Vortex not deploying mods despite saying it is

[ScarfNinja01]

I'm having issues with Vortex actually deploying the mods it says that it has. I've looked around the forum and I can't figure out what the issue could be.

 

All of the mods I have are downloaded, installed, and deployed, but they don't show up in-game. I can redeploy them as many times as I want, so it doesn't seem like it's an issue with using the hardlink method. Everything is on the same hard drive as well: the game folder, Vortex's folder, and the staging folder are all on my drive labeled "D:". I checked the game's data folder (D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition\Data) and all of the mod folders are there along with the vortex.deployment.json file.

Some of them require SKSE64 and I've verified it's running when I launch the game, so it's not that Vortex is trying to use the normal executable or anything.

My only guess is that it could be because I'm using Windows 7, but I'm fairly sure everything works on that OS.

 

Is there something obvious I'm missing?

Edited September 1, 2020 by ScarfNinja01

[ScarfNinja01]

So, an update: the problem is gone.

 

I have no idea what I did, but Vortex is actually putting mods in my game now. I'll try to recall everything as best I can, just in case someone else is having this issue.

I have a modded version of Skyrim SE on my laptop that also uses Vortex and most of the mods I wanted to use on the computer I was having problems with, so I figured I would compare files between the two to see if something was missing or out of place. The only thing I could find was in the main SkyrimSE folder (D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition). They turned out to be from this SKSE engine fixes mod, which I had installed on the laptop but not on this computer. So I tried installing it, just because; nothing came of it.

The next day, I decided to tinker around with vortex some more, and found that it was saying there's a missing script extender plugin from that mod (Code 126, in particular. No idea why it's there because I have everything the mod requires, but I'm getting sidetracked). I had installed the engine fixes after all of my other mods, and after I made this post, so I wondered if it was actually being loaded into the game. After all, Vortex was finding that there were issues with plugins pertaining to it. Being an under-the-hood sort of mod, I couldn't easily tell, so I downloaded and installed a main-menu replacer- and it worked!

But interestingly, none of my other mods that I had installed prior to the SKSE engine fixes did. I went in and switched one of them from "enabled" to "uninstalled," and then re-enabled it. When I launched the game, that mod now worked along with the main menu replacer. So I just went back through all my mods and switched them to uninstalled, then re-enabled all of them. And now my game works.

 

Even though the issue is resolved, I'm willing to answer questions for anyone with a similar problem. I don't know a ton about the technical details involved, as you can tell, but I'll do my best.

[scupperpunk]

I've been having a similar issue with Vortex trying to mod Fallout 3. It's interesting that you mentioned the script extender, because when I was first attacking this problem (and nothing was working), I uninstalled Vortex and re-installed it, and started getting all sorts of error messages, one of which was that Fallout Script Extender wasn't installed properly. Well, I fixed that, but even with it supposedly working, every time I went to enable my mods, Vortex went through this long process of "access denied" (I just clicked OK to give it access) messages, and then would hang up and freeze every time I reached the end of those messages, so that I'd have to reboot the whole computer to open it again. Finally, after one of these attempts, it enabled and deployed the mods (or said it did), and is now acting like everything is normal. Yet, when I go to play the game, the mods aren't applied. I've tested this by using one small mod that has an immediate effect -- it changes the value of one of the player items -- so that I can see whether it's been applied or not. No dice.

 

I don't know if this might be anything similar to what you were having issues with, but I feel like I've tried everything at this point, and short of wiping all my games, Vortex, and Lutris and reinstalling everything, I'm not sure what to do. Any insight would be great at this point! Thanks for posting your fix. (I'm going to try disabling and then re-enabling now, but I did that before -- as well as a full mod purge -- and it didn't work. Who knows, though!)

[ScarfNinja01]

I've never even heard of Vortex giving "access denied" messages at all, and I've got zero experience with Linux or Lutris. Is there a way to verify the integrity of the game files through Lutris? That may help, and afterwards re-installing your mods. Other than that, I'm not sure what else there is; reinstalling each of the programs one at a time may be the way to go. If you can, try just reinstalling the game rather than the whole game-management software first.

Good luck!

[scupperpunk]

I've never even heard of Vortex giving "access denied" messages at all, and I've got zero experience with Linux or Lutris. Is there a way to verify the integrity of the game files through Lutris? That may help, and afterwards re-installing your mods. Other than that, I'm not sure what else there is; reinstalling each of the programs one at a time may be the way to go. If you can, try just reinstalling the game rather than the whole game-management software first.

Good luck!

Thank you! If I ever figure it out, maybe I'll post my solution here, too.