Ahoy.

Initial apologies if I'm not clear enough.

Currently, Oblivion will randomly CTD every ten or so minutes. And often when loading a savefile. The random crashes do not appear to be triggered by anything in particular.

I have a fair number of mods installed (around fifty), I use OBMM, and for the load order I use BOSS http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=20516). Any mods not recognized by BOSS (Right now, only small item mods that don't override anything, just add items.) I simply leave be.

Is this a common issue, fixed easily? Am I doing something rather stupid to cause this? Any of the more popular mods infamous for this (most of the mods I use are in the top 100 list).

Thank you.

General Load-Order Guidelines


Here are the guidelines that I adhere to, personally.

~ Unofficial Oblivon Patch should always be first on the list. The fixes are great, but most aren't essential, so if a mod overwrites them its not a big deal, and the fixes have the potential for screwing up other mods if loaded later.

~ Offical Content (DLC's) should be loaded last, until you complete all quests associated with them (that includes buying all furniture for the houses and whatnot). Once they're complete, they can be safely moved up in the list. This is especially important for Knights of the Nine, which will have some fairly major problems unless loaded last (unless you get the UOP for KotN)

~ Major overhaul mods (OOO, Frans, MMM) should be loaded near the end. That gives you the most complete experience with any of those particular mods. It also lets you carefully choose which other mods to load afterwards... only move mods that you know will conflict and that you want the changes from. For example, I have Improved Soul Gems below OOO because I know that OOO changes the icons of some of the SG's, and ISG needs to be below to show through.

Some people will recommend putting larger mods first, but personally I disagree. There are a number of mods out there that make minor tweaks, and loading after a large mod will end up completely overwriting a chunk from one of the bigger mods because of the way conflicts work in Oblivion (even one minor change will take precedence over the entire record... for example, simply tweaking the speed of a weapon can cause every stat of that weapon to be retained to vanilla levels if loaded later).

So basically, it stacks up like this...

Oblivion.esm
Unofficial Oblivion Patch
<Minor Mods / DLC's (Post-Completion)>
<Major Overhaul Mod/Mods>
<Mods that specifically conflict with overhauls and need to take precedence>
<DLC's (Pre-Completion)>



Expanded Load-Order Guidelines
by dev_akm

I would extend this to include:

Oblivion.esm
Unofficial Oblivion Patch
<Weather/Environment/Sound Mods>
<Minor Mods/New Items/Houses/DLC's (Post-Completion)>
<Major Overhaul Mods>
<Mods that specifically conflict with overhauls and need to take precedence>
<DLC's (Pre-Completion)>
<Quests>
<Compatibility Patches/UOMP/Merged Leveled Lists>

And a special-case warning for Knights.esp (Knights of the Nine) -- you may not be able to move it earlier than some other mods (some people have had problems after moving it before OOO, for example).

That's basically the structure I use and I have 140+ mods working well together.

Another way of describing this (posted by DMan77):
....
Oblivion
unoffical patch
Deeper realism mods that add sights and sounds
added content like weapons/items
gameplay changes, like 'must eat and sleep'
The OOO type
the 'new begining' type mod..
...


If your crashing on saved games,go into your options at game start.shut off save on fast travel and save on rest as the are know to cause crashes and corrupted saves after a while!

Thanks for the tip on saves; I'll be sure to do as you suggested.

As for your load order guides... I've seen them when looking for answers in other threads. Handy, but I always assumed BOSS would've more or less taken care of my load order. I'll look into re-arranging a few things, though.

Edit: The crashing on saves is gone. I still randomly crash every now and again, though. Especially if outside.

I don't use boss,but have used obmm and those guidelines for a long time. I get the occassional nividia blackscreen,but haven't had a CTD in ages.

I moved a few things around and haven't had a crash for a while. A good sign, I'd say. Thanks for the tips, I seem mostly stable for now.

Edit: Bah, after installing another mod it all going crazy again. I'll just follow the guidelines you posted and hopefully it becomes stable again.

NEW ISSUE!

Capitols to snag attention.

I've now fixed the random crashes, for the most part. I don't up and crash every ten minutes, now. Just once or twice a day. I do, however, have a NEW problem. I crash, without fail, every single time I save. All autosaves are disabled.

Any ideas? Anyone?

are you making a new save or saving over a previously saved game?

Didn't matter which one, it just crashed.

I seemed to have fixed it, somehow. It's not doing it anymore. I re-arranged and re-installed a few mods, so it was probably corrupted files.

I still crash occasionally when loading a file, but otherwise I'm stable. Again. For now.

Right now I'm trying to fix my Kvatch. The church is... Fragmented. Y'know, half invisible and broken up into pieces. Can't use the door.

I've checked any mods that would be even remotely relevant, but none seem to be the problem.

Edit: While it is still wonky, I've gotten around it by using movetoqt in the console.

Now, yet ANOTHER problem arises, and I'm trying to fix it. I get to the main menu, then crash. Doesn't matter if it's a new game or loading an old one. I installed and uninstalled several mods since it was last working, so either one of the new ones is corrupted, or I messed up the installation of an old one.

Edit: I'm quickly running out of patience with this. I've done all I know of and still it wont work. Ugh.

I changed my main menu music (it plays fine), would that SOMEHOW cause this?

Edit: Nope, had nothing to do with it. Great... Been at it for over three hours. I'm BORED and kinda pissed.

Look, I hate to double post and all, but I would like to call some extra attention to this thread. I REALLY want to get back into my game, and I'm at a loss. I've been able to dodge past everything before this, but this time it's not budging.

And yes, I have tried deactivating all my mods. No luck. Pain in the ass to reactivate them all, to boot.

Anyone?