All mods cease to load for Fallout 4

[MJS814]

I am using the current version of Vortex 1.4.16 on a Intel Based I7 7th Generation running windows 10 pro version 21H1 64 Bit OS with X64 Based processor 32 GB memory.

 

Vortex is installed on my C: drive and Fallout 4 is installed on my D: Drive

 

Today I got a message saying that changes were made to my mods outside of Vortex and it prompted on what I would like to do. Keep the changes, restore the files that Vortex had or dismiss the message. After dismissing the message a few times, I relented and said restore the Vortex files.

 

All mods became disabled and any attempt to enable the mods begins the following cycle of "Deploy all mods". Select yes to deploy, no to leave disabled. I select yes to deploy, and then I get the message stating that the mods are redundant. I can dismiss or disable the redundant mods. If I disable the redundant mods it once again disables all mods and the party starts all over again. If I choose to dismiss the warning the flags on all my plugins say, "Failed to Parse the Plugin" and "Not Deployed"

 

I sent a bug report using the "Send Feedback" on the dashboard but have not heard anything yet. Under "Your Issues" box I still get the message that says "No reported issues, Lucky You" hmmm I'm not so sure I agree with that but...

 

I only have mods for Fallout 4, I have six profiles but only 4 profiles have mods installed. I tested 2 profiles and had the same results. I checked my log file and this is a sample. This sample pretty much repeats itself for every mod. I tried to attach the complete log but I got a message saying "Error You aren't permitted to upload this kind of file."

 

Thu, 07 Oct 2021 12:14:50 GMT - warn: failed to link link=F4SE\Plugins\Clipboard\1\PLACEHOLDER, source=Clipboard-276-0.6.20b-ESL.zip-39804-Clipboard-276-0-6-20b-ESL-zip-1597394331, error=ENOENT: no such file or directory, stat 'D:\Vortex Mods\fallout4\Clipboard-276-0.6.20b-ESL.zip-39804-Clipboard-276-0-6-20b-ESL-zip-1597394331\F4SE\Plugins\Clipboard\1\PLACEHOLDER'
Thu, 07 Oct 2021 12:14:50 GMT - warn: failed to link link=Clean and Simple - Red Rocket Startup.esp, source=Clean and Simple - Red Rocket Startup-24961-2-8-1600812856, error=ENOENT: no such file or directory, stat 'D:\Vortex Mods\fallout4\Clean and Simple - Red Rocket Startup-24961-2-8-1600812856\Clean and Simple - Red Rocket Startup.esp'

 

I checked and the folders and files exist except all files are 1k and they all appear to end with ".vortex_lnk"

 

Please let me know what all of you think and if you need more info.

 

Thanks

 

As far as I can tell mods downloaded from Bethesda.net and the creation club seem unaffected.

[rmm200]

The easiest way to get the symptom you describe is if you moved your game directory.

If you do, without Purging first, Windows helpfully replaces all of your hard links with actual copies of your mods.

Now, to Vortex, it looks like someone outside of Vortex replaced all your mods.

In this process, it is very easy to merge those invalid changes back into your mod staging folder.

All of a sudden all of your mods are redundant, since they have nothing to write to the game directory.

 

In any case - I suggest:

 

Purge from Vortex to break any hard links.

Clean up your game directory. Might be easiest to just re-install.

Reinstall each of your enabled mods from your Download directory. It is on the mod dropdown.

Deploy your new clean copy of your enabled mods.

 

At this point you should be OK.

[MJS814]

Thanks, unfortunately I did not move my game directory, it is in the same place that it has been for over a year. I did not make any changes at all to any directory structure. So cause is still unknown, but effect is quite evident.

 

If I understand your suggestion, you are recommending that I essentially start from scratch.

 

Reinstall my game and all that entails. Then reinstall all mods (for me that is 178 mods). Load up my game and hope my last save is still good. Then hope this issue does not happen again.

 

Please understand my angst is not directed at you, but rather at the situation I find myself in with this mod manager. I had already resigned myself to doing just as you suggest, I really wanted to know the cause, and how to avoid it in the future. As much as I have loved using Vortex for its ease of use and superb handling of the load order for Fallout 4, knowing that I will spend my free time this weekend rebuilding my Fallout 4 game leaves me a bit frustrated and concerned that all will be good when done. Not knowing the cause or hearing from Vortex support at all, I feel I must reconsider my choice of mod manager, should I choose to continue playing the game.

 

Thanks again for taking the time to reply to my post.

[Guest deleted34304850]

have you changed a plugin - perhaps made it light - or cleaned it? that can cause this to happen.

the long and the short of it is - its not a bug - you chose the wrong reply. always choose keep changes. you chose the other option and so it did as you asked and reverted everything.

just re-enable your plugins - and make sure everything is as it was and you should be ok.

[HadToRegister]

 

 

Today I got a message saying that changes were made to my mods outside of Vortex and it prompted on what I would like to do. Keep the changes, restore the files that Vortex had or dismiss the message. After dismissing the message a few times, I relented and said restore the Vortex files.

 

 

 

 

It's been stated many times in these forums to never pick RESTORE FILES.

 

That selection undoes any and all changes

 

You can even click on each option the pop up is showing you to get a brief description of each choice.

[MJS814]

Thanks, for our reply, I obviously did not check the forums before replying. Did not even know a forum existed until I had the issue and received no support from Vortex. In my old mind I imagined that restoring files meant put everything back the way it was. Not remove everything which to me is the complete opposite of what I expected... again obviously.

 

 

Again thanks for your reply I do appreciate that you took the time to read my post and respond

[MJS814]

Thanks, for your reply. No I didn't do either of those things. Yes I chose the wrong reply, but one has to question why that reply would cause Vortex to remove/not restore any files. Rather it sent me on a cyclic loop where no mods could be enabled. I'm not sure that I agree with your definition of what a bug is. So, I will call it an unhappy accident that occurred for no reason and had a question posed that if one ignored it would keep popping up until you chose the bad option.

 

Further I am not saying that I may not have caused the issue, but I don't know what I did to do so, and I'm not sure it won't happen again. Not the restore option (I would only make that mistake once) but the constant message popping up every time I start Vortex.

 

Again thanks for your reply I do appreciate that you took the time to read my post and respond

[AugustaCalidia]

 

I sent a bug report using the "Send Feedback" on the dashboard but have not heard anything yet. Under "Your Issues" box I still get the message that says "No reported issues, Lucky You" hmmm I'm not so sure I agree with that but...

 

As far as I know, Vortex feedback winds up here: https://github.com/Nexus-Mods/Vortex/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue.

 

However, I do not see your issue listed either on the open issues page or the closed issues page. Am I missing something?

[Guest deleted34304850]

I don't want to get into the pedantry of what constitutes a bug, but this isn't it.

 

When presented with the option you were presented with - the correct response would be to choose the option to keep changes. Vortex is telling you that it has detected that files it controls have changed. It doesn't know how, or why, just that they are changed from what it expects.

 

It then asks you what you want to do about it.

 

You chose the option to revert, and Vortex will attempt to do that for you because that is what you told it to do.

 

Part of that process of reverting the mod back to a state Vortex knows about has seen some mods disabled, and some mods enabled.

 

The redundant mods you can ignore. Its just telling you that you've got a mod active in your load order, but all the files in that mod are replaced by another mod in your load order. Vortex tells you, specifically that this isn't an issue - it just slows down loading slightly.

 

The mods that have been disabled can be enabled. Mods that are enabled can be disabled. This remediation shouldn't take you more than a few minutes, if that.

You do not need to reinstall your game, format your hard disk, reinstall windows or anything else draconian. You can do that of course, but it would be slight overkill.

 

All you need to do is select all your disabled mods and enable them, then make sure the corresponding plugins are active. Then deploy everything and load up your game. If mods are missing, you'll get a warning when the game starts. If you get no warning, you should be okay to resume your game.

 

That's the resolution to your issue. There is no bug in play here. This is how mod managers work.

[MJS814]

I honestly don't know as I have not gotten a response. So I either did not request help correctly, they are too busy to reply, or they feel that this is user error as other have implied.