Something wrong with oblivion. Obviously.

[Gageownssorry]

Ok so I installed a few mods yesterday and everything was fine. This morning I dowloaded the lost paladins of the divine mod and everything has gone to poo. My meshes for my weapons are screwed up in game and whenever I try to play the game it tells me my meshes file is corrupted and unreadable. Ive tried to delete my oblivion folder and my meshes folder but it wont let me, it tells me Cannot Delete Meshes: The directory is not empty. Ive went and uninstalled and reinstalled oblivion, but that entire corrupted oblivion folder is still there. Also, my OBMM tells me the folder is corrupt to. When I try to exit out of Obmm is gives me a message saying an unhandled exception occured. Extra information should have been saved to 'obmm_crashdump.txt' in oblivions base directory. Error message: The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable. Im very new to everything to do with mods and ive never really been a computer whiz. Any helpful information would be very, well, helpful. I just want to get this whole thing fixed so I can start playing again. :thanks:

[dezdimona]

from bben a moderator here

 

When you uninstall Oblivion it doesn't really uninstall everything. Then when you start adding mods before you have started the game, some things may not get initialized properly. Here is my recommended procedure for uninstalling and reinstalling.

 

It does not remove your mods, save games or Oblivion.ini or the entries that the original installation of Oblivion placed in your Windows registry. It also does not remove helper programs such as OBSE, OBMM, Wrye Bash, The construction set or any other programs you have installed in the \Oblivion folder or the save game folder. I recommend that you go ahead and delete them, then re download and install the latest version of them again later. After you have verified that the game works.

 

I would appreciate any feedback on this as it is something I expect to post often and I hate to give bogus or useless information.

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Uninstalling Oblivion

 

My instructions assume you are using Windows XP and have installed Oblivion into the default location. If you are using Vista or Linux, the file locations may be different, however, the procedure will be thae same.

 

For a full reinstall, first you can try to preserve your mods and save games. I recommend that you save them in a new folder with a new name. Create the new folder in C:\Program files\Bethesda Softeworks. Name it Old Files. So it will be C:\Program Files\Bethesda softworks\Old files.

 

Then copy the data folder where your mods are to the new folder - do not erase them, copy them. And in the new folder, rename the \data folder to \olddata. Then copy and rename the folder that has your saved games and Oblivion.ini, C:\documents and settings\your user name\my documents\My Games\oblivion to something like \My games\Old Oblivion - this saves your saved games and the oblivion.ini file.

 

Then, using the original CD, NOT the Launcher on your Hard drive. Select uninstall.

 

After it completes the uninstall, reboot your computer - this is important as it allows Windows to remove some references to the original Oblivion.

 

This would be the time to erase all of the helper programs you have in the \Oblivion folder. Such as OBMM, OBSE and some others. The simplest way is to delete the folder completely. The new install will re create the folder for you along with a fresh oblivion.ini and when you start the game and make a save, a new save folder and new \data folder.

 

This would also be a good time to do a file clean up.

 

To remove the registry entries that were left behind. There are several good programs for removing left behind entries. The one I use is ccleaner. Be sure to reboot before using it, and again after. It is free and available here: http://majorgeeks.com/download4191.html

 

Now that everything is cleaned up, do a full defrag on your hard drive to leave a large uncluttered area to reinstall to. This prevents your game from installing in a fragmented way, with parts scattered all over the drive. It also will speed up the install a little.

 

 

 

Now to Reinstall.

 

Again using the original CD, install Oblivion.

 

NOTE: If you are using Vista, DO NOT install to the default directory. Instead make a new directory I recommend C:\Games. Install Oblivion there to avoid the hassle with Vista UAC blocking mods.

 

Before adding any mods, patches, helper programs, Shivering Isles or anything else, start the game and make a save. This initializes some stuff that needs to be initialized.

 

If you are using the Game of the Year version of Oblivion you should not need any patches, skip the patching part.

 

Now, If you DO NOT use Shivering Isles, patch the game using ONLY the latest Oblivion patch. All of the stuff from the earlier patches is included.

 

Be sure you use the proper language patch. If you use the wrong one it may work, but with a strange mixture of languages. (Germanglish?) Or it may crash.

 

NOTE: there are two English Patches UK & US and they are different. (Some people actually think we speak the same language) Use the one that matches your original disk.

 

If you use Shivering Isles, Install it now. DO NOT install the Oblivion patch. Install Shivering Isles, then ONLY the latest Shivering Isles patch. All of the updates for Oblivion are included. There is only one Shivering Isles patch for both US & UK English (Maybe sometimes we do speak the same language.)

 

Now, again start the game, make sure it looks right, move around a little to test it, and make a save. Test to be sure everything is working right (No purple objects or yellow blocks)

 

Before adding any mods, back up both your \data folder and the save game folder. Copy them, don't move or rename them, to a different folder - such as \Bethesda\Clean Oblivion\data and \Bethesda\clean Oblivion\saves. Note that this is a different folder than the one used for your old data and saves.

 

Note, Your Oblivion.ini file is in the same folder, but separate from, the save game folder.

 

Now, if you want to try to run with your old mods, first rename the original folders. The \data folder to \newdata and the \oldata back to \data. this restores all of your mods. You should now have 2 data folders \data, and \newdata in your \oblivion folder

 

To restore your original saves and ini file, rename the new My Games\Oblivion to something like \New Oblivion. and the \Old oblivion to \oblivion - this restores all of your saved games and your original Oblivion.ini file.

 

DO NOT erase the files you renamed. These are your backup files in case the original mods do not work or give you the same problem.

 

If you have the same problem, it is most likely caused by a mod. However, you now have a clean install to fall back on. You can rename the files back to what they were and be back to your clean install without having to reinstall again.

 

Sounds like lots of work, but you will have a clean install and a back up clean install when you are finished.

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[Gageownssorry]

Ok Ive gone through and deleted my mods, obmm, and uninstalled oblivion. All I have left is my oblivion folder containing the data folder, which itself contains my corrupt meshes folder. Ive tried time after time to delete the meshes folder, then the data folder, and eventually the entire oblivion folder itself. The only problem is, it wont allow me to delete any of them. When I try im still getting a message saying Cannot Delete Meshes: The Directory Is Not Empty. If anyone can please tell me how to delete these I can get oblivion re-installed and all my mods going again. Well minus the one that I suspect to have corrupt the whole thing. Thank you for any help!

[dezdimona]

Ok Ive gone through and deleted my mods, obmm, and uninstalled oblivion. All I have left is my oblivion folder containing the data folder, which itself contains my corrupt meshes folder. Ive tried time after time to delete the meshes folder, then the data folder, and eventually the entire oblivion folder itself. The only problem is, it wont allow me to delete any of them. When I try im still getting a message saying Cannot Delete Meshes: The Directory Is Not Empty. If anyone can please tell me how to delete these I can get oblivion re-installed and all my mods going again. Well minus the one that I suspect to have corrupt the whole thing. Thank you for any help!

try changing the file name and then deleteing it. Did you try to unistall with the disc in the drive? you have to have the disc in.

[Gageownssorry]

Ive done both and neither of them seems to have worked. :confused:

[bben46]

Try going into the folders that it will not delete and delete everything manually - one at a time if necessary. At least you will know which files are causing the problem.

 

I have seen a virus cause a problem with deleting a certain folder before. It changes the attribute to something like 'system' so it is not easy to get rid of.

 

After you find the specific file, look at the file attribute settings to see if that may be what is not allowing deletion.

 

Also, if the file is crosslinked it can cause this kind of problem - crosslinked means that the data from 2 programs have become mixed up and share the same space on the hard drive. So when you try to delete one, the other prevents it

 

Run the hard drive error-checking to check for crosslinked files. Or run CHKDSK or Scandisk. Expect to lose several files when you do this as its possible that more than two files have been corrupted in this way.

 

Please back up any important data on your system to something off of that hard drive as cross linked files can be a sign that there is a problem with the disk.

 

Crosslinking can be caused by an improper shut down or power failure while data is being written to the hard drive. It was more of a problem with the older FAT system than the NFTS that most drives use now.