Fix: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Crash on Startup [Complete Guide]

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a great game and its gameplay is cherished among its vast player base. However, in spite of this, a lot of users are complaining about the Oblivion crash on Startup issue. If you are here because your game crashes at startup, don’t worry, because we have compiled this extensive guide to help you in fixing this issue with some simple solutions and workarounds.

What Causes the Oblivion Crash on Startup?

After going through some basic troubleshooting guides, we concluded that the following are some of the most common reasons behind the occurrence of this issue.

• Save Files Corruption: It is possible that the Save files that your game has generated might have been corrupted and now when it tries to load your progress from those files, Oblivion crashes on Startup. Therefore, a good workaround to this would be to follow the instructions below and regenerate these files.
• Missing Codec Pack: If you are going through the Oblivion Crash on startup issue, it is possible that your operating system might actually be missing a codec pack which is necessary to properly run Oblivion on your computer. Install this pack as instructed below to fix this error.
• Steam Overlay: Steam has an overlay which might actually be necessary for some games and some users found that enabling the Steam overlay fixes the Oblivion crash on startup issue. Therefore, it is recommended to enable this overlay.
• Background Applications: Some background applications that aren’t completely compatible with Steam can also cause Oblivion to Crash at startup. Therefore, it is recommended to diagnose these background applications as mentioned in the guide below.
• Installed Mods: If you have installed a lot of mods on your game, it is possible that one of those might not be properly compatible with each other or one of them might be malfunctioning which is causing the crash on startup. Therefore, diagnosing your mods is also a healthy way of getting rid of the startup error.

Now that you are familiar with most of the reasons that might trigger this error on your computer, we will be moving on towards implementing the fixes.

Before you start:

1. Right-click on the Steam shortcut located on the desktop and select “Properties”.
   

   

2. Navigate to the “Compatability” tab, check the box parallel to “Run this program as an administrator:” and click on “OK”.
   

   

3. Follow the same procedure to give “Oblivion.exe” administrative privileges too.
4. If the oblivion steam crash on startup issue persists, we recommend you to change the game’s executable name from “Oblivion.exe” to“OblivionLauncher.exe” in the game’s directory.

Fixing the Oblivion Crash on Startup:

Solution 1: Delete the Oblivion Save File Folder

1. Press “Win + E” to open the file explorer and navigate to the following location on your disk.

   Users > Your Account’s Name > Documents > My Games > Oblivion

   

2. Now open the “Save” folder and delete everything present inside that folder.
3. After deleting all the files, relaunch your game through Steam and check whether the oblivion crash on startup windows 10 issue is resolved.

Solution 2: Install a Codec Pack

1. Launch your favorite browser and click here to download a K-Lite Codec Pack.
2. When the file is downloaded, double-click on it and follow the on-screen instructions to install it on your computer.
3. After installing the codec pack, power cycle your computer and check if you encounter elder scrolls oblivion crash on startup problem again.

Solution 3: Modify Oblivion.ini configuration file

1. Press “Win + E” keys simultaneously to open the file explorer and navigate to the following location on your disk.

   Users > Your Account’s Name > Documents > My Games > Oblivion

2. Now right-click on the “Oblivion.ini” file and then select “Open with > Notepad” from the pop-up menu appeared on the screen.
3. Now press “Ctrl ” F” keys simultaneously on the keyboard to open the search box and search for “MusicEnabled”.
4. Change the value of MusicEnabled from “1” to “0” and press “Ctrl + S” on the keyboard to save the file.
5. Similarly, change the value of “bDSoundHWAcceleration”,“bSoundEnabled” and “bUseWaterShader” from “1” to “0”.
6. Furthermore, change “uInterior Cell Buffer” to “24” and “iPreloadSizeLimit” to “262144000”.
   Note: This step is optional.
7. Save the changes and launch Oblivion again to check if it crashes again on the startup. If still it crashes, kindly revert the changes and proceed to the next solution.

Solution 4: Enable Steam overlay

1. Launch “Steam” and navigate to the “Library” tab. Now, from the left pane, locate the game you are having trouble with.
2. Right-click on the faulty game and select “Properties” from the pop-up menu.
3. Now proceed to the “General” tab and check the box parallel to “Enable the Steam overlay while in-game”.

   

4. After propagating the changes, launch the game again and most probably the oblivion reloaded crash on startup error would be resolved.

Solution 5: Enable visual themes and desktop composition

1. First of all, delete all the files that you have moved away from the game folder and copied somewhere else on another location.
2. Double-click on the Steam’s shortcut located at your desktop to open it and navigate to “Library”.
3. Now right-click on Oblivion and select “Properties” from the pop-up menu.
4. Navigate to the “Local files” tab and select “Browse local files”.
5. Now right-click on the “Oblivion.exe” file and select “Properties” from the pop-up menu.
6. Navigate to the “Compatability” tab and uncheck the boxes parallel to both “Disable visual themes” and “Disable desktop composition”.

   

7. Now click on the “Apply” button to save the changes and launch the game again to check if the oblivion crash on startup windows 10 problem is resolved.

Solution 6: Disable multiple screens

If you still encounter a game crash on startup, it might be due to the multiple screens you have integrated with your system. Hence, use only the primary PC screen for displaying the game’s user interface. You can do this just by pressing the Win + P keys simultaneously on the keyboard during the startup and selecting the PC screen only option from the list. It is also recommended to set the video settings to Ultra High and select Native resolution corresponding to your primary screen.

If it does not resolve the issue, disable all the extra screens completely and check if the error is eliminated. The procedure to disable these screens depends on the graphics card you have integrated with your computer.

For NVIDIA users:

1. Right-click anywhere on the desktop and select “NVIDIA Control panel” from the pop-up menu.

   

2. Navigate to the “Display” tab located on the left pane and select the “Set up multiple displays” option.
3. Now choose “Disable all monitors except your PC screen” and save the changes.

For AMD/ATI Users:

1. Open up the “AMD Catalyst Control Center” and navigate to the “Display Management” tab from the left pane.
2. Now select “Disable all monitors except your PC screen” and save the changes.

Solution 7: Disable unwanted background applications

1. Press “Ctrl + Shift + Esc” keys simultaneously on the keyboard to open the “Task Manager” and navigate to the “Processes” tab.
2. Now locate and select all the unwanted processes that are consuming a lot of “CPU”  and “Memory”, one by one and click on the “End Task” button.

   

Solution 8: Check installed mods

If you are still encountering an oblivion crashing problem, then there might be a chance that the installed mods are not working properly with the game. So, we recommend you to make sure that all the installed mods are up to date and check if you have fulfilled all their requirements. Also, make sure that all the mods have their required dependencies.

If you are unsure about any mod and think that it is out of place, just disable it temporarily and check whether the game crashes again. The most efficient approach to verify your mods is to disable them all at the start and enabling them one by one to point out which one causes the crash.

Solution 9: Remove Cyberlink Power DVD 5

1. Press “Windows key + R” from the keyboard to open the run box and search for “appwiz.cpl”.

   

2. Now locate “Cyberlink Power DVD 5“ from the list of Softwares installed on your computer, right-click on it, and select “Uninstall”.

   

Solution 10: Reinstall Oblivion Script Extender

1. Launch your favorite browser and download the GOG build version of OBSE from the Oblivion Script Extender official website.
2. When the file is downloaded, right-click on it and select “Extract here” to extract the files out of the zip folder.
3. Now copy all the extracted files except the “Data” and the “src” folder and paste it in the location where “Oblivion.exe” is present.
   Note: You can proceed to that location by following the steps indexed in “Solution 5″.

   

4. Now follow the steps explained in “Solution 4” to enable the Steam in-game overlay if it is not enabled already.
5. Open Steam as an administrator and launch the game to check if the oblivion crash on startup issue persists.

Note: If you use Mode Organizer to manage your mods and still can’t get rid of this problem, makes sure that there is no file named “Hook.dll” in the game’s directory. If you see this file there, make sure you delete it before launching the game again. After deleting the file, copy the “Oblivion.ini” file from the following location and paste it in the MO profile.

Users > Your Account’s Name > Documents > My Games > Oblivion

Solution 11: Reinstall Oblivion

6.1.x version:

1. Press “Windows key + I” keys simultaneously on the keyboard to open the run box and search for “appwiz.cpl”.

   

2. Now right-click on the “Oblivion” and select “Uninstall” to uninstall the game completely from your PC.

   

3. When the game is uninstalled completely, launch Steam client and go to the “Store” to download “Oblivion” again on your PC.

Tips for Vista users:

If you are a Vista user and Oblivion crashes on your computer when you try to launch the game, then make sure that you are running the game with Administrative privileges. It is also recommended to close all the unwanted background applications while running the game. We highly recommend you to install the game in “C:\” instead of “C:\Program Files” to avoid any security issues of Vista.

Some people have reported that they managed to get around this issue by setting the video settings to “Ultra High” with “4x anti-aliasing” in their Graphics card control panel.

Workaround:

If none of the solutions explained above has helped you to resolve this issue, we recommend you to change the install location of Oblivion in your computer. Some users have reported that they eliminated this problem by installing the game in the following location and disabling the GOG galaxy cloud saves.

C>Bethesda Softworks>Oblivion

If you are still unable to fix this issue, you can contact us for any further assistance.