Bugs (Oblivion)

No game is perfect and Oblivion is certainly not without its bugs. Before adding a bug, please ensure that a bug is widespread (and not just a problem with your system) among other users, or has been confirmed as a real bug.

Mages Guild - Cheydinhal Recommendation
This has been found on several forums for both PC and Xbox 360 versions.

If this quest is not completed within 3 game days of starting the quest, the item you're looking for will disappear (as part of the normal body removal routine, I suppose) from the place where you are supposed to search, and therefore makes the Mages Guild quest impossible to complete!

Mages Guild - Cheydinhal - Transgenderation
If you listen to the other mages chit-chat in the guild, they will use "he" when referring to Deetsun. But Deetsun is a female character!

Infinite Money - Dorian Glitch
This bug reportedly works for both the PC and Xbox 360 version. In order to achieve infinite money, go murder Dorian located in Imperial City Talos Plaza District. Loot him, and take his money. Instead of being removed from his inventory, the money remains and can be taken as long for as you want. After you're tired, save, then when the guards come pay the fine. You should still have the money, minus the fine, in your inventory.

If you cannot kill Dorian before he runs out the door, then either come back when you can or use the difficulty slider.

Note that this bug is somewhat inconsistent. Often times Dorian will only have 10 gold on him (or another very low amount). In this scenario you will not be able to grab infinite money. Use the sneak ability to pickpocket him and it should show how much money he has (you don't want to actually take his gold at this point). If he does not have a reasonable amount, around 80, use the speechcraft/disposition system and bribe him. This will put money in his pocket and make the glitch viable.

His body should stay there for awhile (allowing you to continue stealing infinite money from his corpse), however the game seems to do garbage collection on dead bodies. Note that this bug will NOT ALWAYS work. It has a chance of failing

Infinite Money - Vampire Cure Reward Glitch
After completing the vampire cure quest and getting the potion to the count's wife, come back the next day and ask him for a reward. he'll give you 500 gold. You can keep asking and clicking 'reward' and he'll give you the reward each time.

Infinite Money - Female Orc - Kvatch
There is an exploit if you can find a person that will buy items that is outside a city while on a horse. The easiest to get to is an orc woman who buys and sells weapons in the camp just outside the main gate to Kvatch. Obtain a very high valued weapon and equip it, go to the camp and while on your horse with the weapon equipped sell this item to her and you will receive the gold for the weapon, however as you are on your horse the game will not allow you to unequip weapons. The result is that you sell the item however it will not leave your inventory so you can sell it again and again until you have the amount of gold you feel happy with. The upside to this exploit is that it is faster than above and you can raise your mercantile skills as you are trading to recieve the gold.


 * NOTE* This will only net you 200g per sale, as she only has 200g on her.

Slaughterfish
During the quest that involves you killing twelve slaughterfish for their scales, the quest markers may be off at times (in locations with no fish). This is a large pain, but if you swim around the lake using Detect Life, you should eventually find the slaughterfish. It will be perfectly still, making no movement at all; once you attack it, the map marker will update and it will start to move and attack as normal.

Deer
When you kill certain deer (I have only tried this on Xbox 360), their body can be "stretched" infinitely. This can be quite fun, as I once managed to make a deer leg a wee bit more than 100 feet once. This bug is rare, though, and seems to occur only in certain places.

Alt-Tabbing
In the PC version, the game does not take well to ALT-TABing. Often times the video engine will freeze upon re-entering the game and the user must restart the game. It is unclear whether there is just a video driver issue with most people at this point or a problem with the game itself. Similar issues with Morrowind suggests the latter.

I have found that opening a couple other windows, such as Windows Explorer, and then minimizing them and opening Task Manager, choosing Oblivon and clicking "Switch To", will bring you back into the game with no problem most of the time. If there is a problem alt-tabbing back in, alt-tab out and perform this procedure again. Another alternative is to open the extra windows and then just click Oblivion in the taskbar to bring it back up (if Switch To doesn't work).

Personally, I have found that task switching away while in a conversation while cause instability. This first manifests itself with the dialogue being unspoken and the NPC's face being unresponsive, as well as the user being unable to select dialogue responses.

Its probably worth pointing out that this is not unique to Oblivon as many games become unstable when task switched away from fullscreen.