A question about vortex.deployment.json.

[FrankBlack]

So, last weekend, my OS HDD died. I have SSE installed on a separate drive, along with my staging and download folders, and so haven’t lost my current install or mods. Unfortunately (because I wrongly believed that Vortex backed up to My Documents) I lost the AppData Vortex folders and the information contained within them.

 

I swapped in a new HDD, reinstalled Windows and then Vortex. Long story short, when I launched Vortex and set up the correct file and folder paths, all my mods were greyed out (showing as disabled). Using ReSaver for reference, I went through my latest save and reactivated all the plugins (in Vortex) that my game required. Doing this meant that I could launch and pick up my game from where I left off.

 

At present, I can’t install any further mods with Vortex because it recognizes that the game was modded prior to this installation and wants to purge before redeploying and continuing to mod. I’m pretty sure that I don’t have the data Vortex would be looking for due to losing my AppData folders, but I do have a vortex.deployment.json file in my SSE data folder that was created during my last deployment (the night before my HDD died). My question is, what exactly is the vortex.deployment.json file, and, if I allow Vortex to purge, will it be able to deploy from the information contained in the vortex.deployment.json?

 

Thanks for any advice on this.

 

 

[Tannin42]

The manifest (vortex.deployment.json) contains a list of files deployed to the game directory and where they came from. Vortex doesn't usually need it for normal operation, it's more there to help to recover broken setups - like in your case. You should *not*, repeat: *not*, purge in your case as purging clears the manifest.

 

Whether your problem can be recovered depends a lot on what data was on the dead HDD, obviously the AppData was there and very likely the staging folder was not (since staging has to be on the same disk as the game and you wouldn't have a working game - or disabled mods - if it wasn't).

 

If the staging folder is also gone, you have to reinstall all mods before you can mod with Vortex again. But again, I don't think this is the case.

 

So what you should do first is go to the mods tab and click "Reset to Manifest". This will read "vortex.deployment.json" and enable all the mods that were enabled when you last deployed. Verify as well as you can that Vortex now has the mods enabled that you used for your last game.

 

At this point you will probably get a lot of "file conflicts" because all the rules that resolved these conflicts were destroyed with AppData I'm afraid. Once you solved those you should be ok to purge and re-deploy your mods without breaking the game and then install new mods.

 

You should be aware that Vortex now doesn't know where the mods came from and thus won't be able to check them for updates, show descriptions and such. You may want to - step by step - reinstall your mods to get everything to display correctly again.

[FrankBlack]

Hi Tannin,

 

Thanks for replying. That's much better news than I expected. When I realised I'd lost the AppData that Vortex requires, I assumed I'd lost the install alltogether. You're right about the staging folder. That, and my SSE install, were on a different drive to the one I lost. I'll give Reset to Manifest a go and then compare the plugins with the ones I can see in my last save. I'll then work through the conflicts before a purge and re-deployment. I've backed up the whole SSE foider, along with the staging folder and the vortex.deployment.json in case I need to recover any of them later on.