stuckvalve

I've been using Vortex (no running 1.12.0) for couple of years now and it's been great. Recently, I decided to clone a character profile in Skyrim SE (Steam version 1.6.640) and work on a new build. The new profile was created successfully. The old profile still works in game play. However, I noticed that I now have 2 copies of SSE registered as being managed by Vortex. Each instance appears identical to the other with the: Path, Installed version, Dates, etc. I'd like to remove one to avoid confusion. However, when I select "Stop Managing" (for either instance) I receive a prompt that it will delete ALL of my character profiles, mods, save data, etc. Obviously, I'm not going to touch them at this point, but I'm curious about what caused this issue, how Vortex can manage the identical game in duplication and what if anything can be done about it. Thanks.

Sorry that I missed this reply Pickysaurus. I only have the standard 3 ini files for SSE. I checked and in Skyrim.ini - SLocalSavePath points to the active profile subdirectory. In SkyrimCustom.ini, SLocalSavePath points to \Saves. It would appear that the latter overrides the former, but it's not clear why Vortex is updating the wrong INI file when it sets up a new profile. I've flipped the lines between the two files and it seems to work fine now. I'll have to make a note to manually update this each time I switch profiles I guess. Thanks.

I'm running Vortex 1.9.12 with Skyrim SE 1.6.640 onw Windows 10. I've just set up a second Vortex profile to start a new game/character. I used the "clone profile" feature so that I could simply turn off a few mods instead of having to enable ALL of them. I also clicked the toggle specifying separate Saves and separate Settings. It worked like a champ and I now have two active characters. However, I noticed that it was dumping the save files of the new profile into the the global saves folder - which is where my original profile save files also defaulted to. The Saves folder has 2 new subdirectories - one for each profile. When I enable a profile, Skyrim.ini gets updated such that "SLocalSavePath=Saves\abc123xyz\" and points to that profile's subdirectory. Initially, those folders were empty so I used the "Transfer Save Games" function to segregate the existing files into their respective subdirectories and they show up nicely in the Save Games screen of Vortex. Unfortunately, when I launch the Skyrim SE (using an SKSE64 shortcut from Vortex), I land on the Steam opening screen and it can only see the global saves directory. The contents of the subdirectories are completely invisible to it. (Full disclosure, I do allow Steam to sync saves to the cloud.) At this point, the "Save Games" tab in Vortex does nothing for me since Steam can't see these subdirectories. All I can do is use them to manually archive save files from the global saves folder, but I have to leave the most current saves for each profile out there so that Steam can see them. I feel like I've really close to getting this to work as desired, but just missing one small setting.

It's crazy how long this issue has existed and keeps resurfacing! There are countless threads online (mostly outdated by new code releases) discussing it. Many of them have a kernel of truth, but most of them miss an essential point. However, let's be very clear about a few environmental concepts first. 1) You must go to Silverlock.org to download SKSE - the executable is not on NexusMods. 2) You should install the AE version build 2.1.5 if you have SE (not the SE v2.0.20). 3) Use your mod manager (Vortex, MO2 - not NMM!) to install it. New versions of these now do it correctly and there's no need to install it manually like the old days.4) All of the articles telling you to edit the mod manager .ini file and add a "*" in front of SKSE entry are based on old versions that didn't work well. This is obsolete in 2022. The second major issue that people thrash over is where they've installed their games and mods. It's perfectly fine to install Steam itself in the default location of C:\Programs. However, this is less than ideal for your games and mods. Windows security is very picky about security privileges in systems directories. Script injection engines like SKSE (and mods that depend on them) do a couple of things that require admin privileges. 1) If your normal Windows login has admin privileges (very poor cybersecurity practice), then you're home free and everything will run fine if installed in C:\Program (or anywhere else). 2) If you're logging into your PC with a non-administrator account AND you installed your games in C:\Programs, you're going to need to follow the admonitions of the various threads and use the properties tab of the SKSE_loader.exe to "Run this program as an administrator". 3) You really should install Skyrim, SKSE and everything other game on a separate drive or partition. This enables all of the executables to function normally without needing elevated privileges and keeps you less vulnerable to rogue mods and other threats. Great you say, I've installed SKSE correctly from Silverlock and I've also installed it in the correct location with the correct privileges on my PC. However, when I launch Skyrim via SKSE (not SkyrimSE.exe), I still get this stupid error message! Have you stopped to really observe what's happening? SKSE is clearly launching and so is Skyrim. Thus, the problem is with SkyUI - NOT with SKSE! For some reason, it's not correctly detecting that SKSE is already running. Well, WTF? Without getting into the weeds, SKSE opens a connection to Steam to authenticate you so that it can launch Skyrim. Effectively, it's like when you're in Skyrim and you open the door without knocking - inhabitants may be surprised or angry. The door is open, but you're not really welcome. On the other hand if you knock, they open the door and you have a chat and they invite you in. That's what happens when you launch the Steam client first and THEN launch SKSE. You can even close the Steam client after it completely launchs and SKSE will still launch Skyrim without any SkyUI error. SkyUI is like your follower who stands outside the door of that private residence and says "that's not right of you going in there without permission." It sees the open door, but refuses to participate in your plans. So what are your options? 1) Manually launch Steam.exe, then launch SKSE64_loader.exe 2) Add SKSE to your Steam library as an "external application" and launch from there3) Add Steam and SKSE to Vortex and launch them in that order (waiting for the Steam client to appear before launching SKSE)4) Write a cool batch file to automate this for yourself or download a SKSE launch mod