Big Red Flag and a Low Priority Suggestion

[Demonica]

I happen to love Vortex and it's capabilities and am extremely impressed. Did take a little learning curve but not bad and most learning issues were self-evident or easily answered in wiki or forums.

 

That being said I did run into an issue that a user of Vortex can easily bork themselves out of hours and hours of hard labor. I'm not pointing a finger at Vortex per se, but it is an issue which can easily lead a user to curse it forever. I think it an idiosyncrasy that needs some serious review if merited.

 

Here's the Red Flag and how I raised it: I was a little impatient to switch to another game to mod (I was moving from Oldrim to Fallout NV). I opened Vortex and realized too late that Vortex was still processing the mods and plug-ins for Skyrim (the current target) when I clicked to change games. The time wheels were still spinning in the 'Mods' and 'Plugins' tabs. When I changed the game back to Skyrim I had duplicate entries for every mod installed with one entry 'Enabled', as normal, and the 'shadow' entry listed as 'Disabled'. I took the risk (I was finished with the game anyway) and used the filter to list only the 'Disabled' and then removed them without deleting the archive. It was my hope that the shadow link was not tied in but that was not the case. It removed the 'Enabled' entries instead and the mods were gone from the game directory with the exception of some personals I had installed outside of Vortex. Everything else was fine...if I was at the point where I had 'Downloaded' all my mods, categorized them, and then was getting ready to install the first one. I did verify the integrity of the Archived mods and all is okay and all the settings and categories I set were good as well. I should have paid more attention, but this is the best to my knowledge in the recollection of events.

So bottom line I think what happened is my impatience in switching games caused Vortex to screw over my installed mods through no fault of its own because I interrupted it in the midst of a process. I also think this could be a prevalent problem for those with large load orders ( I had 200+) and a false sense of security (which I had...lol) with how quickly Vortex processes. Vortex does install and process VERY fast and that is one of the reasons I love it. But on the other hand, no matter how good a manager or hardware setup is, there is a point where loading and processing is going to take more time.

Guys, IRL has a choke hold on me and I can't afford the time to replicate it and I do think you will need a large mod setup to see this issue. Hopefully you have a test setup to take a look at this and see if I just hallucinated or whatever. If you do replicate it, my suggestion would be to code a 'Please Wait' timer, in either background or foreground, which delays the ability of changing games to mod until the present game targeted is fully processed.

 

Now my Low Priority Suggestion and I know it should be bottom of the barrel. It's great that there is a load order and plug in text file available for use and those are most important for sharing problems and suggestions in mod conflicts. But I, and I think many others, would like to see a text, or better yet CSV file, of ALL mods installed along with category associated with it present, or have the ability to export such a file. Many mods I install do not have an esm or esp and they are left out of those txt files that do exist. I know the filters in the mod section will list everything adequately and the view is great, but sometimes working on paper is easier, writing notes to self on changes, install orders, etc. I use Excel spreadsheets for my different setups and this would be a great 'accessory'. Like I said, a small nice to have when the important stuff is taken care of first.

 

Thanks and Regards

Nawlinsdemon

 

PS- I just noticed a Vortex update today...I wonder if you beat me to the punch on the Red Flag I just described.

 

PPS - After reading this I can't remember if I panicked switched back to Skyrim when I saw the process wheels still spinning or not, I don't think so. In any case, I still think a conditional wait in game switching is a good idea.

[HadToRegister]

A more obvious indicator that Vortex was deploying, sorting etc would be helpful as well.
The spinning wheels are fine once you know where to look, but a much more Obvious RED indicator telling you not to do anything would also be helpful, maybe like a full Vortex Screen BLUR so you can't click anything until it's done Sorting, etc.

[Demonica]

@ HadToRegister

 

No disagreement there! But I thought I would leave that up to them. As I stated I have no time to replicate this, are you aware of anyone who has had this same situation? I haven't seen anything in the other forums myself. Just curious.