Vortex does a atrocious job of deleting files

[jfcmp87]

I just wanted to share my experience with this mod manager. It's great except for this one glaring issue which has caused me so many headaches, it doesn't completely remove files when you delete a mod. My Skyrim data folder is a complete mess of empty folders and scattered files managed by Vortex this causes all sorts of issues. Yes I know about purging and even that is a nightmare! Every time I purge I have to complete reinstall all my mods that use Nemesis but not before I make sure to complete delete all Nemesis folders cause lord knows this terrible mod manager won't do it.

[Pickysaurus]

Vortex only manages files it installs. If you generate files outside of that and don't either create a mod in Vortex or the tool itself properly integrates then this isn't an error in the app. You would need to talk to the developers of the tools (e.g. Nemesis) about working on proper vortex support. It can be as simple as allowing the user to set an output folder.

[Guest deleted34304850]

what files doesn't it delete?

i've been using it for years and for me if i purge, it purges everything it manages. anything that remains after a purge i check to see where it came from and it may be files created by tools that are placed in that directory, that vortex has no knowledge of, and thus, will not touch them.

are you saying that you want a mod manager - any mod manager - to mindlessly delete everything even if it doesn't manage those files? is that what you're asking for, because trust me, if you want that - you're nuts.

[InDarkestNight]

This is why I don't use it. NMM did the same thing and it caused all manner of problems. I just use Mod Organizer. It doesn't actually install anything in your files, so if you remove it with MO everything is removed because it was never there to begin with. Of course, you still have to actually install skse and enbs in your folders, but its better than everything.

 

I've never even tried to use vortex because of its similarity to NMM, which mangled my SE game years ago beyond repair. I simply don't put anything in my skyrim folder unless I have no choice. And no, I don't run ENBs in LE, because my game can't handle any of them for some reason. Literally all I have installed in there is skse and enboost, that's it. Surprising how tidy your data folder is when you have nothing installed in there.

[Guest deleted34304850]

so you don't actually know what you're talking about, but decided to post a load of nonsense? well done you.

[AugustaCalidia]

When I use purge, Vortex leaves my game data folders as squeaky clean as MO and MO2 ever did (I've used both). In fact, using purge and a little extra Vortex magic, I can easily exit my games with game data folders devoid of any evidence that the games were ever modded. If evidence of a mod does exist, it's because I manually placed the mod in the game without telling Vortex. Fortunately, with Vortex, I've rarely ever had to do that.

[bluscandth]

Some of the folders left behind in data when I hit purge:
CalientesTools
Meshes, which has files made by bodyslide
NemesisEngine
Many more. Most of them don't have executables. All still contain the .folder_managed_by_vortex dotfile.

[showler]

Your problem there is that those folders contain a combination of files installed by Vortex (hence the "managed by the Vortex" marker) and files generated by those tools (hence the inability of Vortex to remove the folder).

 

The pattern of them all being tools that create files is clear and, as Picky said, the authors of those tools would need to make them work in a way that Vortex could manage all the files, not just some of them.

[bluscandth]

I think its a bad design choice. Considering that these folders vortex is symlinking into the data dir all have a hierarchy with data as the root, it would be trivial to have these extraneous files created by tools and such simply be placed into the staging folders. Vortex might not know a file belongs to bodyslide if its outside the folders already present in the staging dir but it's easy to assume anything inside those subfolders belong to the mod. Either way, these folders should no longer be "managed by vortex" after purge is done if they are safe to delete, as far as not being part of the deployment.

Vortex should have a better way of handling these extraneous files. Mods and their configuration/output should be stored together, its only good sense. Even if its just manually assigning folders and files to be tracked and moved to a mod's staging folder.

Common area folders like meshes, plugins, scripts could be assumed ignored by default unless giving the user the option to 'factory reset' them and clear them out.

Its wild vortex can't remove the Nemesis folder because there's a cache folder inside it or the bodyslide folder because you made a custom preset, which should be stored with the mod files anyway

Or MCM settings which again, should stay with MCM staging.

One Idea I have off the top of my head: sandbox tools added to vortex such that they can read anything in the skyrim install folder but can only write to their own mod staging folder. Than when you run bodyslide it outputs to the staging folder and deploys the output to the skyrim folder with hard links or whatever.

Edited July 8, 2023 by bluscandth

[showler]

You keep saying "Vortex should..." and then describing changes to the behaviour of the tools.