Question about the staging folder

[dizietemblesssma]

I'm setting up a better backup regime than the one I didn't have before my drive wnet bye bye. It seems to me that backing up the downloads and staging folder is just repetition, unless the extracted downloads in the staging folder don't include anything that is not selected in a FOMOD, in which case just backing up the downloads amd then extracting the file(s) into the staging folder (upon reinstall) would not match the state of the staging folder when the downloads were backed up.

 

So, assuming that I have backed up the download folders and the vortex settings - appdata/roaming/vortex, is this sufficient or do I need staging as well?

 

diziet

[rmm200]

Downloads can live on a flash drive you store offline. No need for online access there.

For backup, I would do Appdata and mod staging.

Do NOT backup your game directory unless you Purge from Vortex first. Windows does bad things to hard links in a copy...

[Tannin42]

The staging folder is not just the extracted archives, it contains only files the mod installer (fomod or otherwise) told us to install under the name they gave us.

That's not just options in a fomod, c# fomods can generate files directly, files can me renamed and moved and whatnot.

But also if you manually edit/remove files that would also affect the mods in staging.

So yeah, for a proper backup you have to back up the staging folder too.

 

The download folder is not actually required to play the modded games, those are "only" required to (re-)install the mods and if necessary you can re-download them from the server.

[dizietemblesssma]

The staging folder is not just the extracted archives, it contains only files the mod installer (fomod or otherwise) told us to install under the name they gave us.

That's not just options in a fomod, c# fomods can generate files directly, files can me renamed and moved and whatnot.

But also if you manually edit/remove files that would also affect the mods in staging.

So yeah, for a proper backup you have to back up the staging folder too.

 

The download folder is not actually required to play the modded games, those are "only" required to (re-)install the mods and if necessary you can re-download them from the server.

That's what I figured (about FOMODs), thanks for the confirmation. In the case of a major loss and reinstall of a game, would copying back the staging folder and the appdata be seamless? At the moment I'm activating a reinstalled game, copying the list of removed files, quitting Vortex and downloading them to the new download folder and then extracting them to the new staging folder before restarting Vortex. As you have described this is innaccurate and might explain why every mod shows up twice, once as enabled and once as uninstalled. I've been going through each one and installing from the 'uninstalled' listing, hopefully this will put the staging folder back to rights. In most cases the info about file conflicts seems to have survived.

 

diziet

[rmm200]

Don't forget those hard links in the game directory.

Purge your mods before you do any backups. That way the game directory is clean, and a Deploy after your restore will get you back where you want to be.

 

If you back up a Deployed mod staging folder, then reinstall your game (clean) and that staging folder - they will be out of synch.

Vortex will think you manually deleted all your mods. The result will not be pretty.

[dizietemblesssma]

"If you back up a Deployed mod staging folder, then reinstall your game (clean) and that staging folder - they will be out of synch.

Vortex will think you manually deleted all your mods. The result will not be pretty."

 

Would deploying in Vortex after the staging folder was copied back and _then_ the game activated not remake the hard links in the game folder? The game folder in this scenario having no hard links to mod files as it is a fresh reinstall. Otherwise backing up a Vortex mod setup would seem to mean backing up the whole game and also the staging folder, which isn't necessarily going to preserve the hard links anyway, depending on such how a backup is made; you'd need a backup program that recognised hard links and knew enough to recreate them when backing up two separate directories, plus the backup target needs to support these hard links. This seems like a big ask for the average user who wants to be able to recover a modded game from a drive failure.

 

diziet

[rmm200]

Hard links are created only when you Deploy.

Don't count on any backup program preserving those links.

Mod staging folder has to live on the same drive as the game, so as long as you do that Purge before making the backup, you are safe.

What Purge does: Removes the hard links. Deploy puts them all back.