Shivering Isles quest SE01Door starts and SI is not even installed

[chambcra]

I'll try to start with the short version. I'm working on a new computer with a fairly fresh bare bones oblivion install. There is no DLC and only 5 very small mods and Vilja installed. I'm starting from my original Save 15 when I exited the sewers. I'm working on getting a very compact save game to use when starting large quest mods. I tried a mod called Markov Manor and you're supposed to sleep a couple times to start it and when I do the message about the strange door in the Niben bay pops up and I think it's the Markov Manor and I go to the map marker and there are about 30 wtf signs and the quest is SE01Door stage 10. So, I think it's a bug in Markov Manor and the first thing I do is look in the CS and all the Shivering Isles quests are in there without it being installed. Is that right?

[DrakeTheDragon]

Well, Shivering Isles used quite an uncommon way of integration into the game compared to all other DLCs. It comes with its own BSAs, where all its resources are inside, but its ESP is an "empty" one, only used to trigger the auto-loading of similarly named BSAs when active in your load order. All of SI's records are "merged" into the "Oblivion.esm". That's also why you can't install a non-SI official patch when you already installed SI but have to install an SI version of it instead.

 

So you're saying you don't have SI installed, which would explain all its resources being reported as "missing" in your game, as without the "DLCShiveringIsles.esp" active the BSAs from SI won't load, but you're still on an SI-version of the "Oblivion.esm"? How did that happen? Did you have SI installed previously and only thought you uninstalled it, but your "Oblivion.esm" remained unaltered in its previous SI-updated state?

[chambcra]

Thanks Drake. That explains a few things. You're right that SI was previously installed and I only thought I uninstalled it by removing the esp/bsa. Before I installed SI, I backed up the entire Bethesda folder and I see oblivion.esm is about 30 mb smaller before installing SI. My save 15 was made on a different computer ten years ago and I thought I hadn't installed SI until I had completed everything in the base oblivion but now I don't really know. It seems to me like that island was not there the whole time I was playing oblivion so save 15 would be prior to SI installed. I know Markov manor has nothing to do with it because save 15 will produce the mysterious door popup no matter what. Is it possible all I have to do is revert back to the prior SI oblivion.esm? Either way you've saved me a lot of misery. I would have never figured this out. The next thing I would have tried is to start a new game and it sounds like the same thing would happen.

 

Okay, so that did the trick and I'm good to go with my save 15, I think. If you hadn't explained that to me I would have started a new game and been quite dismayed when SI started.

Edited May 16, 2019 by chambcra