Having played them all in Vanilla, its pretty vanilla, so mods are required.

 

Mod managers and archiveivalidationinvalidated all fail completely with all Wine and tricks i know including LUtris's Vortex script, but all they do is manipulate settings in text files, so I figured "Meh. How hard could it be?". I only used them for the load order on Windows anyway.

 

I need a lisitng of the changes made by archive_invalidation and am at a crossraods as its not near as obvious as I'd hoped. No mods activate without this, so its step one. Load order will come after which hopefully can be done with simple renaming or redating with "touch" ((hopefully).

 

Here is my last attempt gleaned from 2009 advice from some happy dinosaur of the age. He said to place the archiveinvalidationinvalidated!.txt file into the Data file and add the following to the text in the ini file. Was hopeful and totally failed. Here is the addition in the "archive" category:

 

SArchiveList=Oblivion - Meshes.bsa, ArchiveInvalidationInvalidated!.bsa, Oblivion - Textures - Compressed.bsa

 

Hard to imagine it would make a difference where in the order it went, but I put it first in category with no result.

 

So I reckon the next step would be to bypass this archiveinvalidation.txt by eading the code inside and using the command line to make the same changes. Sounds like some synaptic links and redirections is all it needs to do and I can write my own if only i can figure out what it is it actually does.

 

So if anyone has links, advice or an installed archiveinvalidated.txt file , apps to open .bsa files on Linux, etc., than it would help with the mystery.

 

Than hopefully, if I get it all fugured out, it will work on Skyrim, and the Fallouts 3 and Vegas as well.

 

Thnx for anything. Presently stuck.

[HeyYou]

Might try this mod instead. I have used it in the past with success. (on a windows system though.) (assuming you are modding oblivion.)

[Barkester1]

I have that one. Haven't had time, but will pursue a Linux-able .bsa opener so I can look inside and see what it does in order to bypass it and do it myself as it has shown no effect when tested. Could be somethind as stupidly simple as using capital letters (which are considered different letters in linux, but not in Windows).

 

It does work good on Windows. Tried extracting from the bsa file with 7zip and some other oddities, but it appears I need a special bsa software. Nothing found in Linux yet.

 

If you have tested it on Windows and it is available now, can you send a copy of your oblivion.ini file? It may have the changes I seek under "Archives". And if your system created an archive_invalidation.txt, that would be great to get as well. Neither has been available online this far.

 

Archiveinvalidationinvalidated! 'probly is the answer, but it can't be used as is with Wine. The mod must be modded.

 

Thanks for any ideas.

[HeyYou]

I don't have Oblivion installed on my machine any more. :) I have been thru a couple different rebuilds/upgrades since I last played it. :D I don't think I had to do anything special with the ini though, for it to work properly under windows. The whole capitalization thing *might* be a good trail to follow though, as Linux is indeed much more persnickety about such things. :D

[DrakeTheDragon]

Well, the thing is, all these mods or tools applying the BSA / Archive Redirection solution to Archive Invalidation basically do the same exact thing.

They put an "empty" dummy BSA file into your Data folder and modify the "sArchiveList" entry in your "Oblivion.ini" to load this in a special place so, for some reason I haven't yet quite completely understood, this empty dummy suddenly becomes the "only" BSA left still requiring invalidation for external replacement to be used over its contents, effectively eliminating the very need for Archive Invalidation itself once and for all.

 

So it shouldn't really help opening this BSA to get its contents, as there are none inside.

 

 

As a little history lesson, there's multiple different approaches towards Archive Invalidation at least in Oblivion modding:

 

-- The file "ArchiveInvalidation.txt" placed somewhere inside your Data folder -> This is the very first approach introduced to the scene by the game creators themselves. This .txt file is simply used to list all external files meant to be used over internal files from inside the BSAs. Or better yet, to tell the game which internal files from BSAs are no longer to be used and external replacements should be preferred. It basically instructs the game which parts of its "archives" to "invalidate", thus the name.

 

Sadly said approach was soon found out to work quite unreliably. With increasing number of files more and more of them randomly ceased working and the game's Vanilla originals from inside the BSAs were in fact used again. Sometimes even every replacement stopped working at a certain number of files listed, all was back to Vanilla, and then once a few more entries got added suddenly everything started to work again, but sometimes also only for a limited time. ...As you can see, use of this approach was soon discouraged by everyone but very old and antiquated readme's or install instructions.

 

-- The approach named "BSA / Archive Alteration" -> In this a tool basically unpacks and re-packs the Vanilla BSAs replacing all internal files with their external replacements, if present. This way the game will use the mixture of old and new resources without running into any conflicts, as there's only 1 list of files left. This approach has to be re-done every time another replacement gets added into the game or removed from it though, and the worst iterations of said tools didn't even consider making backups of the Vanilla files before editing them. It was changes you could no longer undo unless you reinstalled the whole game. Soon, in times of better less intrusive approaches, this one also quickly became discouraged among the scene, even though some people still swear on it for certain other reasons.

 

-- The approach named "BSA / Archive Redirection", which I completely explained above.

 

 

And then there's an even newer solution to it all based on an OBSE plugin, "SkyBSA", which completely changes how archives (BSAs) and resources get loaded by the game, making it mimic the way all of it works in Skyrim, where BSAs can even override other BSAs (in Vanilla Oblivion there's no priority for BSAs, so having replacements for Vanilla files in another BSA will lead to random and constantly changing results in game), and especially where external replacements (also called "loose files", the primary base for modding this game) -always- take priority. It only works through means of OBSE though, so if the Oblivion Script Extender is no option for whatever reason, so will be SkyBSA.

 

 

And just so this is clear, going by some potential misunderstandings expressed in the OP, Archive Invalidation is "not" needed to get any kind of mods at all to run inside the game but "only" for loose file replacements to Vanilla files, i.e. so called "replacement" mods of any kind.

[Barkester1]

Thanks for that. No direct anwer, but added a lot to the process of elimination. Lotsa time saved.

 

OBSE I remember avoiding on Window, so don't think I'll go there.

 

I see 2 more possibilities to try or eliminate:

 

OBMM using a different Wine package. Not optimisic in the least, but may try. Success would not extend to the other Bethesda though. the next possibility maybe.

 

I read of an archiveinvalidation.txt file that could be hand typed with the names of every single mod requiring activation. An option I've avoided for the obvious hassle of all that typing. Now I think, though, I may be able to copy the titles over to a fresh text file with: < ls *.esp >> archiveinvalidated.txt > . Still need to know how or if its activated though.

Will see if I can find the ancient post again. Rather feel like I am on an archaelological dig.

 

Be nice if I can come up with something easily wrappable and thus shareable for Wine users and will share if it comes out as a clean BASH or Ruby script. Oblivion is working so nice on linux, It seems a shame to leave it vanilla.

 

Any and all ideas appreciated. Thnx.

[DrakeTheDragon]

Well, "ls *.esp" won't be of much use here, as you want to get the resource files (meshes, textures, sounds, etc.) you installed from replacer packs, not any ESPs.

The file expects to get entered paths like:

meshes/characters/_male/skeleton.nif
meshes/characters/Argonian/tail.nif
textures/characters/Argonian/footmale.dds
...

While there are tools, like OBMM or Wrye Bash, who can generate said "ArchiveInvalidation.txt" automatically, I'm not sure a simple shell script or similar could be cooked up to do the same.

What these tools need to do is to either "know" the complete list of Vanilla files inside the BSA(s) or to read them up on the run, so they can then use this list to "compare" which files have external loose file replacements lying around in the Data folder subfolders anywhere.

 

There's no sense in putting files/paths into there which are not inside any of the BSAs. And I'm not sure it won't even be detrimental/harmful to your game to do so in that case either. So it really must be only "Vanilla" files where there are replacements for present in your Data folder at all.

 

If neither of the modding tools which can do any of the above 3 automatically nor OBSE is a possibility, then I'm not sure there's really much more one could do.

 

Coming to think of it, I'm on a Mac myself, and while I do/did use a virtual machine for modding and running the game primarily, there's also been times where I tried Wine or similar wine-based approaches in the past. They all resulted in crashing messes, but that's probably only myself to blame. I do remember though, I did get Archive Invalidation working through a tool I installed into the bottle, or something like that. Never had a problem with replacer mods even inside Wine wrappers definitely.

 

Wait a second... There's been a guy on the Oblivion forums specializing in modding the game in Wine and cooking up detailed step-by-step guides for that. Let's see if I can't re-find that.

 

edit: Ah, yes, it was 1Mac, and their guides are technically for MacOS. It is about modding the game in Wine though, so maybe some still applies. They do not specifically talk about Archive Invalidation either, but they do install all the tools which can do it automatically into Wine. So maybe it helps?

[Barkester1]

Look like nice links to a guy knowing way more about Wine than I. My search for ways to change things on the command line is mostly due to my ineptness with this whole Wine thing.

 

lutris has been helping and now Wrye Bash has installed in the needed folder using lutris as well. Still fuzzy, though. Some things are happening. No sign of others. Never used Wrye so gotta see what it even does. I may have my fix already but need to learn how to use it. Studying Wrye Bash today.

 

Here's a blog that was a big help getting lutris and Wrye to work together. http://www.shrine-of-kynareth.de/wrye-bash-on-linux

 

Reckon after all that doin', I should figure out what this thing actually does. Hope it can cook.

[HeyYou]

OBSE is a godsend. A fair few mods depend on it, and my one co-published mod for oblivion requires it. It is safe, reliable, and stable. I love it. :D

[DrakeTheDragon]

Wrye Bash basically is a Swiss Army knife tool for modding this game. It doesn't really matter whether you learn all there is to learn about it. Concentrating on only the few select things you'll always need for your own personal aims is totally sufficient already.

 

For example it "is" a mod manager as well at the same time, but someone already preferring another manager is not pressed to even look at Wyre Bash's.

Its "bashed patch" you will quickly learn is about as invaluable to getting more than 1 mod running smoothly together in this game than is to us the air we breath.

Being able to copy player or NPC faces from plugins to save games and vice versa is a nice thing, but who's really gonna need that?

Likewise being able to flag-switch ESPs to ESMs, so the Vanilla Construction Set can use ESPs as masters of other ESPs (it "can't" do that without it, only ESMs) and later back to ESPs before you run the game was a godsend for authors back in the days, but that's not really relevant to any non-author at all either.

It does have means to apply Archive Invalidation to your game through the most common available means as well, which will definitely come in handy here.

 

Its manual is really a lot to read. But just limit yourself to what you really want to know and it's all just really simple small features. It's just so very, very many of them.

 

It's kinda comparable to getting used to a Unix/Linux OS command line. Who's ever gonna need to know "all" the available commands, when all you need to do your stuff is "cd", "ls" and maybe "vi"? (Not saying that's all you ever need. That of course depends on your goals. But it's an assumption for the example that you'll only need those 3 for whatever you're about to do.)