obmm invalid file

[cburns]

i installed oblivion and si correctly, i can play through both games flawlessly, but when i add a mod through obmm, i activate it, go to the oblivion launcher and try to activate it from the data files, its just says filename(invalid file) ive been googleing this for about 3 weeks no with no help.

there must be sombody who this has also happend to, how did you get around it? help pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[Keirgarth]

If you activate a mod in OBMM, you have no need to go back into the Oblivion launcher and activate it there.

[MShoap13]

In addition to what Keirgarth said, you really shouldn't open the "Data Files" section of the Oblivion launcher once you've activated mods via OBMM. It automatically resets your load order to be sorted by date which can cause all kinds of strange problems. An example would be moving a user-created plugin file to be loaded before Oblivion.esm (the Oblivion Master file) which would result in CTD upon startup.

[cburns]

thanks for taking the time to check my post :P, well when i active oblivion and play it, none of the mods are active, ive had it working before but ive had to active the mod in the data files. but this problem wont let me. any suggestions?

[DrakeTheDragon]

Are there any special characters in the filename? This error message usually pops up when the name's invalid.

I'm talking of things like brackets "(", ")" here or signs from different languages or whatever else makes Oblivion throw up at this point.

[cburns]

nope things like, kvatch rebuilt, better cities and ancient towers ect.

[MShoap13]

Sounds like a UAC issue. This is my "Getting Started" post:

 

Are you running Windows Vista/7 and is your \Steam\ or \Oblivion\ directory in the default location (C:\Program Files\)? If so, Windows UAC is known to cause all kinds of issues while modding Oblivion and it's highly recommended to go ahead and move steam to somewhere Windows UAC doesn't affect, like C:\Games and reinstall Oblivion. If you're on XP you can skip all of this as Windows UAC isn't implemented.

 

Then, go ahead and install OBMM and/or Wrye Bash and run BSA Redirection as your form of Archive Invalidation one time. Without using some form of Archive Invalidation Oblivion has problems with using user created textures and animations instead of the vanilla content. BSA Redirection is the best solution to Archive Invalidation as it's practically fool proof and never needs to be updated after you've done it once.

 

The next step for a Steam installation is to use File Date Changer to roll back the "Last Modified" dates of all of the .bsa archives that come in your Vanilla Oblivion install (plus the DLC of course) to somewhere around 2005. This is necessary for BSA Redirection to work properly.

 

From here, be sure to make at least one character save in Oblivion so that you have a known working standard. I personally recommend playing through the tutorial dungeon (the sewers) up until right before the exit that allows you to change your character's aspects and keeping that save around permanently. This gives you a good testing base for adding mods in the future and you never have to play through the sewers again.

 

Now you're ready to start modding. I'd say take it easy and try something simple like a sword or a simple texture replacer and then go ensure that it's actually taking effect in your game. Moving on you can add other mods, though I recommend installing them one or two at a time and trying them out for a little bit before adding more. This way when an issue does occur (and it's bound to happen) you'll have a pretty good idea of where to start troubleshooting.

 

Here's a list of mods I'd recommend for any Oblivion install whether you're after grossly modded content or not:

The Unofficial Oblivion Patch and the Unofficial Patch Supplementals (Be sure to get the Shivering Isles patch for SI and the Unofficial Official Mods Patch for any other DLC you may be running)

Darn UI or Dark Darn UI

Natural Environments or All Natural

MiniMap

Edited October 21, 2011 by MShoap13