UESP Forums

Hi everyone!
I've been playing Oblivion for a few months now, got to level 27, and installed plenty of mods, which all work fine.
So I was just going to put some loot away in my trusty Fighters Stronghold, like I've done a hundred times before, and all of a sudden, the game CTD's when saving. Be it menu save, quicksave or autosave when passing a door.
So I try loading the previous game again, which works fine, but again, the next save crashes me to my desktop.
So I try a load before that one, and hurray! I can make a good save again... Untill I save the next time after that.
I start to freak...
I start reading all the topics and wiki's about crashes, corrupt savegames etc. I install every mod and tweak with OBSE18 that should make my game smoother. I even install WryeBash on top of my OBMM, to see if there are any mods that might have conflicts (even though I've been playing for months with all my mods). I also delete a couple of mods that WryeBash didn't like so much, just to be safe.
I load another game, play a bit, save - crash! plus each savegame that crashed me is corrupted.
I've tried every savegame I've made while @ level 27, and they work fine, up untill I make new saves.

Strange thing is, it SEEMS that if I go back 4 saves before the crash (BTC), I can save 3 times just fine, but the 4th makes the game CTD.
If I go back 3 saves BTC: 2 saves, then crash on save.
Now, that might be my imagination, but I'm 80% sure.

So, what on earth is going on, and how can I fix it? I've even tried to reinstall Oblivion + SI + patch 1.2.416
I've installed the UOP 3.2.10, USIP 1.4.0, UOModsPatch v.15, stutter remover, fastexit2, streamline.
My only savegame before all the horror, before level 27, was @level 24, about 55 hours worth of time, and I'm not planning on redoing all that.

I'm desperate here. Any help is welcome...

You could try and save via the console. Try the command "savegame" without the quotes.

I've tried that, but that also makes the game CTD when I'm at the "last" fatal save...
It's so weird, I can load just fine (except the crashed/corrupt saves), I can even play just fine, enter buildings etc (I disabled the autosave function). So as long as I don't save, everything is fine, but as soon as I hit that magical "N"-th save, the game CTD's.
It's like my savegame has a built in timebomb, that makes the game crash whenever I make the N-th save. I've made about 300 saves, but I've read that people have over a 1000 saves, and I've got plenty of HDD space, so that can't be it, can it?

Try turning off the autoosave on wait/sleep and see if it works afterwards

haha weird..I have a very similiar problem too that arose just a few hours ago o_O

That's already turned off, but I haven't waited/slept yet, I'll try, but I'm fairly sure it'll all be fine, untill I actually save again...
I'll keep you informed.

edit: yes, as I predicted. sleeping and waiting work, no problem, with autosave turned off.
Then I save and bam. CTD.

Thing is, I have an older savegame @ level 24 (55 hours of time lost *sigh*), which I could load and continue with, but who's to say the same problem won't turn up during that one after a couple of saves as well? I'm not gonna spend 55 more hours doing the same stuff I already did, only to come at the same problem that i'm having now...

Maybe a recent windows update is messing with the both of you? I've had conflicts with windows defender as well, causing CTD.

*sees the update icon in her tray*

hmm, maybe.

I'm using vista 64 bit, what are you using Sjeng?

I'm on Windows 7 Pro 64bit, Dutch version.
Just did an update. But as Oblivion worked just fine all along, I doubt that's the issue. I really think it's Oblivion itself, and something to do with the saving mechanics. Becasue, as I said, loading older games works just fine, playing works fine if all the autosave options are disabled, but as soon as I try to save, the game crashes and corrupts the save in the process.

I've got one last option, and that is to reinstall an older image of Windows (I keep a clean image for quick recovery), update that completely with all new drivers etc, make a new image, and then install Oblivion plus all the patches, DLC's and mod's again from scratch (only the mods that have proven to be 100% safe), and try to continue with my savegames.
I'll probably have to spend a day reinstalling software, but at least I'll have all the latest versions/updates again on a clean machine. *sigh*
And if that doesn't work either, well, then it must be something that's gotten into my game, embedded into the savegames somehow, God knows when and how, and how far back in my game's progress... This truly gets me down.

Exactly the same for me. Did this happen today for you too? There must be a reason for this

Well, it happened yesterday for the first time actually.

I just tried again, loaded an older game before the crash, rested, stored my loot in the castle, went outside, all was well, tried a hard save, which worked, tried a streamsave with the streamline mod, also worked, did a second streamsave, and BAM, CTD.
I swear, there has got to be something messed up in my savegames that tells the game to crash N saves from that point.

It crossed my mind that perhaps it's because I've stored so much in the castle. My chests are really full, I have LOTS of stuff, and I only go and sell stuff I don't use when I want to level my mercantile skill and personality.
But I'm sure plenty of others have even more crap than I do stored away in places...
I'm truly lost.

I installed the new updates and now I can't even play the game. It crashes on the loading screen.

Something I noticed was that when the corrupt save file is made, the '.obse' save file isn't made. Could that be the problem?

That seems to be normal when the game crashes and the .ess savegame is corrupted. It seems OBSE doesn't get a chance to create a savegame file along with the .ess file. So I'm not sure if that's the reason the .ess file is corrupt, it might just be a result of the corruption/CTD.

Anyway, I've made my backups, I'm gonna do a fresh W7 install from image backup, update my W7, install all the latest drivers, do a defrag, and create a clean fresh Oblivion installation, following all the updating and patching steps carefully.
I hope it will help, but somehow I'm sceptical...

That sounds like a ton of work, and all from one corrupted save game thing.
Hope you fix it, i'd hate to be in your position.

Well, I don't think it was the Windows update alone, my game was fine after that. Sorry guys!

Okay, for some reason it is working now that I've removed big mods[although they never caused problems beforehand].
But now, none of my mods are working. I unchecked, saved, exit, rechecked, loaded and the mods don't work at all.
What's going on here

EDIT:This is weird. In my data file, the mods don't exist, but in the launcher, they do..
It's almost like oblivion just deleted a bunch of my mods but let the game think they're still there and therefore causing a crash.

How many saves do you have?

4-5 in the folder. I'm on my 1040th save.

Are you making a new save when you save or overwriting an old one?

I don't think the saving is an issue any more. The mods aren't being removed from the launcher when they don't exist.
Should I make a new thread?



Sjeng, any updates? Check if a mod is ticked and if it actually exists. That could be the problem for you too.

Well, I've just finished reinstalling my clean W7 image, plus all the latest drivers and software, so I'll try and install Oblivion again tomorrow with all the addons, and then I'll carefully add my favourite mods 1 by 1, leaving out the ones I don't really need. Ih ope that'll prevent any weird mod glitches. So I'll keep you posted.
Glad to see you've found a solution at least that's one clear cause for possible crashes upon saving.

That's good Sjeng, a bit drastic, but atleast it's working out for you.
I think I figured out the problem with the missing mods. When I save a mod into the data folder using the CS, I am not prompted by the admin thing. So instead of creating the mod within the oblivion folder, I should create them on the desktop or some other safe place.
But that doesn't solve the problem that the CS has. All the mods that don't exist in the data folder, are accessable and editable.
Which leaves me with the 'wtf' expression.
Is there a way to prompt the launcher to clear any non-existant mods?

Where do they exist? VirtualStore?

They 'exist' in the CS and in the oblivion launcher but the esp file is no where to be found. I can open them and it show's all the changes that the mod does in the CS, but they don't exist!
I can't make any new mods because CS doesn't allow me to save to the desktop as I originally thought. I get an error about an invalid path..

Done installing... EXACT SAME PROBLEM STILL...
It must be my savegames then :'(
Somewhere in the past something bad slipped in, and now I crash after the N-th savegame.
So, all I can do is to load a 55 hour older game @lvl 24 and redo a LOT of stuff, and pray and hope the same yhing won't happen anymore... The uncertainty is killing me.