*SPOILER* Game freezes inside Cheydinhal Oblivion gate

[Khangster]

Hi folks,

I realise this game is buggy, but since buying the Elder Scroll Anthology - and finishing Morrowind - I'm doing my very best to overlook this downside. I've played this game for over 500 hrs now and this is by far the worst problem: every time I try to load a game from inside the Cheydinhal Oblivion gate, it freezes. Doesn't matter if it's a quicksave or normal or autosave. The game just freezes and I have to reload a save game from just outside the gate. It's very odd. I haven't done anything different like changing settings or mods (of which I have a few - but none has been a problem so far). I could play through without saving but I want to be able to save and load so I can select the Sigil Stone I want!

Could anyone give me a suggestion? I have reloaded the save game from just outside the gate and the moment I step through the gate to inside the Oblivion realm, I can't load
Thanks in advance!

[Chicken Slayer]

Save the game again outside the gate after moving around a little. Then try again. That seemed to work the few times I had similar problems with fast travel and doors.

[Khangster]

Alright. I went through the gate. Move around a bit. Pick up some bloodgrass. Went back out the the gate, quicksaved then quickloaded. Attempt to back through the gate again - freezes...

[Khangster]

Well, I've gone further into the Oblivion realm and some quicksaves do work so I don't know... I guess I'll never know!

[BFG]

Unfortunately, one of the many known problems with this game was never addressed. I'm not sure anyone ever found the root cause. But if you play the game long enough, eventually certain random cells will become "nuked", i.e. the game will be unable to load them. Using quicksaves and repeatedly saving over the top of older save files seems to accelerate the problem, but that could just be speculation.

The only thing I can suggest is to avoid using any quicksaves that seem to have this problem, keep LOTS of backup saves, and if you're on PC use mods like kuertee's cleanup to keep your save files (and game!) relatively clean. Doing this seems to delay the problem - I was able to put nearly 1000 hours on one character before I experienced it the first time.

[Khangster]

Wow, that would be a heart-breaker. I managed to get through the Cheydinhal Oblivion gate - and thus resolved the The Wayward Knight quest. Now if I'm anywhere within sight of the Chorrol Oblivion gate, I can't load at all! It's really odd. The Clean-up mod you mentioned didn't seem to help. So when I fast travel to the North Country Stables (south of Chorrol) and attempt to load from any saves there - the game would freeze before completing the loading process.
Actually, if I'm anywhere near ANY of the remaining Oblivion gate and save, I can't load from those saves...! WTF!

[AKB]

You can just use Wrye Bash to permanently reset the Abomb glitch (it'll even tell you your save's progress to triggering the abomb!). I'm not sure if it's possible to go back on it after it triggers, so I think your save is, unfortunately, unusable now. It would make sense that it would be the abomb with the fact you played for 500 hours, although it could still just be some other one of the million things that could go wrong in a game like this. Try starting a new character and rushing through the main quest, and see if the bug is still triggering on your fresh character. If it is isn't, it's an abomb, if you still experience this issue on a fresh character, try doing a fresh reinstall of the game.

[Khangster]

Thank you AKB! It was the Abomb glitch. I neglected to report the extremely slow animation, doors not opening, etc. It happened inside the Cheydinhal Oblivion realm and I got around it by keep going through the same door that does open a few (read: a lot) times - effectively speeding up the game time.
I ran the Animation Fixer and that did the trick. Happy again!

Cheers guys, thanks for the assistance, and merry Xmas!