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I have at my disposal the GOTY version of Oblivion, the Oblivion Mod Manager, and two mods: Quarl's Texture Pack 3 Redimized and Natural Environments. I created OBMM files for both but realized that the Natural Environments mod wasn't showing up in game, so I wasn't using it. I then decided to try playing around and deactivated QTP3 and suddenly Natural Environments is there...but all of the near ground textures are missing. (See one, two, and three.) The distance looks fine, and so does the environment. If I reactivate the QTP3 everything reappears, but then I don't have Natural Environments. If I deactivate both, then the missing textures don't reappear.

I followed all the steps for creating a OBMM file, but this is my first experience with Oblivion mods so I'm not even certain I'm doing it right. I'm assuming QTP3 overwrote the vanilla textures, and deactivating it "broke" the game, and Natural Environments doesn't support them so it won't add them back. Why won't they work together? I searched far and low but no one else seems to have a conflict with these two mods. Suggestions? In the very least, is there a way to get my missing textures back without reactivating QTP3?

Help me, UESP. I am a hopeless, hopeless s'wit when it comes to TES mods.

By default, the game gets all of its textures from the archive file Oblivion - Textures - Compressed.bsa. When you install replacement textures, you need to edit ArchiveInvalidation.txt to specify which textures in the archive are overridden by external ones (in the Textures folder). When you uninstall (delete) them, you need to edit ArchiveInvalidation.txt to remove the matching entries so Oblivion reverts to using the archive versions again. If not, the game's "archive invalidation" code is bugged, fails to revert as its supposed to, and reports the texture as missing. The game then creates a plain diffuse colour texture on-the-fly, typically a bright colour like pink, red, yellow, etc. These are easily spotted (as you've seen) and act as a "missing texture alert" for game designers or mod authors.

Same goes for meshes in Oblivion - Meshes.bsa. If you install or uninstall replacement ones, you need to edit ArchiveInvalidation.txt to match. If not, the same "archive invalidation" code bug strikes here too and reports meshes missing. For each one reported, the game falls back to using its default mesh, marker_error.nif, a large yellow star-shaped mesh with the text "I'm a missing mesh!" on it. Again, this is easily seen even at long distance, so acts as a "missing mesh alert".

A tiny mod called ArchiveInvalidation Invalidated (do a search at TESNexus for it) will solve all this hassle for you. It fools the bugged "archive invalidation" code into using external meshes and textures automatically, and reverting automatically if/when they're uninstalled or accidentally deleted. You can then install/uninstall mods at will and NEVER see another missing mesh/texture alert for ANY that exist in the archives. You can also happily delete ArchiveInvalidation.txt because the game will NEVER read that file again!

Imo, that's HOW the mesh/texture replacement system should have worked in the first place. Shame that we have to use a tiny little mod (only 3Kb) to fix what Bethesda botched up. BSA stands for Bethesda Softworks Archive, by the way.

I'm using Natural Environments and QTP3 Redimized, but via Wrye Bash because I don't like the hassle of converting every mod I download to OBMM format. I only ever install via OBMM if I have NO other choice, i.e. if the mod is ONLY available in OBMM format.

I prefer the Installers tab in Wrye Bash. It has a VERY powerful "Annealing" feature which works as follows... On Install, Bash ONLY extracts files from the installer if they don't exist in other installers further down the list. On Uninstall, Bash ONLY deletes files that don't exist in any other installer, and for those that do, re-extracts each file from the furthest installer down the list which contains it. This automatically keeps installed files "in sync" with installers, saving you a lot of headaches trying to figure out how to do it your own.

Hope this helps.

Ah, very helpful indeed! Thank you so much, H8Ball! I appreciate the response, especially a swift and thorough one from our beloved Mod Squad.

OBMM was recommended to me for it's simplicity, but I do like Bash as I'm used to it (albeit likely a simpler version) for Morrowind mods. I'll have to look into it for Oblivion. I'm going to use this information to go straighten things out. I'll come back and edit to say how successful it is in case it might be any help to other players.

HUGE double thumbs up for your kind thanks, and awaiting your next post with interest!

Bash Installers are a bit more complex to understand but, once you get used to the concept of how they work, you'll find they have distinct advantages over OBMM's way of doing things. Saves you converting to OBMM format for a start, and then there's the powerful "annealing" feature which keeps files synchronised with their installers, saving you the trouble.

Once you have ArchiveInvalidation Invalidated installed, you DON'T need to use ANY of OBMM's archive invalidation methods, so keep them ALL disabled.

Note: To install ArchiveInvalidation Invalidated manually, just drop the tiny BSA into Oblivion\Data, then add it to the START of the SArchiveList= line in Oblivion.ini, e.g...

Before: SArchiveList=Oblivion - Meshes.bsa, Oblivion - Textures - Compressed.bsa, Oblivion - Sounds.bsa, Oblivion - Voices1.bsa, Oblivion - Voices2.bsa, Oblivion - Misc.bsa

After: SArchiveList=ArchiveInvalidationInvalidated!.bsa, Oblivion - Meshes.bsa, Oblivion - Textures - Compressed.bsa, Oblivion - Sounds.bsa, Oblivion - Voices1.bsa, Oblivion - Voices2.bsa, Oblivion - Misc.bsa

The new BSA simply contains ONE dummy asset that's NEVER used by Oblivion. That's why the new BSA is so tiny. The archive invalidation code searches the first BSA, THEN external folders if not found, THEN the next BSA, THEN external folders if not found, etc. What apparently trips up the code is doing multiple BSA/folder searches for different file types in sequence. It somehow gets itself confused and fails to find the asset at all, triggering a fall-back to default (use error mesh or create texture on-the-fly). The dummy asset forces the first BSA search to ALWAYS fail so the code is immediately forced to the second step, effectively searching FOLDERS FIRST. This always successfully finds the asset IF it's external, but if not, the code THEN goes on to search BSA's in sequence as normal. Clever little trick that fools the code into working "correctly" every time!

Infinite kudos to whoever discovered this amazing workaround that makes installing/uninstalling mods a doddle. As Mr. Spock would say... "Logical. Flawlessly logical." <-- <raising left eyebrow, see?>