Vortex fails to move mods to external ssd

[leifyjai]

I'm trying to move my Skyrim SE installation to an external drive.

 

Latest thing I tried is purging all mods from the copy of Skyrim SE on my C: drive, then shutting down vortex and moving the Skyrim SE directory over to D:\Games. Then I run Vortex and it can't find Skyrim SE, so I go to Games -> Supported -> Skyrim SE, and select "Manually set location", to point it at my D:\Games\Steam\Steamapps..., and it can now find Skyrim SE, but complains about "mods can't be deployed", and the "fix" is to change my install path.

 

So I give it a new install path on my D: drive (D:\Games\Vortex\skyrimse\mods), and hit "Apply". At this point, Vortex starts chugging away, and I can see disk and CPU usage on Task Manager for a little while, then the disk useage just stops. I have tried this several times, and it fails at about 29-30Gbytes. The total size of my C:\Users\"me"\AppData\Roaming\Vortex\skyrimse\mods directory is 59Gbytes. After reaching its 30Gb "limit", Vortex just sits there, all blurred out, using a scant 2-3% CPU and no disc, forever. Until I kill it. (I've waited up to 4 hours after the initial 20-30 minutes it takes to get up to 30Gb).

 

So, the last thing I tried is taking it out of Votex' hands and manually copying the directory, but apparently Vortex has this fundamental need to micro-manage the transfer (which it apparently can't do), and will only allow me to specify an empty directory, and it wants to (though it can't) move all the mods by itself.

 

So, Tannin42? Anyone? Is there a way for me to move Skyrim SE to my new external SSD, along with it's mods, and, if so, how do I do it?

 

The only thing I can think of that's left is to wipe it all out and start from scratch, uninstalling Vortex and deleteing my entire Appdata/.../roaming/Vortex folder, then moving the game and mods to my SSD and re-installing Vortex with it pointed at the external SSD, and installing all 298 mods manually. If that's the only solution, that really bites.

 

Please respond if you have gotten this feature of having Vortex move your mods to another device to work, or if you are (also) interested in having this feature functional. I would think that I'm not the only one.

Edited May 28, 2018 by leifyjai

[leifyjai]

*bump*

[kamikatze13]

i have recently reinstalled windows, and since i got a new ssd, i also ended up moving my skyrim install from the hdd to the new drive. here's how i've done this:

1. transfer everything manually. the skyrim folder. the mods folder. hell, i even moved the download location.
2. restore your %appdata% folder (not applicable in your case)
3. symlink the new location to the old via NTFS junctions to fool VO
4. start vortex - it'll think the data is still in the old place, whereas in fact it isn't
5. update game path
6. try to update mods path - it'll complain the new folder has to be empty. i worked around this by

• renaming my old folder to `mods2`
• creating a folder named `mods` in the same directory
• let VO mod path point to the new empty `mods` folder - it'll try to move files but it actually didn't in my case
• save changes in VO
• go to explorer and delete your empty `mods` folder (make sure it's empty. maybe VO will succeed in moving files? who knows)
• rename your `mods2` folder to `mods`
• ???
• profit

6. change your downloads path. save. restart VO. rejoice.

 

at this point may i again suggest the config database to be moved to the install path of vortex instead of %appdata%, using relative and not explicit paths? would make moving installations as easy as drag'n'drop ^{oh boy here we go again}

Edited May 28, 2018 by kamikatze13

[Grestorn]

Certainly NOT in the install path. It's not allowed for a normal application to write into its own installation directory. It's off limits and write protected.

 

This is not Mac OSX (thank god!).

[jamiechi]

I have had no problem with setting up Vortex to install the mods in the Vortex install directory on Win7.

Although I installed Vortex on another drive in a different folder than the usual "Program Files" location that Windows wants you to install things into.

For instance, I installed Vortex in G:\Games\Vortex. (So basically, I did what @kamikatze13 suggested.)

 

I tend to move data storage of most of my programs to another drive and not use %appdata% on C drive.

I usually use Junctions to point to stuff I have moved elsewhere.

If for some reason you have to repair or re-install windows, having important stuff in %appdata% is a good way to lose it.

 

P.S. For managing links, such as symlinks or junctions, it is much easier to use the following addon to File Manager. It's a lot easier to use than 'mklink' in a command prompt window.

Link Shell Extension at:

http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/linkshellextension.html

[leifyjai]

Now that's what I'm talking about! I'm back in the game, son!!

 

This totally worked, and much appreciation to you!

 

The only snag was that when Vortex tried to move the mods directory, it DID move it, and a few mods made it to the new folder, like you said, but the rest of the mod folder I'd put on the D: drive got wiped!? Luckily I had a backup, and just restored all the mods from that after tricking Vortex into acknowledging that both Skyrim and its mods now reside on the D-drive SSD.

 

 

Also, a couple of tools I had to download really helped with managing the NTFS junctions:

Link Shell Extension for creating the junctions - http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/linkshellextension.html

and Junction Link Magic for deleting them afterwards - http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Miscellaneous/Junction-Link-Magic.shtml

 

Thanks again, so much, for all the help Kamikatze13.

 

 

i have recently reinstalled windows, and since i got a new ssd, i also ended up moving my skyrim install from the hdd to the new drive. here's how i've done this:

1. transfer everything manually. the skyrim folder. the mods folder. hell, i even moved the download location.
2. restore your %appdata% folder (not applicable in your case)
3. symlink the new location to the old via NTFS junctions to fool VO
4. start vortex - it'll think the data is still in the old place, whereas in fact it isn't
5. update game path
6. try to update mods path - it'll complain the new folder has to be empty. i worked around this by

• renaming my old folder to `mods2`
• creating a folder named `mods` in the same directory
• let VO mod path point to the new empty `mods` folder - it'll try to move files but it actually didn't in my case
• save changes in VO
• go to explorer and delete your empty `mods` folder (make sure it's empty. maybe VO will succeed in moving files? who knows)
• rename your `mods2` folder to `mods`
• ???
• profit

6. change your downloads path. save. restart VO. rejoice.

 

at this point may i again suggest the config database to be moved to the install path of vortex instead of %appdata%, using relative and not explicit paths? would make moving installations as easy as drag'n'drop ^{oh boy here we go again}

Edited May 30, 2018 by leifyjai

[kamikatze13]

Certainly NOT in the install path. It's not allowed for a normal application to write into its own installation directory. It's off limits and write protected.

 

This is not Mac OSX (thank god!).

 

welp, maybe i just found the first thing i'd like about macs :teehee:

 

seriously though, i'm an advocate for portable applications and cleraly VO can benefit from it. we also can modify the install location for a reason.

 

Thanks again, so much, for all the help Kamikatze13.

 

glad i could help

Edited June 3, 2018 by kamikatze13

[Grestorn]

 

Certainly NOT in the install path. It's not allowed for a normal application to write into its own installation directory. It's off limits and write protected.

 

This is not Mac OSX (thank god!).

 

welp, maybe i just found the first thing i'd like about macs :teehee:

 

seriously though, i'm an advocate for portable applications and cleraly VO can benefit from it. we also can modify the install location for a reason.

 

 

Portable version doesn't mean that you can write to its install directory (since there is none!). It means that the binary directory (on a USB stick or whatever) is already executable - AND that its contents are also immutable, meaning its contents must NOT be changed. If a portable app wants to write anything, it has to go to a local storage on the computer OR a special, separate directory on the movable medium (i.e. USB stick).

 

It's never ever a good idea to allow writing to the binary directory of an app. Just don't do it.

[kamikatze13]

Portable version doesn't mean that you can write to its install directory (since there is none!). It means that the binary directory (on a USB stick or whatever) is already executable - AND that its contents are also immutable, meaning its contents must NOT be changed. If a portable app wants to write anything, it has to go to a local storage on the computer OR a special, separate directory on the movable medium (i.e. USB stick).

 

It's never ever a good idea to allow writing to the binary directory of an app. Just don't do it.

 

 

off-topic, but i'm genuinely curious: why do you consider - an arguably writable - configuration file alongside an executable such a bad idea?

[Tannin42]

Portable version doesn't mean that you can write to its install directory (since there is none!). It means that the binary directory (on a USB stick or whatever) is already executable - AND that its contents are also immutable, meaning its contents must NOT be changed. If a portable app wants to write anything, it has to go to a local storage on the computer OR a special, separate directory on the movable medium (i.e. USB stick).

Well actually I would argue that a portable application does have to write to its install directory to be truely portable because otherwise you could run the application

from - say - a usb drive but the data would still be local, non-portable, on the system running it. That may not make too much sense for many applications.

 

off-topic, but i'm genuinely curious: why do you consider - an arguably writable - configuration file alongside an executable such a bad idea?

 

If it's just the configuration file it may be ok with properly set up permissions but

a) that wouldn't cut it for vortex, would it?

b) It would require the installer to set complex ACEs post installation which is not something installer frameworks usually do/make easy.

 

Usually a portable application will have its entire application directory writeable and then any application/extension/plugin can add dlls to the application directory that the application would then run with its own permissions - which may then even be admin permissions when you run vortex as admin.

Any application you run can modify any other application that has write permissions. It's the basis for an entire family of malware (virii) that would simply not be possible otherwise.

 

Add to that that it's far easier to maintain a "non-portable" application. When Vortex gets updated, only the application files get replaced. Since the application directory contains no data it can be replaced entirely so with no added effort there is no risk that the install/update will leave old files lying around or delete anything you still needed. And all vortex data - and only the data - is in a second directory which is very useful if you want to backup.

 

When you have a portable application the installer has to look at each file individually - any mistake may break the application or delete data you still needed. This means we spend more time on it meaning we have less time to fix bugs or add features. And for you it means every update may irreversibly delete data if we messed up.

And if you do backup, you too will have to look at each file of each of your portable applications and see if you need to back it up.

Which of course you don't - no one does - so you either don't have a backup or you have tons of unneccessary files in your backup - which then means your backups are slower, more annoying and thus less frequent.

 

tl;dr: Leaving file permissions as intended is safer and safer and most of all: waaay safer than using portable installs.