Silent radio stations

[maddgod96]

For some reason ALL radio stations are absolutely silent except for the dlc ones (only the mysterious broadcast seems to be affected). I have tried everything I could think of, but they are always silent. It happened after I decided to change one of the songs on the radio by just replacing the .ogg file with a song of my own. I have done this before with no issue, so why now? Also, they are only that way on my pipboy, not the radio in my bunker (I use the survivalist bunker house mod).

Edited June 18, 2017 by maddgod96

[dubiousintent]

Please provide the information requested in the wiki "How to ask for help" article. Also take a look at the "Music & Sounds" section of the wiki "Getting started creating mods using GECK" article.

-Dubious-

[maddgod96]

I don't have much info about it. All I know is what I already posted. And that article doesn't really help in this situation. I am not even using the geck to make mods (I only ever just replaced one sound file. nothing that the geck would be required for) and it still doesn't give me much insight into why my radio is bugged only on music playing stations and only on my pipboy. My computer is the same as what I listed on my profile. It runs Windows 8.1 and it is up to date (drivers are as well). The only mods I have installed are mostly weapon and armor mods, so nothing that would mess with the radio. I have all dlc, including the Courier's Stash. Hopefully this info will help.

[maddgod96]

Apparently it even broke radio station mods. I just downloaded the mod "Westside Radio" and it doesn't play either.

[dubiousintent]

Try backing out the music file you installed, and restoring the original. If that fixes the problem, then there is something about that particular OGG file that the game doesn't like. The GECK articles point out various requirements for music files, including the need to strip out various "meta data".

 

If that doesn't work, then you will have to engage in "mod isolation" to pin down where the conflict lies, as laid out in the 'Mod Conflict Isolation ' section in the wiki "Fallout NV Mod Conflict Troubleshooting" guide.

 

-Dubious-

[maddgod96]

Like I said, this issue arose with no radio mods installed. I just installed "Westside radio" to test and it didn't work either. I uninstalled it afterwards. I also tried removing the sound files I changed to no avail. I have modified music in this game before with no issue (I already strip all meta data from sound files that I work with in my sound editing tools). I have made mods before for both Fallout and Elder Scrolls games, so I am not new to the hoops you have to jump through when modding these games.

[dubiousintent]

Let me recap:

1. The music was playing as intended.

2. You installed a replacement music file.

3. The music no longer plays.

4. You tried backing out your replacement music, but the game still no longer plays music.

5. You tried installing the mod "Westside Radio" but it made no difference. Music still does not play. (Whatever broke is still broke.)

 

I have no more ideas as to what broke. Most likely explanation is that you missed doing something this time around that you had done previously. (Happens to all of us.) It is also possible that some system driver was updated and you need to chase that down. (There are hidden interactions between the sound, mouse, and video drivers. Changes to one can adversely affect the others.) In which case you would expect to see the issue outside of the game as well. A wrong sound control panel setting or one that was tweaked for an editing tool might not work for the game.

 

You might try renaming your existing "User" INI files and let the game rebuild them to see if something got in there to cause the problem. If that fails, then you can try "mod isolation" or just bite the bullet, re-install, and test that the game music is fixed. Then re-install mods one by one and test each. But until you can get the vanilla game to play the music again as it should, you can't expect any mod to fix it either.

 

-Dubious-

[maddgod96]

Let me recap:

1. The music was playing as intended.

2. You installed a replacement music file.

3. The music no longer plays.

4. You tried backing out your replacement music, but the game still no longer plays music.

5. You tried installing the mod "Westside Radio" but it made no difference. Music still does not play. (Whatever broke is still broke.)

 

I have no more ideas as to what broke. Most likely explanation is that you missed doing something this time around that you had done previously. (Happens to all of us.) It is also possible that some system driver was updated and you need to chase that down. (There are hidden interactions between the sound, mouse, and video drivers. Changes to one can adversely affect the others.) In which case you would expect to see the issue outside of the game as well. A wrong sound control panel setting or one that was tweaked for an editing tool might not work for the game.

 

You might try renaming your existing "User" INI files and let the game rebuild them to see if something got in there to cause the problem. If that fails, then you can try "mod isolation" or just bite the bullet, re-install, and test that the game music is fixed. Then re-install mods one by one and test each. But until you can get the vanilla game to play the music again as it should, you can't expect any mod to fix it either.

 

-Dubious-

The problem is: the music still worked with my custom file. It only stopped AFTER I removed it. I have already tried a clean install, but it still persists. Also, I haven't had an update for my drivers in about a month, so nothing about my drivers changed in between the music working and not working. I am starting to think the issue has something to do with the launcher changing a ini value that it should have left alone. As I tried to make a clean install with no mods and no edits to any config files. All I did after reinstalling is launch the game with the default settings the launcher chooses. I also tried changing the config files after seeing no change in the music issue, but it still persists. I am all out of ideas at this point. Although, somewhere, I heard that the game stores the pipboy (stereo) versions of the radio music outside of the bsa files. But I see no such thing in the loose files of the game. It was never like that to begin with, even when the music worked (as I have played this game since release with no problems). But when looking in the bsa, I find no stereo versions of the music. Only the mono versions (identified by the "_mono" at the end of the file name). However, that still shouldn't affect radio stations added through mods right?

[dubiousintent]

I'm baffled as well, but I've never gotten into messing around with the music files. The only thing I can think of that would persist through a "clean install" is that you have to manually remove your "User" folder INI files for a truly complete "clean install". (The uninstaller doesn't touch them.) And then you have to have the original, unedited "Fallout_default.ini" for the game to rebuild them in vanilla state, and the first time you start the game use the vanilla launcher so it detects your hardware and builds the "prefs" INI. (After that you can run the 4GB patched and/or NVSE version launcher.) Then test by starting a "new game".

 

When you say "the music still worked with my custom file. It only stopped AFTER I removed it." Do you mean you just replaced an original filename with your OGG file named the same, and then just removed it without putting the original back (i.e. leaving the filename "slot" in the playlist empty or without a file to actually play)? That might hang things as the game won't find a file in the list it might be looking through, and potentially could break the entire "play list" system. If you edited a "play list" to recognize your added file which you then removed, did you re-edit the playlist back?

 

Can't speak to whether or not "stereo" versions work. The GECK only recognizes sound files as MP3s (regardless of their actual extension), so it might equally regard all sound files as mono. But that is the editor, not the game. Bear in mind that the game doesn't seem to distinguish between something added by a mod and something added by the original ESM or a DLC. It has to conform to what the game is expecting regardless of source.

 

-Dubious-

[maddgod96]

I'm baffled as well, but I've never gotten into messing around with the music files. The only thing I can think of that would persist through a "clean install" is that you have to manually remove your "User" folder INI files for a truly complete "clean install". (The uninstaller doesn't touch them.) And then you have to have the original, unedited "Fallout_default.ini" for the game to rebuild them in vanilla state, and the first time you start the game use the vanilla launcher so it detects your hardware and builds the "prefs" INI. (After that you can run the 4GB patched and/or NVSE version launcher.) Then test by starting a "new game".

 

When you say "the music still worked with my custom file. It only stopped AFTER I removed it." Do you mean you just replaced an original filename with your OGG file named the same, and then just removed it without putting the original back (i.e. leaving the filename "slot" in the playlist empty or without a file to actually play)? That might hang things as the game won't find a file in the list it might be looking through, and potentially could break the entire "play list" system. If you edited a "play list" to recognize your added file which you then removed, did you re-edit the playlist back?

 

Can't speak to whether or not "stereo" versions work. The GECK only recognizes sound files as MP3s (regardless of their actual extension), so it might equally regard all sound files as mono. But that is the editor, not the game. Bear in mind that the game doesn't seem to distinguish between something added by a mod and something added by the original ESM or a DLC. It has to conform to what the game is expecting regardless of source.

 

-Dubious-

Turns out, adding mp3 versions of the regular radio music files (stereo versions) worked. But it only seemed to work if they were mp3 as opposed to the normal ogg. All I was doing was dropping my edited music files into the "Data\Sound\songs\radionv" folder. Afterward, when removing them, I just deleted my edited files (as I said the folder was empty. Meaning there were no sound files in there initially until I added mine, unlike what I read about the stereo files being loose).