How do I get Oblivion to recognize changes to existing bsa files?

[sulihin666]

In OBMM click on Utilities then select Archive Invalidation from the menu. In the Archive Invalidation dialogue select BSA Redirection, click on Reset BSA Timestamps and then Updated Now. Close OBMM and you're done.

 

Resetting the BSA timestamps is important if you use the Steam version of the game ... using all of their infinite wisdom, Steam decided to redate the vanilla game BSA to a modern date, thus breaking BSA Redirection for all their users.

 

Thanks Striker879! Wish I could say that worked for me as it was a rather helpful tip. I think my issue may be the file structure is different due to it being a steam game. Maybe the developer used a different file structure. Seems the same except the top level folder is named something entirely different. Tried renaming it to match the BSA but that didn't work either. Technically this thread was about modifying an existing BSA and not so much troubleshooting a specific mod so I will leave it there. Maybe I will go over to the mod Q&A for this issue....where I should have started in the first place lol! I do tend to do things the hard and backwards way :D But, for anyone else who wants to attempt to modify an existing BSA, at least there is a thread for it now!

Edited March 19, 2019 by sulihin666

[DrakeTheDragon]

As all internal references to contents and assets inside the game are relative to your "data" folder, it doesn't matter how your Oblivion game's folder is named or where it's located. Do not mess with renaming it, or you might end up with the game no longer functioning, as the path in reality differs from the path in the registry or inside Steam etc. Everything "inside" the data folder is only structured differently based on language version of the game, if at all. Steam or not makes no different folder structure.

 

And if you were on a different language version, then this mod would just put an unused new folder into your game. Your High Elves' voices most certainly won't just go mute like they did. Them going mute is a sign of the replacement actually working. It's just for some reason the replacement files themselves won't work for you. Why they're working fine for many and only for a few not at all, sadly isn't a question I can answer.

 

I took a look at their format specifications and meta data, and they "seem" to be rather fine... though they aren't 100% to the documented specifications as listed here (https://cs.elderscrolls.com/index.php?title=Audio_Settings_For_Dialogue_Video_Tutorial). They're only 32 bit all of them, not 64, and I can't say anything about their bitrate being constant or not. But I'm no expert in that regard, so. Chances are though those files simply will not work on 100% of games/installations/systems, due to them not perfectly meeting the specifications for voice files as documented.

 

For what it's worth though, the error definitely shouldn't be on your end, if installing this simple ESP-less replacer mod turns your NPCs mute. If it didn't replace your voices, yep, probably your fault. If it had an ESP, yep, probably wrong language version for your game and redirecting all your NPCs to the different language version's folders, which you don't have, thus making them mute. But neither of this is the case. This is just a simple replacement, no ESP, and the files were installed correctly and the replacement itself did work, or the voices would've never turned mute to begin with. So I fail to see how it could've been in any way "your" error here.

 

Even modifying an existing BSA you did right already from the start. But I must again repeat that modifying the original game's BSAs themselves is only a very unadvised idea. Proper Archive Invalidation makes it unnecessary to ever attempt such a path.