geknight

In response to post #29501915. If you haven't already, do an "*" search on your data folder and sort the results by file size. Broken symlinks have a file size of zero and any mod with visible links is NOT working. Good links are invisible and the game can correctly access their data no matter where it actually is. I'd make sure to re-install all the FOMODS and be sure their scripts actually run correctly. It took me about 6 hours to clean my 173 active mod install up after the conversion flopped. There were still a few purple textures I gave up on tracking down. I'm still getting about 50 or 60 orphan scripts per hour in my save games though, and have had to clean them regularly with SAVETOOL. Obviously their are some things I've missed, but I did manage to successfully finished my last playthrough. I'm ending up doing a complete reinstall anyway, and for now I'm going back to .56 since I've had issues with the new beta dealing with file editing and Disk IO speed in game. I'll likely try it again when I get ready to mod with FO4 - though I'll be sure to do it on a NEW backup this time. ;)

In response to post #29368554. Nope, I never worked for Mr. Gates. I quit programming for money in the 80's, but I've been a gamer all my life, migrated to Windows 3.0 from DOS in 1994, and watched a little 752 byte config file grow into a 140M registry. The WIN.INI file evolved into the modern registry largely between the days of disk dependent copy protection and the modern call home techniques that XP and Valve brought to the table. Anyone with a step debugger and a few hours could 'crack' the CD check and put a workable copy of most any software up for distribution. During the 9x Windows series the software hive was added to the registry and IMMEDIATELY developers began using the installers to write registry entries without which the program could not run. This upped the geek quotient for hacking and made them usually have to duplicate the original media in order to break the tie with the merchandise package. This reduced domestic piracy but overseas and 3rd world ripoffs didn't really start to fall off till online updating and registration crippled or limited their functionality. Since actions speak louder than words there was speculation among my local geek squad early on that the registry was just a trumped up copy protection scheme for both windows and its family of applications. Don't get me wrong now, the GROWTH of the registry into the powerful developmental tool it is today was largely driven by its usefulness as a multiuser platform wide repository of OS and APP information, meaning that programs no longer were required to have tailor made INI files for every installation. The casual user doesn't like the registry almost as much as serious developers love it mostly because they can't read it top to bottom like they can an INI file and won't spend the time to learn it. The total security and access control the OS keeps over both the registry and its backup goes beyond idiot proofing and reflects the development environment of its early days. With symbolic linking came the shell game. Hardlinks came right behind the registry for Windows, allowing multiple directory entries for the same file in order to reduce data and directory rewriting - the obvious use here is the recycle bin - less obvious but more important is the shorthand it gives UAC to let every user on the same machine see the same folders but see different things in them. Symlinks came later yet. They mimic Unix links and were implemented to aid in migration from that OS. Unlike hard links they permit multiple directory entries pointing to the same filename (Which is actually a directory entry itself.) rather than to the actual data. Though logically congruent with hardlinks, symlinks must be parsed by the OS, cannot be nested more than 30 or so deep, and become less efficient as they get longer. Before linking, most every application kept its file structure DOS style - compact and tree like. Data stayed in the main directory or in subs and you didn't have to look for it. Though I have been told that it was configured around the 'multiple user slash same look' concept I have never liked Microsoft's enforced logical division of my data space. Program files over here, documents there, default user, all users, public, ...yadayadayada. Like everybody else over the years I've gotten used to it. But from the piracy standpoint, there couldn't have been a much tougher setup to throw at them without getting a random number generator involved. First of all nobody puts things in exactly the same place, so it might take you a while to find all the files or that one key file you need. And then, unless you are moving it across drives to offline storage, you had to be careful that you got the data and not just a link. Again as before, simply rolling the files to another place with a keycracked executable just got a lot more involved. Symlinks in particular can span drives and are unnoticeable to the casual user. I'm sure this aspect of the design did not go unnoticed by either Microsoft or their development partners. Yes, these are vital system building tools in their own right. But what you must not forget is that both symbolic linking and the Windows registry were crucial components in one of the greatest fortunes ever made. While Steve Jobs was getting hailed, gurued, and deified Bill Gates was getting RICH. He couldn't make much money in Asia and the 3rd world because pirates were selling his software (Along with everyone elses...) for pennies on the dollar. He HATED piracy. Loudly. Publicly. If you think copy protection wasn't job one at Microsoft in the 90s then you were either not alive then or you lived under a rock. As for what symlinks themselves have achieved, they were marginally successful with their target market, but many old Unix users are sticking with Linux or OSX. They have however, proven very handy to gamers in the last few years due to the popularity of mixed SSD/HDD machines. Carefully managed with some symlinking you can maximize your fast space and prolong disk life. Steam Users even have an app out I hear to help them optimize their games for this. Regardless, it won't be too long until HDDs have gone the way of the floppy and symlinking will eat more machine resources than it saves. At that point the next hot tech will take over. NMM .70 or .80 might have to tackle VR and interphase with game processors that you wear on your belt.

In response to post #29341534. Years ago when Microsoft was putting in the registry and the documents folder etc, symlinks were IMPLEMENTED as an invisible way for the operating system to divide up user and program content into separate areas without really doing much at all. More than anything else these changes were made to prevent casual users from rolling functional copies of installed software onto backup and then putting it onto another machine. In short one of the main purposes of the registry itself and these symlinks is COPY PROTECTION. It was largely successful at this, though those of us with more expertise could easily find data and savegame files in their true location and do what we needed to with them. Microsoft content providers loved the new format and quickly fell into line with the rest of us and changed their installs to follow the new system. EDIT: replaced 'invented' with 'implemented' above. I'll stand by my reason for their useage as this has been discussed quite freely over the years. Now, .60 wants to use these links to reduce the bulk data moving chores of swapping from one style game to another, which is actually a pretty cool idea. But using these links requires keeping track of exact file data. Any boo boos will leave artifacts all over the place which is what I hear happened with many of the blown conversions. When I was rebuilding after the conversion, I noticed that a minor change I had made into a player home mod I was looking at had been overwritten.... nothing major, just a new location edit to make it a player home for AFT and new music that I liked better. I had NOT changed the zip file in the install folder like I usually do, so the conversion overwrote my changes with the old file. No problem, 5 minutes in the editor and it was fixed, and this time I changed the archived copy in the mod folder so It would be a permanent switch. Fine so far, but when I went to DELETE the mod a few days later - as it was simply a trial - NMM balked on the delete. I still can't delete this mod. The original file HAD BEEN RE-WRITTEN and that seems to have tripped over the symlink type bookkeeping. Now this is WONDERFUL for copy protection and slowing hackers down, but I'm modding a game here. This means that every time I use the CK I can't write out over the old file in the Data folder or drop in a different file or it's gonna make .60 unhappy. Apart from the performance hit this is NOT something I want to have to deal with while modding. And don't knock SSDs I've got a 2 year old 1,0 SSD raid on my machine and it's worked flawlessly. 4 Toshiba 512Gs for 1 T total space. people who have had SSD trouble generally plug a cheap 128 into the minislot and let the OS beat it to death. try a different approach with the newer better quality SSDs. You will LOVE the difference :)

I was able to get my game back up and running after the conversion but it's been buggy as hell, so I'm getting ready to redact .60 and go back to .56. I might just stay there. Here's what I learned today. I tried to backup the game folder on my freeagent drive. but the copy was very slow and would then hang up. I found out that when windows explorer hit a bad symlink it would just sit there. I had to get the PM up to close the move dialogue window and it forced explorer.exe to restart. Eventually I figured out how to move it and then how to clean it. Link Shell Extension: http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/linkshellextension.html helped me to move it on my win7 system. I installed it and used the "smart" option to get the game folder to my backup drive bad links and all. It also slowed disk performance noticeably, comparable with the performance hit the game/mod disk IO took with NMM.60, so I uninstalled it after I had my backup. It was only later that I figured to get a fullscreen list with a "*" search in explorer and sorted it by file size. The symlinks all have a size of 0 and were clumped up at the bottom of this 60k file list. Every one of them was bad. I saw which 3 mods dropped the orphans...2 FOMODS and 1 non, and tried to uninstall them, then delete them. .60 would not delete them. I then manually deleted the bad symlinks but the manager still wouldn't delete them. Doesn't matter they're dead in a couple of days anyway. I had fixed all the FOMADS the day the update barfed and reloaded most of the junk that got dropped, but I never looked to see what had symlinks and where they were till today... just not necessary at the time, but most of them weren't there , or were bad. I did a reasonable job of patching up my old install. I had rebuilt my setup at the end of July so most of it was still fresh in my head as to fixing it, though the backup was a month old. Problem is that it's getting more unstable every day and I've got just a bit to go on my current playthrough - just the very end of the main quest and I'm done till I reinstall. Even though this backup is probably no good it's what I always do before a rebuild, so if any of you have had the same issues with backing up I did maybe this will help. From my perspective the symlink idea does not look like the way to go with NMM. Aside from the performance hit, It looks like we will be restricted to modding only through the use of zip archives and reinstalls. Several places where I dropped in custom body textures or edited a NMM installed mod .60 balked when asked to remove them for a clean reinstall. It's this loss of flexibility and sluggish performance which has soured me on the new version more than the conversion fustercluck. I'd been out at my in-laws in Colorado that week and just came home after a week out of game and ran the update through out of hand... :D OOPS... But I've got a pretty big installation, 176 active mods, and know enough about this that I wasback on track in a few hours. One of my bashes got raped , but it was fully intact in the backup, and though I had to rename it - since overwriting the remains of the old one did not work, it was no real loss. I've wrecked my game several times before so it didn't kill me when Nexus did it this time. I'd like to see an alternative version that DID NOT USE SYMLINKS. Most of my profiling would be minor, as I'm not much for Perkus Maximus or SkyRe type games. I'd much prefer the efficiency, reliability, and flexibility of .56 to return rather than have the bells and whistles of .60. As it stands today I'll have to be convinced that using the symlinks isn't more trouble than its worth.

In response to post #29157714. #29164574, #29169754, #29180264, #29192034 are all replies on the same post. I have been running a 1T 1,0 SSD raid with 4 Toshiba 512's for almost 2 years now. It's my ONLY HD and there hasn't even been an logged error to my knowledge. Get with the 21st century - HDDs are tomorrow's floppies. Progress marches on........ Edit: I really question the necessity of the multi drive capability focus for this update. The SSD HDD cusp we are on right now will be past in 2 or 3 years as EVERYTHING will be solid state by then. They are cooler faster and cheaper than platters. Dependability was mostly an issue with the initial run of budget alternatives, and they are no longer around ... :D

Hmm, I'm getting rumblings of an actual windows directory nesting limit for its hardlinks and symlinks which is likely the root of many of the install hijinks. I stopped updating at .6 and am seriously considering redacting back to 56 since removals and uninstalls are still not reliable. I was trying to go up to Racemenu 3 yesterday and it dropped 2 of the 3 ESP files (I replaced mimic and plugin too, but the main recemenu esp didn't get replaced in the data folder at all) When I did it again 5 minutes later it worked fine and this time my game didn't CTD at the menu. :) The problem is made harder to detect when seemingly random texture or mesh files out of large scripted mods suddenly disappear. There are endless bug reports similar or I'd have made another one..... Any way.... Have you got a backup plan in case this windows filelink idea can't be forced to fit your model? I'm getting ready to pull a major reconfiguration for my next runthrough and could use a bit of guidance as to maybe waiting a bit more or just going back to the old way.

In response to post #28860284. #28881684, #28883389, #28883474, #28891134, #28891709 are all replies on the same post. I'm not gonna touch profiling till they get this FOMOD issue corralled. When I tried to go back to my backup after the initial conversion it left out so many files that it was worse than before. NOTE: I installed .6 just a bit ago and using the button on the bar only disables the mod, and re-enabling won't trigger the script but when you right click it's name to uninstall then reinstalling the mod will get your script to run. This difference from the old was rather not obvious at first and might have been why myself and others were having trouble getting FOMODs to reinstall normally.

In response to post #28860284. #28881684, #28883389, #28883474 are all replies on the same post. Drake the FOMODs did not port right and to get them to execute I had to delete them and reacquire as described. there is a .6 out and I'm gonna load it now to see if this is fixed but the issue was still there as of .5 . So far I haven't encountered problems EXCEPT with FOMODS. Maybe it's fixed. The thread on this issue got cleaned and locked shortly after I reported the bug this AM. Seems the old hands like me (plays much, posts seldom :) ) are spending our time getting the game put back together than reporting bugs. But for me, the reacquire strategy is a usable workaround and fixes the problem when nothing else would work at all.

In response to post #28860284. Hey there..... Many mods, virtually ALL scripted installs are barfing on the conversion. To make them work properly you must DELETE them and REACQUIRE them - either from a download or from a backup copy of your NMM mods folder that you should make BEFORE you start. (The delete will erase the 7zip from your computer). when you do this the scripted install will function and it will work properly. Otherwise the "file links" that they are trying to implement will lead to nowhere. I was trying to add some custom body stuff to a couple of my favorite NPC mods and actually hung explorer.exe up because it couldn't find its targets. LOL I'm still seeing occasional purple textures and floating polygons 3 days later (176 mods installed) :D. Far as I can tell, the two mods of yours I'm using ported fine, but then you don't seem to script your installs.... Good luck wrestling the bear ;)

In response to post #28849534. You have to delete them and reacquire them to make the script execute. If you have room drag a copy of your mod folder to the desktop or your preferred area then use the add from file button to reinstall them. deleting them will remove them from your nexus mods folder and you will have to re-download them otherwise. As far as I can tell ALL of my scripted install mods barfed on the conversion. The ones that looked to be OK were often missing textures which I found when playing later. Depending on how many mods you have you may or may not remember all of them you need to look at ;)

In response to post #28813029. #28813724 is also a reply to the same post. Maybe the beta crowd had the same migration issues back in January that we all saw yesterday, but as the trial wore on the conversion issues had largely been left behind. I do find it odd that .60 had to delete and reinstall everything rather than just logging the current setup. That seems to be the root of the problem there. and yeah :D I got caught with my backup down .. but I've murdered my own game so often trying weird stuff that I recover very well. I SHOULD have just rolled the game folder onto my backup drive as usual, but really NMM updates are usually not game breakers and I just did it. As a famous comedian often says... "Hold my beer and watch this." O_O This does seem to be a case where a mandatory backup by the up date itself was warranted, but modded game installations can get to be so big that many people will have space issues and wreck because of that. As far as base functionality goes the failure of scripted mods to both get garbled on conversion AND not work properly (You have to reacquire the file after deleting it every time you want the script to execute) should have kept the project in beta till this issue was resolved

A word of caution here.....NMM is the rock upon which the nexus was built. Over the years I have found it far and above the best manager out there. OMOD, the Mod Organiser, even TesModManager all have fallen by the wayside in terms of functionality, appearance, and most importantly reliability. It is very much the glue which holds this community together. Then yesterday it just WRECKED my game. :D Scripted mods are a mess, none of them installed right. The new profile was configured without regard to the old and when you backed up it CTD'd because stuff was no longer there. I found that the only reliable way to fix scripteds was to redownload the entire mod, as simply reactivating it bypassed the script altogether. I didn't trust the mod folder any more. Orphan ESPs were all over my data folder. With about 160 active mods this made for a FUN day ;) Now I'm an old hand here, I don't publish, but I've been making my own mods and using others since Morrowind. It took me several hours to get stuff back to normal, though I did see another damned polygon marching through the woods just before I sat down to write this. So I'm gonna be OK. I hadn't backed the directory up for about 100 game hours and have been playing with several new mods or I'd just go back and overwrite the game folder and pickup where I left off. But The less experienced players are surely tearing hair and screaming. The trust issue here is significant. Any good IT manager will tell you that you don't implement new code till it's ready. Yes it's a BETA. Says so right on the package. Yes there were ISSUES. Said that in the disclaimer. My question here is "What's the rush?" You just gave a whaling lot of your loyal followers a MAJOR headache that they don't need. Were you trying to beat FO4 out? Could you not have waited till the core processes were functioning right to release? LOL, now modders are guinea pigs by nature. Plug it in and see what happens is a way of life with us. But yesterday was like catching your buddy kissing your girlfriend. A trusted thing betrayed us!! Lots of people will react poorly to this so all I'm asking is that you be more careful. Pooping on someone's day is rarely good business. And BTW, we all DO appreciate the time and hard work that the nexus crew puts into this site. Most of us aren't going anywhere, but it wouldn't hurt to be more patient next time.