nt5raham

Problem solved. Somehow the Locked to Index option got enabled. Thanks to all!

Solution provided in original post: Uninstall & reinstall mods.

OK, I'm feeling really stupid right now. I'm brand new to BSOS, and I didn't realize it was a "mod" that needed to be enabled and deployed for every profile. Since it is run from the Dashboard I was thinking of it as a tool like xEdit.
 
Problem solved. Please forgive my ignorance.

Edited for clarity 31 Dec 2020 1700 UTC
 
Hours of troubleshooting, trying to narrow down a possibly corrupted mod, and it looked like CBPC - Physics was going to be the culprit. Every time I disabled it, the problem stopped, and enabled the problem returned. Reinstalling didn't help...so much for a corrupted mod. Tried a couple of other profiles with CBPC in them and had the same crash problem with each. So I created a bare test profile with just CBPC and it's requirements, and it worked fine. Started adding mods from my original profile and it still worked fine with a full load. And then it crashed again. So I started removing mods and it even crashed with just CBPC and its bare minimum requirements.
 
IOW, this is an intermittent problem that is being a pain to pin down.
 
Rebooted my PC again (third time since this problem started today), and suddenly all is working normally. I can switch between profiles at will, install/uninstall mods, no crashes.
 
Blame it on Windows 10? Stray electrons? Coronavirus? Dunno. I'm familiar with "memory leaks" and such, so I reboot my PC at least once a day. I'm guessing this is some sort of memory issue with Windows or Vortex, but I lack the expertise to diagnose further. I know Vortex creeps up on RAM usage the longer it is open and the more changes are being made. Vortex has gotten to the point in the past where Vortex itself presented an error message saying memory usage was high and it recommended closing the Vortex app. Since then I've made it a practice to periodically close Vortex, reboot, and open it again for marathon modding sessions. Maybe this time I didn't do that early enough? I've been torturing poor Vortex to death today with this mod testing, so I can't blame it for freaking out a bit (if that is what happened). I've got 64GB of physical memory installed, and it has never even come close to maxing out.
 
At least at this point it is working fine...for now.
 
I believe the title of the thread should be changed because it doesn't look like this has anything to do with a corrupted profile. Initial behavior threw me off track.

Corrected/changed back in v1.3.18 Thank you!!!

I don't know that this is the correct answer, but if I were getting that message I would begin by reinstalling Vortex.

I would expect Vortex, at least under most circumstances, to know where to put the end product (i.e. Games folder). Even on some things like your patch. The developers working on Vortex have a lot of gaming experience under their belts had try to prepare for as many known variations as possible. I'm sorry if my initial response was ambiguous. I was referring to changing the installation path for varying aspects of the installation process, not the final destination of the files for gaming.
 
Here are the two changeable paths of which I'm aware (other than the installation path of Vortex itself):
Downloads Folder: SETTINGS > DOWNLOAD: Just like it sounds, the .zip/.rar archives are put here and remain compressed to save disk space. You always have a virgin downloaded copy in case, like me, you mess things up and need to start over. This is also a reliable source for troubleshooting in case you need to extract a single file from the archive or try a semi-manual install (drag/drop the archive into the bottom section of the MODS window). Mods Staging Folder: SETTINGS > MODS. This is where Vortex stores the mods once you click "Install." They are uncompressed and wait here to be Enabled and Deployed to the Game folder itself.

Final update from GitHub:
 
IDCs added a commit that referenced this issue 43 minutes ago@IDCsManually added tools on dashboard are now organized by timestamp 19649d7This is an interim solution for #6776 - the better solution would be toallow users to drag and drop their tools around so they can easilyposition them as they wish - possibly a 2.0 enhancement ?@IDCs ContributorIDCs commented 39 minutes agoHey @nt5raham, thanks for confirming, and yes I agree that the best solution would be to allow users to drag/drop their tools into the wanted position but as we're already considering a UI/UX overhaul - I think a good middle ground would be to sort them by timestamp for now. I'm going to close this issue as the commit above should resolve your issue, but we will keep this use case in mind and potentially allow users to drag/drop their tools around in the future. @IDCs IDCs closed this 39 minutes ago

Disregard. I see in the post immediately before mine that this concept is being discussed under "Could Be Light."