Oblivion:Perma Key

Perma Key is a glitch where all save files will be able to open most locked doors, even if they require a key, without having to pick the lock or acquire the key.

Instructions

1. Be standing in front of any locked door that you have the key to. This can be on any save file with any character.
2. Quicksave and open the door. A popup should appear confirming you opened it with the key.
3. Without closing the popup, press escape and load the quicksave you made.
4. Now most doors will open without needing to pick them or find the key. This effect will be present on all save files/characters.

Additional Notes

• Certain doors, particularly scripted doors, may not open even if this glitch is active. This is because only doors that have a valid key in the game will open.
• This glitch is persistent across all save files/characters, and only stops working if the entire game is closed.
• The goblin key door in the first zone of the tutorial is the easiest door to make a save next to.
• You will want to have a save file you can load to set up this glitch again if the game crashes.

Mechanics

There seems to be a global flag of some sort that checks if the player has a valid key when you attempt to open a door. This flag is set to true when the player's inventory is checked and a valid key is found. After the popup is closed, this flag is reset to false for future checks. By loading another save before closing the key confirmation popup, the flag to check for a valid key stays true, and can never be set back to false because the script that opens the key confirmation popup can never appear again. Direct analysis of the code would need to be done to confirm this.

Related Glitches

• Perma Unkey: An opposite effect occurs when attempting to use this glitch on containers.