The Elder Scrolls Trekker

This is the fourth time I have had this happen to me in game - enough to think it is a trend.

If your game suddenly crashes in an area that you believe should be working (either because you visited it before or because it doesn't have anything new that you have not already encountered), try this simple step before pulling your hair over a bug - reboot.

I am beginning to think that, when Oblivion crashes, some files may remain locked - either from Windows or from whatever anti-virus software you are running in the background. Next time you start your game, Oblivion may try to load that locked file and crash as a result.

You can't really be expected to reboot each time Oblivion crashes - that would be insane. But if after a crash, your game suddenly becomes unstable in 'safe' areas, remember to clear your system with a reboot before investigating a bug with your mods or load order.

After weeks of more or less peaceful gameplay, I entered an area of intense fighting which turned out to be also prone to crashes.

The area in question was the underground city from the Vampire questline in Origin of the Mages Guild. The crashes are apparently the result of that mod combined with StarX Vanilla Vampire Revisited and possibly other mods on my list. That is not to say Origin of the Mages Guild caused the crashes - I know better than that. It could be very well other mods in my list causing a crash in that area.

Anyway - one particular side effect was to encounter, twice, a situation where the game would systematically crash. In one case, any past saved game related to the underground city would crash on load (although they were loading fine a minute before). In another case, I would get a crash each time a Vampire Warrior was killed (but not the other kinds of foes I would find).

Both situations are highly unusual in terms of Oblivion bugs.

What I believe happened is that repeated crashes left some textures or mesh files locked by the operating system (Windows XP in my case) and caused a crash next time the game tried to load these resources.

So if you are running into a severe crash in the game after a series of smaller crashes to desktop while you play - calm down, shutdown your computer and reload the game after a while. Chances are your crash will go away.

The latest issue I had to troubleshoot is worth mentioning.

Returning from the Shivering Isles, I noticed that vendors in Cyrodiil were no longer aware of Living Economy rules. They were back to an infinite supply of gold.

At first, I blamed the recent install of both Creeper and Tamriel Travelers SI edition, but running the game without these mods after a clean save did not resolve anything - Living Economy was still broken.

So I traced back my steps and found an earlier saved game where the economy system was still working.

It turns out the issue came from the way I traveled back from the Shivering Isles this time. I used a spell to Teleport directly to Frostcrag Spire instead of using the portal from the Isles back to Cyrodiil.

It looks like teleporting out of the Isles causes indirect effects on other mods - including Living Economy.

Conclusion - be careful where you teleport from and save often. You never know when you will have to go back in time to avoid an issue that corrupts your game.

Each mod can be a little different in how to install them.

The bottom line is this :

- create a folder on your machine (on your desktop for instance). Call that folder 'Install'.
- once you download a new mod, extract the files to that Install folder.

Now look at the Install folder.

.esp / .esm files need to go directly into Oblivion/Data folder.
Any folder such as : meshes / textures / sounds need to go into Oblivion/Data as well.

Basically, if you see a folder that already exists in Oblivion/Data, you will have to copy the content to that folder.

Now, depending on the way files are archived for a particular mod, you will find some of the following situation once you extract your files into Install:

Install / / Data
or Install / Data
or Install

You will have to explore the Install folder and find the right files and folder that you will have to copy into Oblivion / Data.

Purple textures are missing textures.

Either you did not install the full mod (sometimes, mods come as a base install and an update - you need to install both to get them to work) or you have new textures that have not been registered correctly with the game.

Which method of Archive Invalidation are you using ?

If you don't know, chances are you are not using any

Try this one : Archive Invalidation Invalidated!

Download, follow the instructions and completely forget about it for future mods.

I did a thorough check with TES4View and made several discoveries which caused me to move some mods around.

• I had to remove Persuasion_Overhaul_MMM as it overrides several changes from Persuasion_Overhaul_OOO.
• There are several mesh conflicts between AlienSlof's Dogs and MMM. We need a compatibility patch to add Slof meshes to MMM dogs.
• Same thing, we need a compatibility patch to add meshes and textures from Better Book Jackets to books from More Books Teach
• There are several conflicts between Atmospheric Oblivion sounds and Harvest containers from OOO. A compatibility mod would be welcome there as well.
• It looks like AlienSlof robe trader contains changes to several non robes pieces of armor. These changes conflict with OOO and other armor related mods. We need a cleaner version of that mod with Robe replacements only (no armor changed) ... I will check it out with TESsnip now that I know how to use it :)
• Old School Artifacts mod contains several references in German. It also conflicts seriously with loot from MMM. I'm considering dropping it from my list if I can't find a way to resolve that.
• Origin of the Mage Guild conflicts with NPC Julienne Fanis over CT-Torch_Compendium (I will have to check if this NPC is vital to Origin)

And I thought I was almost done with that list.... back to work to bring the issues to the respective mod owners.

(Summary from a post in the Bethesda forum).

I got tired of getting a systematic crash on exit with my game, so I started playing with the load order.

After a lot of trials and errors, here is what I found.

My load order ends something like this :

[Group 1 - Knights.esp + patches]
[Group 2 - ShiveringIsles.esp + patches]
[Group 3 - UniqueLandscape mods]
[Group 4 - Better cities mods]
[Group 5 - House mods]
[Group 6 - mythsandlegends + darker dungeons + Slof's Oblivion Robe Trader + Origin of the Mages Guild + MannimarcoRevisited]
[Group 7 - Utilities - Streamline etc...]

I found that if I activate any of the mods in Group 6, Oblivion always crashed on exit.
However, if I move all 5 mods in Group 6 before Group 1 (Knight of the Nine), the crashes on exit vanished !

I do not know enough about dissecting mods, so I am at a loss as to why these mods would cause a crash on exit when activate *after* Knights (or Shivering Isles... I didn't check which one it is), while UL and Better Cities mods do not cause a crash.

For the time being, getting rid of Knights of the nine altogether seemed to have resolved most of my crashes on exit. Instead, I am now getting a new issue where Oblivion takes a very long time to quit (up to 20 minutes !).

Sometimes I wish I had crashes on exit again.

(Summarized version of my post in the Bethesda forum)

Here is an encounter I had at Fort Strand (ruins directly East of Anvil).

http://www.alquier.org/TES/images/Oblivion...fort-strand.jpg

My first thought is that something went bad with MMM and/or OOO, but I have learned enough about mod interaction to know better than just go with my first feelings about this kind of issues.

Also worth noticing - the VERY large number of bandits outside Fort Strand. I counted more than a dozen (usually, I only get 4 or 5 there).

After following some suggestions from the forum, it looks like the mutants were caused by a conflict between the new version of MMM, TNR All Races and an old version of Wrye Bash used to try and merge the levelled lists.

I downloaded the latest version of Wrye Bash, used it to update the faces of NPCs only (and leave levelled lists alone) and I haven't seen the mutants ever since.

So I was tweaking with updates, still waiting for the final releases of OOO and MMM (are we there yet ? ).

I thought I had everything up to date, clean load order and brand new game.

And then... suddenly ... the Spell Effect replacer bug started getting out of control, I could not summon a skeleton without having it collapse immediately into a heap of bones and after walking to a new cell ... crash. Repeatedly.

After testing and testing again, I came to think the culprit was Reneer's Guard Overhaul and disabled it.

Only to find out that the real culprit was.... OBSE v11. I had updated Supreme Magicka and did not read the readme file closely enough, so I missed the requirement for OBSE v12.

So the culprit was really just me... now Reneer's Guards are happily back in my game and I can summon skeleton's again, so I can go back to ... waiting for OOO and MMM

End of the story.

TES4View Advanced esp Viewer and Conflict Detector

Utility - Forget what I said yesterday about reducing complexity.

Use TES4View with all the mods you want active in your list. Study conflicts carefully (using the filtered view if possible) and reorganize your load order accordingly.

Tips:

- If conflicting values are the same, load order doesn't matter

- Mods with Orange text win over mods with Red text. Pay attention to which value you want to 'win' in conflicts. An orange 'winner' may not be the solution you want to keep in your load order.

- Refine your load order by running TES4View after reorganizing your list. You may have missed some conflicts and new conflicts may arise from the new load order.

Using this tool, I was able to dig a lot deeper into the reason behind conflicts reported by OBMM, see exactly which record each conflicting mod changed and with which value, and finally, decide which mod I should load last.

For example it turns out some of the official plugins and mods from Unique Landscapes had undesirable overlaps with some of the other mods in my list. Instead of keep them together at the top or end of the list, I had to push some in the middle of the list, after some mods or before others. 

This resulted into a new load order much more complex than usually recommended.

Here is a list of some of the 'must-have' tools to help you troubleshoot issues with mods.

Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM) v1.0.3

Organize load orders, update BSA files to register new textures and meshes, detect conflicts between mods, create and use omod files. 

Wrye Bash

The 'swiss army knife' for Oblivion mods. Everything you need to detect issues, change load order, repair save games, merge mods or create patches. 

Oblivion Mod Removal (OBMR) v2.01

Automatically remove all files related to a mod.

Note: watch out for files shared by several mods. You may have to reinstall something after cleaning up a mod with this tool. 

TES4View v1.1.1

Nice little utility specialized in analyzing conflicts between mods. You can select which mod you want to analyze and which type of record you want to include in your report. Perfect tool to go deep into the details of overlaps and conflicts between mods.

I'm seriously getting sick of this endless round of interferences between mods. It feels like each time I fix something, another conflict appears. It's not longer Oblivion I am playing, but a sick version of 'Wack a mole'.

I decided to simpify number of mods I am using for a while and see if I can make sense of these endless conflicts:

- Disabled Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isle until I am done with Main quest. I have too many quests to work on before I can start these standalone modules anyway.

- Disabled advanced items such as Mythic Weapons, Phenix armor etc... I will activate them one by one at a later date. For now, I have plenty of content from OOO and MMM o keep me busy.

- Disabled Soulgem and Lantern mod to see if they are replaced by OOO.

- Deleted some less important mods ; Daedric seducers (already included in MMM), Adonnay Elven Longblades (already included in Elven Weaponry), Tamrielic Artifacts (prefered to keep Old School Artefacts instead).

Between these issues and the pending arrival of final versions of Streamline, OOO and fixes to MMM, I guess all I have to do is forget about playing the game yet again and go back to quick test sessions instead. 

Another example of complex mods interactions

The Hunger effect from 'Survival Suite:HTS' kept stopping for some reason. I tried other Hunger, Sleep packages and they ended up interfering with encumbrance and other effects from 'Mighty Magick'. 

Looking at conflicts with OBMM, I found an overlap between 'A new beginning' and 'Survival Suite:HTS' around the Player object. 

'A new beginning' and 'Survival Suite:HTS' both change the Player object (HTS adds a script and ANB adds inventory - armor, weapon and clothing). Placing 'A New Beginning' last gave me the corrct inventory but the script from HTS was lost. Placing the mod before HTS resolved that, but I did not have the inventory any more.

On top of that, 'More Realistic Encumberment' calculates new encumbrance values based on the assumption that initially, the player is not wearing anything else than the sack cloth from the prison tutorial.The weight from the new inventory provided by 'A new beginning' was enough to throw these calculations off and block the encumbrance effect.

Using all three mods together made them interfere with each other.

Continue reading "Complex mods interactions" »

I came across two naked NPCs after installing Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul. One was a blacksmith in Anvil and the other was in the Fighter Guild in Skingrad. 

After troubleshooting the issue for a while, it seems that, quite simply, OOO doesn't check if a NPCs have any kind of clothing before removing their armor when they sleep/wake up.

In the case of Fadus Calidus in Skingrad, that NPC doesn't have clothing under his armor to begin with (vanilla oblivion), so he ends up naed when OOO disrobes him.

In the case of Varel Morvayn in Anvil, Blackmagic's Rogue Set replaces his clothing by an armor set, instead of adding the set to his list. So then again, if that mod is loaded after OOO, the blackmisth ends up naked.

Unless OOO adds a check for available clothing before changing what they wear, you can expect to see a few more naked NPCs eventually. I ended up creating a small .esp that restores the NPCs clothing and included it in the bashed patch. Works like a charm.

For more on this issue :

[REL] Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul 1.32 RC2 - Bethesda Game Studios Forums 

I am pleased to announce that we will be hosting the CTD Help troubleshooting tool  recently introduced in the official Oblivion forum.

CTD Help - Troubleshooting Tool is an attempt at providing an automated diagnosis tool for issues with Load Order, Crash To Desktop (CTD) and other problems you may encounter when using several mods with 'TES IV: Oblivion'

This tool was created by 'verruckt'. If you have questions or suggestions to improve it, please feel free to participate to the Official CTD Help Thread on the Bethesda forum.

Stats restore - a useful utility to fix a broken game.

Keep that in mind in case of emergency.

Since I started using 'A New Beginning', I noticed that the Hunger effect from 'Hunger, Thirst, Sleep' was no longer working properly.

Sleep and Drink effects were working fine but the Hunger effect kept getting stuck, unaffected by the food or time.

Running Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM) showed a conflict between HTS.esp and anb.esp. 

Moving HTS.esp after 'A new beginning'  in the Load Order seem to have fixed that problem. 

Tonight I had a good example of how interactions between mods can look like bugs.

I was trying to find a way to fix an issue between the lightning effect from 'Storms & Sound' and the rain effects from 'Natural Environments' (sometimes, the whole sky stays bright after a lightning strike).

In the process of my troubleshooting, I ended up changing the load order between these two mods.

I forgot about it after I gave up tryng to figure this out, and while I was playing some more, I came across a systematic crash when using transportation from 'Cyrodiil Transportation Network'.

Oblivion would just crash each time I selected a travel destination.

It turns out the game crashed when trying to apply a new weather pattern after I selected a destination to travel to. What looked like a bug in CTN was in fact caused by a wrong load order between weather mods. 

There is an 'offline' interactive map available at :

http://www.tesnexus.com/files/file.php?id=3961

and an experimental 'online' one using Google API here :

http://www.uesp.net/oblivion/map/obmap.shtml

- Conflict between mods

Solution: Disable mods one at a time until your game doesn't crash anymore (or crashes less). Do not save over your current game while testing - create new test saves.

- Bad load order between mods

Solution: Study Readme files for your mods and use Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM) to move mods around. There are a few pages of hints about how to find a good load order (look at the Forum FAQ).

- Mod Incompletely Installed

Solution: Try to identify if something is causing crashes in particular (entering a house, talking to an NPC in particular, etc...) to identify which mod is causing this and reinstall the mod in question.

- Bug in a Mod

Solution: Check out the comments section of the downloaded mod (most places like TES Source, Elric, etc... have comments sections for each mod) or look for mod threads in the official forum. If you can't find anything, ask in the forum if this is a known bug. Have your list of installed mods ready when you ask.

- Fragmented Hard Drive

Solution: Keep extra room available on your system and your Oblivion drives (if they are separate). Keep both drives frequently defragmented (once a week). Some software such as Diskeeper have options to keep drives automatically defragmented based on usage.

- Slow Hard Drive

Solution: Use utilities such as HD Tack to find which one of your drive is the fastest. Install Oblivion on that drive or buy a new drive if you don't have anything fast enough.

- Insufficient Memory

Solution: If you are going to use a lot of mods, in particular graphic / textures enhancers, make sure your video card has at least 512M of RAM and your machine at least 1 Gb (2 Gb is better).

- Tasks running in background while Oblivion is playing (email, spyware scans, antivirus scan)

Solution: Disable anything you can find that is not necessary to your system while you are playing. Oblivion doesn't like to be distracted by something else on your computer, especially if other tasks compete for drive access with it.

- Video Drivers or other known issue with the base game

Solution: Stay up to date on your video drivers. Check out the official forums to find out if there are known issues between Oblivion and your video card.

- Bad Archive Invalidation for meshes or textures

Solution: Make sure new meshes and textures introduced by mods are correctly registered with the game. Use either the 'OBMM BSA updater' or the 'Archive Invalidation Invalidated!' method to keep your game up to date.

- Corrupted Saved Game

Solution: Avoid using Quick Save or saves during combat. Use plain saves, if possible one per playing session. Create a new save when you start playing and overwrite it from time to time until you are done. Then create a new save just before quitting the game.

I fell in love with MMM for what it adds on top of OOO - mainly new creatures, diverse mobs (groups of skeletons or gobelins with different sizes, colors, etc), other adventurers that can help you... or not.

I wouldn't mind to see some of the additional weapons and armors from Fancesco's (or from Warcry more accurately), but since I already have more armors and weapons to look for than I can care about, i can live without it.

In short - I use OOO for the richness it adds to the game and MMM for the life it brings on top of OOO.

There are a few ways to create a list of currently used mods.

One method consists in using the command prompt of Windows to create a list of .esm and .esp files in your Oblivion/Data folder. The method itself is described in details in the Oblivion Mods FAQ section of the The Elder Scrolls Wiki. 

The second method is provided by a program especially designed for this purpose - Super Simple Mod List Generator ... which is really a batch script of the commands listed in the first method. The problem with these two methods is that they will include mods that are not currently activated, as long as they are in the Data folder.

For a more accurate list of active mods, the last method is a by-product of Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM). Install it and run it at least once.

The plugins.txt file created by OBMM is located in :

C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Local Settings\Application Data\Oblivion

The method I follow is roughly around this model :

• ESM files first (they are loaded first anyway but it doesn't hurt forcing the order)
• Official plugins
• Unique landscapes 1
• Textures modifications
• Weather modifications
• Light modifications
• OOO mods
• MMM mods
• PJ compendium
• Supreme Magicka
• other Spell effects
• New armors and weapons
• New NPCs
• Unique landscapes 2 (some UL mods have to be installed at the end, some at the beginning)
• New Quests (ruin tail, etc...)
• Utilities

There are also exceptions. If you look at my list, some mods do not follow this model and are placed earlier or later. You will need a lot of trial and errors activating and deactivation mods to fine tune them, but this should get you started.

Also, if you are using OBMM, an easy way to get a list of your mods is by looking for the Plugins.txt file under : Local Settings\Application Data\Oblivion.

More  tips about the load order at : http://devnull.devakm.googlepages.com/loadorder

Are you  getting the sound effect of a spell every 5 to 10 seconds after you started wearing a particular item or being affected by some other mod ?

You are most likely victim of a conflict between mods in which one mod is altering the way some magic effect is working in order to create a new effect, which in turn is causing the new script effect to still use a sound from the original magical effect.

The reason this is happening is because Oblivion has a limited number of magical effects. If a mod needs to create a new effect (such as the Conjurer Boon in Mighty Magick, or a Hunger/Thirst effect for example), there is no other way than altering an existing effect to serve a new purpose.  

You'll either have to disable the interfering mod or if you want to keep it, you will need to get a script effect icon replacer ESP (a lot of flyfightflea's mods have them packaged with them) and load it towards the end of your list.

http://www.tesnexus.com/files/file.php?id=7232

I'd say you can get very close to the same gaming experience.

I still miss the customizable interface from Morrowind, the text based storytelling (a lot richer than voice acting) and levitation also to some extend (I know there is a mod for that but I got used to not having it by now) but that's about it.

First, some features in Oblivion are real improvements on Morrowind:

- better graphics (from spell effects to lush environments)
- more realistic NPCs (Radiant AI is not perfect but it is an improvement over static NPCs from Morrowind)
- physics effects (makes the world more tangible even if it is not perfect as well)
- mounts (although lacking the capability to fight from a horse)

The mods I currently have eliminated all of the things I found annoying with Oblivion :

• fast travel (disabled by Cyrodiil Transportation Network)
• world wide leveling with you (replaced by static levels in OOO)
• game console interface (replaced by more immersive interface mods and wz interface)
• cryptic persuasion system (simplified by a persuasion overhaul mod)
• missing travel agents : land travels, boats, mage guild teleport, mark/recall (replaced by Cyrodiil Transportation Network)
• bland map (replaced by aged, color map)
• missing levitation (available in Supreme Magicka)
• clumsy tutorial (replaced by simple questions on a ship to Anvil in A new beginning)
• static prices and unlimited vendor gold amount (both fixed by Living Economy)
  
• repetitive scenery (the Unique Landscape project brings more diversity to Cyrodiil)
  

And you also have the equivalent to some of the best Morrowind mods :

• gold weight and better encumbrance mods
• eat, sleep and drink mods (fixed by mods such as Hunger, Thirst, Sleep)
  
• texture replacement (Qarl's is almost a standard)
• better bodies (TNR is astounding)
• illuminated windows
• more immersive sounds (Atmospheric Oblivion).
  

• Books
• Unique armors and weapons (Old School Artifacts)
  
• Creeper
• Guars (wild Guars exist in MMM and pack guars are now included in Tamriel Travellers)
• Dwemer spiders (included in MMM)

If you are in a mod debugging phase, the best approach is to create a base character without any mod - save it at the beginning of the prison cell tutorial and save it just before the exit of the sewers (in case you want to make changes to the race or class later).

Once the character is saved, reactivate all the mods and do a save outside the sewers - that's the character you will debug with. Take him/her out for a spin - fast travel everywhere you want to test things - just have fun with it without thinking too much about quests.

Add / remove mods. Change load orders. Install updates. Whatever it takes to fix issues with your game.

And once you are happy with all the changes, trash that character, go back to the save before the sewer exit and start fresh.

There is always a risk to corrupt saved games when debugging a lot of mods. Better to trash the debug character and start over with a clean one.

Missing meshes appear as yellow squares with a giant exclamation mark. The official patch version 1.2 (included with Shivering Isles) introduced a 'fix' that replaces missing meshes by these giant yellow markers instead of just ignoring them.

Read below for instructions on how to fix missing meshes.

Continue reading "How to fix missing meshes ?" »

Based on the observation that the .esp file from Shivering Isles seems to be doing nothing more than registering new resources in the game, famous modder Quarn released a clever alternative to OBMM and Archive Invalidation files.

ArchiveInvalidation Invalidated! v1.1.0

I just went through a major optimization.

After backing up Oblivion.ini and let the game create a new one, I got rid of several tweaks that do not make sense any more with the 1.2 version of Oblivion.

Then I installed Oblivion Script Extender (OBSE)  which is a requirement for the Streamline 1.0 mod, and experienced a significant improvement of framerate overall. Some crash still persist - they could be due to corrupt saved games with Quicksave. I will have to check that out.

Note: Streamline 2.0 is out (04/25/2007)

Uninstalling Iolo System Mechanic and installed Diskeeper, with automatic defragmentation of C and Game drive. The game seems more stable now.

Known issues with Knights of the Nine :

- should be loaded at the end of load order
- increases chances of crash on exit (sometimes 100% with certain mods loaded AFTER Knights.esp)

After a few months dealing with a multitude of mods for Oblivion, here are a few rules I have come to follow:

- Save a copy of the original archive of every mod you care about (zip, rar, 7z files).

I ran into a few situations where a new version of a mod introduced issues or features that I didn't like. I was glad to be able to return to a previous version of these mods, as the earlier files were not available for download.

- Make backups of your Oblivion folder

Once you are satisfied with a particular combination of mods, SAVE a copy of your Oblivion folder, along with a copy of your 'My Games/Oblivion' folder. If things get seriously messed up after installing a mod (and sometimes they do), you will be glad to have a working copy of the game to return to.

- Install new mods with extreme care

Use a separate folder to unwrap archive files (I use 'Oblivion/data/install'). Once the files are in that folder, review the readme files for special installation instructions and move the readme / screenshots / documentation files to a special folder ('Oblivion/Data/Readme')  to reduce the clutter in your main Data folder.

- When upgrading existing mods, if possible, use Clean Saves.

1. Start Oblivion - Save.
2. Run Oblivion Mods Manager - disable the mods you want to upgrade
3. Start Oblivion - Save again
4. Run Oblivion Mods Manager - activate the new versions, and move them to the same load order as the old versions
5. Run Oblivion - Save again
6. Quit Oblivion

You should be able to minimize conflicts and save games corruptions doing things this way.

Be careful though, as you will loose any item acquired through any mod you are upgrading with this method.

- If clean saves are not possible, upgrade using the same name for the esp files (rename if necessary) and the same load order.

Keep a separate copy of your load order as a text file for future reference. 

- The first time after adding new mods, run Oblivion in Windowed mode.

It will make it easier to kill it or recover from a crash in case the game gets stuck on the first Loading screen (usually a sympthom of a bad load order).

- Keep older copies of mods you no longer want to use or special versions of esp files.

Some mods come with different esp files with specific settings. You usually have to chose one of them and discard the others. Do not delete them ... simply copy them in another folder (I use 'Oblivion / Data/ unused'). You will be happy to have them later if you change your mind.

Managing mods cleanly in Oblivion (or Morrowind for that matter) requires some level of organization, but it pay offs greatly in prevented frustrations and enjoyable game time. 

Purchased a new official mod and got the same, disappointing, pop-up quest out of nowehere when I activated it (speaking of activation, these official mods are a pain to activate. I had to start my PC in Safe Mod every single time I wanted to get past the activation code to actually install the thing).

I recently downloaded updates to several mods. Soon after, Oblivion refused to start (frozen during Loading sequence).

After much tweaking I traced back the issue to three updates:

- Mighty Magick 4.5

- Arcane university revamped 

- Cyrodiil Transportation Network

The issue with MM was resolved with a further update (apparently, I the update I first caught was corrupted when made available on TES source).

Issue with AUR and CTN were resolved by changing the load order. It appears they have to be loaded at the top of the list (soon after the official mods) in order for them to work.

Once again, the Oblivion Mod Manager is your best friend when dealing with multiple, often conflicting mods. 

I took some time over the holiday to reinstall the last round of plugins, one set at a time, to try and trace back the source of my performance problems.

Thanks to the Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM) - http://timeslip.chorrol.com/obmm.html - I traced the issue back to the ArchiveInvalidation.txt file used by many mods to point Oblivion to new locations of already used textures in the game.

Short story - forget updating this file and use OBMM to manage the load order of your mods, review and resolve conflicts. 

The first official patch was released yesterday (v1.1).

Curiously since installing it, I am experiencing very long delays when starting the game. Going from the initial 'Bethesda' video to the first 'Loading' screen (before even getting t the main menu) takes up to 20 minutes  !

I am not sure if this is caused by the patch itself, a mod I recently installed or a combination of the two.