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it started today, I noticed it when i went thur a room in a cave and the fire wasn't dancing under a rat that was cooking,

so i reloaded and tried it again, same thing, so i went and deleted al my saved files, about 60 all together.

reloaded and its still happening, this happen last time also, right after i Found every location and went thur 98% of them,

I have over 500+ hrs, all quests for the MQ, FQ, MQ and DB are complete, was saving the TQ for last.

hmmmm i going to deleted the autosave file also, didn't do that last time, see if it might give me a few more weeks,

before having to kill off the character and start a new one.

first it was Blackhawk, so his son was created...
Now it is Ravenhawk that is getting it.
I guess the Daughter of Ravenhawk, is ready for her time to adventure out in the world.

Sparrowhawk Ve'gal coming to a game console near you soon.

I'm a chronic restarter, and I got lucky on my one long character, so I feel for you. Losing your beloved high level characters must get annoying.

Are you guys playing on the PC? If so then it's easy to fix A-Bomb. Just download a tool called OAF (I think it stand for Oblivion Abomb Fixer). It can fix any saved game with the a-bomb glitch.

Actually I don't even have Oblivion anymore, and I was on Xbox. I was just lucky not to hit it really.

no, I'm on the PS3....

it is official, the A-bomb come-th, tried everything nothing worked, shortly after wards, vapor trails were left by magical weapons fire,
then the door would not open, so i accepted the fact, that death was a coming.

so i decided to go out with a good fight, first i started off by killing everyone in Skingrad, broke into every house and killed them all.

the only lucky one to survive was the Inns keeper, took care of every guard that came at me.
headed up to the castle to look for the King, took out a few more guards,
for some reason, i could not find the King, headed into the court yard, attacked by another guard, killed him,
went back in to look around again, still no luck, so went back to the court yard,
where another guard attacked me, then all of sudden, they were coming out of the woodworks,
their was like 10 to 15 of them,. pounding away at me, I tried to attack back, but they kept me off guard, tried running away,
but there was so many, i could not get thur, took them about 5 mins, to kill me.

so now it time for Ravenhawk's Daughter to start her adventure,,,,Sparrowhawk Ve'gal has arrived.

I don't have a PS3 myself, but I've done some research and, according to what I've been reading, the PS3 has USB ports and supports USB Flash Drives (Memory Sticks) which are pretty cheap nowadays. This means you should be able to use a USB Stick to transfer your Oblivion savegame to your PC, repair the Abomb bug there, then transfer it back to PS3 again.

Here are some step-by-step instructions I found for copying savegames from PS3 to a USB Stick. I'm assuming you can do it the other way around to copy back as well.

If the Xbox 360 has similar USB capabilities, 360 users should be able to repair their Abomb problems via PC as well.

Note: All this is assuming that console Oblivion savegames are NOT copy protected and are in the same file format as the PC version. Can any PS3 or 360 owners confirm whether this is true or not?

I'm an Engineer with ZERO hands-on experience of PS3's or 360's so, if this "fix" works, I'll be deliriously happy!

Just make sure you don't have Xbox live or the PlayStation 3 equivalent I heard that if you do they know and will lock off the save file.

I found this page on the UESP Wiki, specific to the 360 version. It gives step-by-step instructions for using a USB Stick to transfer Oblivion saves from 360 to PC and convert them to the PC version's .ess file format, so you can continue a 360 Oblivion game on PC Oblivion. Once you've converted to .ess format, you can easily repair the Abomb bug. Unfortunately, there's no mention of how to convert and transfer BACK to 360, but it may be possible using 360-specific 3rd party PC software (if available).

For PS3 owners, there's NO similar info on the UESP Wiki. However, the same transfer-convert-repair-convertback-transferback process may be possible using PS3-specific 3rd party PC software (if available).

It's that "if available" clause that's the problem. You'll just have to get Googling, guys!

And before there are any complaints about "violating security measures", let me say this. It's NOT cheating to repair a MAJOR flaw (time-bomb that renders the game unplayable after X hours) which shouldn't have been there in the first place. Players have paid good money for the game and they SHOULD be able to continue enjoying it!

After all, a car doesn't suddenly become undrivable after 100+ hours, and a TV doesn't suddenly become unwatchable after 100+ hours. Why should a game suddenly become unplayable after 100+ hours? That's just silly!

@Bethesda: I invite you to release a "minor" patch for PC/console Oblivion owners which cures the "Abomb bug" once and for all. That way, console players who don't have access to any "Abomb repair utility" won't have to go to such extreme lengths to try to repair it. It's been 5 years since Oblivion was released and this MAJOR flaw is still present. Don't you think it's about time it was finally fixed?

Hope this helps.

I'll agree with you on that score. I remember when Oblivion was first released, Bethesda hosted an "iron man" competition to see who could rack up the most hours on the same character. The winner won with 960 if I remember correctly. The reason I bring this up is that Abomb had to have happened by that point, and I'm sure the guy reported it - so they know about the problem!

And to think, all it takes to repair Abomb is to change the value of one freaking byte in the save game.

the Final Stats of Adventurer/Assassin/Thief Ravenhawk Ve'Gal son of Blackhawk.

Ravenhawks final stats of life, (stats off save file)

Level 31
Day 567
570-31-48 (assuming this is hrs/mins/secs of game time)

another interesting fact, Blackhawk Died just over 2 yrs ago on Jul 2, 2008. same as Ravenhawk almost, thats when if started,
I killed him off as of Jul 5, 2010.

see how long Sparrowhawk last, Daughter of Ravenhawk, hopefully pass Jul 2, 2012, maybe make it to the end of the Civilization , 12/12/12 as they say.

I found a couple of interesting comments on the Bethesda "Iron Man" blog. I can't link directly to them, so here they are in full:-

Strangely, sadly and ironically, the only way to get 1,000 hours on one character is to be on the PC version, and use an unofficial fix. At 220+ hours the animation bug kicks in, the game becomes unplayable and zBobGuy’s program or Wrye Bash is required. It kicks in at about 450+ hours on the XBox due to the lower internal framerate. No word yet from PS3 players on when it starts (if at all… maybe it was fixed or nonexistent in the PS3 version.)

I guess we now have confirmation that Abomb DOES affect the PS3 version, apparently after some 570+ hours in this case. Also, PC video card performance varies widely, so I'd take that 220+ hours with a pinch of salt. Older PC's with single-core CPU's and/or entry level video cards might run the game at 20fps or less, whereas a top-flight quad-core CPU gaming rig with Quad SLI video cards might run it at 100fps+. The Abomb counter is framerate dependent so the faster the framerate, the faster it will count. This means that high-end PC's (fast framerates) will manifest Abomb effects MUCH sooner than low-end PC's (slow framerates)!

The Abomb animation bug is caused by a steadily increasing counter in the TESClass chunk of the save file. It starts at 0x41000000 and increases at a rate determined by the framerate. When it hits 0x49000000 the animation bug kicks in. It was never fixed by any patches…

Personally, I use Wrye Bash to reset the counter about once per 20 hours of gameplay. I occasionally forget, but the highest I've ever seen it is around 45%. I've reset it hundreds of times and it apparently has ZERO effect on gameplay. However, "When it reaches 0x49000000 the animation bug kicks in" tells me that the most logical fix is to simply prevent the counter ever reaching the trigger value, and this can be implemented with an absurdly simple ONE line of C++ code:-


If I was into conspiracy theories, I could easily convince myself that the Abomb bug is a deliberate time-bomb designed to STOP people playing a game which has potentially 1000's of hours of gameplay and go out to buy NEW games, which obviously generates MORE profit for developers AND console manufacturers. They told you the "truth" when they advertised the game as open-ended (in the sense that it doesn't end with the usual "Game Over, roll credits" sequence, forcing you to start a new game or exit). The real truth, though, is that the game ISN'T open-ended (in the sense that it MUST end because it's effectively TIME-limited resulting in a "Game Over" situation anyway)! And why, when the bug is KNOWN to affect ALL Oblivion owners across ALL formats and was reported to Bethesda years ago, and a fix is SO absurdly simple, have they NEVER bothered to fix it? That's VERY suspicious, imo.

If you're reading this, Bethesda, I think I speak for ALL when I say we'd certainly be interested in any comments...

There's no need to reset the counter so often...it's sufficient to wait till AFTER Abomb has shown up before resetting it. I recently reset my savegame from a value of 49 (Abomb active) to 41 (Abomb deactivated) with no ill effects.

If you're not particularly C++ skilled then you can just use OAF (Oblivion ABomb Fixer) to take care of it.

h8ball: pretty illogical way to stop people playing
They could've just implemented characters ageing, and forcing them on pension after they get too old :'D
At least that would seem natural.

My file is at 210 hours (60-75 FPS generally) so UH OH we'll see if I get a-bombed soon

Yeah. There's me at 120 years old, inching around Cyrodiil in my wheelchair, gleefully baiting Xivilai... <bump> "Dearie me. Sorry, sonny. Caught you on the shin, did I? You wouldn't hit an old man, would you? ... No?" <whack> "Sorry again. Forget my own head next." <clanggg> "Sorry! Just emptying my bedpan!" <splosh> "Whoops! Sat on my incontinence bag again. Silly old buffer, ain't I?" <paaaaarrrrrrrrp> "Hoo-eeee! That Pumpkin soup's a killer for giving me gas... Better out than in, I always say!" ... "Oh look, he's dead. Honestly! Kids these days have NO respect!"