How NOT To Install Shivering Isles and the 1.2 Patch

[SickleYield]

Guess what I spent all of Sunday afternoon and into the evening doing. Hopefully others will profit by my experience.

 

Here is my load order:

 

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s197/si.../loadorder1.jpg

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s197/si.../loadorder2.jpg

 

I was at least smart enough to get backup copies of some things first, namely Wrye Bash and OBMM; the profile manager I prefer to use is just an exe so I cutpasted it elsewhere.

 

But then...

 

1. Attempted to install 1.204 patch. Got error refusing to overwrite, apparently indicating presence of shaders.

 

2. Uninstalled Kind Kin Inn, which is broken in all KINDS of ways and I should've known better than to download it to begin with.

 

3. Deleted Shaders folder.

 

4. Installed patch without errors. Redid archive invalidation.

 

5. Attempted to start Oblivion.

 

6. Crash to desktop before it even got to the Bethesda logo. Swore violently.

 

7. Figured maybe it was a load order problem. Installed SI anyway.

 

8. Repeat previous. Crash to desktop.

 

9. Spent 30 minutes backing up huge data files folder. (This was stupid; I should've just renamed it to something else.) Fully uninstalled both SI and Oblivion.

 

10. Reinstalled Oblivion, patch and SI.

 

11. Redid archive invalidation. Attempted to start Oblivion. Crashes.

 

12. Swore violently at computer in both English and Spanish.

 

13. Removed all mods and tested one at a time to determine if one was causing crashes. Narrowed it down to OOO/MMM/Fran/FCOM.

 

14. Scramble around on internet and find FCOm web site. Check Fran version and rename Fran's bsas. Try to start Oblivion. Crashes.

 

15. Further investigate. Game will start with Fran and OOO activated. Activating any Oscuro file or any FCOM or Bashed Patch dependent on ditto = crashes.

 

16. Mutter darkly at dev_akm and team for making a defective mod. Return to their web site in a state of high dudgeon.

 

17. Discover that the latest version of FCOM is not defective, but rather is dependent on OOO version 1.32, which I do not have.

 

18. Bang own head repeatedly against the wall.

 

19. Roll FCOM back to version 7.5. Redo archive invalidation.

 

20. Start game.

 

21. Game starts just fine.

 

22. Play for two hours in order to playtest, slightly concussed from head banging but greatly relieved.

 

 

The two most important lessons I learned from this?

 

When installing 1.2/SI,

 

1. Always check version numbers.

 

2. Don't assume none of your mods have shader packages. Kind Kin Inn is a horror quest mod. I had no idea.

 

My massively modded install now works like a charm.

[Switch]

Wow that sounds frustrating. ^^; I think I'll pin this so maybe people can learn from your trials and tribulations.

[ResidentWeevil2077]

LOL what a bloody Sunday ;D ! But I have to say that I honestly would never use OO or Francesco's mod TOGETHER (as they both do the same thing, and will conflict BIG TIME, and I NEVER use either one because they alter too many things it's disgusting >:( )

 

When I installed SI, I never had any problems (about the only problem I had was trying to patch the CS, saying it was missing the readme file or something, and wouldn't install the patch :dry: )

 

I suppose the lesson one would have to pull out of all this mess is "It's not a good idea to have a heavily modded game with over 100 different mods" :P

[SickleYield]

It's a cost/benefit question. I spend a huge amount of time modding myself and wouldn't consider Oblivion much fun without lots of mods. Many others feel the same.

 

Also, FCOM is designed to make OOO work with Fran's and MMM (and a couple of other big mods); that's its entire purpose.

[eightoneone]

Yeah, that was my experience with the patch, too. I figured out the shader problem quickly, because I copied my ENTIRE Oblivion directory to a desktop folder before patching. I didn't get CTDs immediately, but the ground turned to weird Google-earth style mini-maps of Cyrodiil in saturated colors. Really, it did. Anyway, I reinstalled Oblivion, installed all the patches, and then overwrote everything but the .exe and some other stuff, and used OBMM for archive stuff. It was all good (I hope, that actually might explain why Ruined Tail's Tale crashes Anvil now...) .

[RandV80]

Alright, so after being one of those people who were extremely disappointed with Oblivion, and having set it off to the side for a year, I figure there's enough mods out there now to give it another go.

 

So my plan was:

1. Re-install Oblivion

2. Patch it

3. Buy and install expansion

4. Add large scale mods (Living Economy, OOO, Francescos, character remodeling(?), etc)

5. Add smaller mods

 

As I have the benefit of a fresh install, this should be the safest, cleanest way to avoid conflicts. Unfortunately the closest store to me which sells games didn't have the expansion, and I really don't feel like spending 1-2 hours today going out to an EB Games to buy it. So I'm going to just go ahead with the mods and install the expansion later.

 

From you're write I'd assume that as long as I have all the latest versions, I should be ok... but is there anything else I should watch out for? I'm worried about installing one of these mods that modify the expansion as well, when there's no expansion files on my computer. Even if it does work, then I can foresee the expansion overwriting these files when I do finally get around to getting it, which would require me to reinstall the big mods, potentially messing up my game? Stuff like that

[kromwell]

I actualy just uninstalled everything and reinstalled in this order:

 

Oblivion + patch 1.2

Knights of the Nine + contents (Not vesion 1.1 patch found on the DVD)

Shivering Ilses,, but then tried to install patch 1.2 and it says "cannot find older version"

 

What buffoons at Baths.. would release a NON compatible patch eithre with direct2drive or not (F****** Pr****).

[PunisherX100]

Kromwell

Does your Shimmering Isles version already have the 1.2.0416 patch or just the 1.2? If it has 1.2.0416, then the dialogue box is saying that there is no older version to overwrite. You should be good to go. If it is older, which I doubt, based on the date of your post, you can find the necessary fixes at TS. I believe there are 2 files that fix it, one of them is and ID file, I forget the other one.

[burger1113]

lol that's great.... I think I've went through a similar thing with some other game

[berood001]

No doubt FCOM is not easy to install. Reading the documentation compulsively noting every small detail is best. It took me nearly eight hours to download and install FCOM plus about 20 other mods. It worked perfectly on the first go though.