EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY this is driving me crazy!

[imprimis432]

If the answer is going to suggest the problem is my hard drive, no it isn't, move along.

WHY OH WHY does Vortex insist on this awful method of randomly deciding that installed mods are now 'empty',  This has been a constant headache and now its just done it again to over a hundred mods because I dared to deploy again after attempting to purge left behind junk, I guess it decided to purge all my active mods too, grrr.

This happens without purging too, I install a couple of mods, deploy, sort, etc, oh wait, suddenly its decided a couple of mods are no longer in existence, check the mod in the list, ah yes the 'empty' is right there, its decided to suddenly pretend I only wanted to imaginary install a mod.

Following this repeated headache involves constantly having to reinstall the mods that previously caused no issue.

Please, I'd rather not 'ghost' the mods over at this point its an annoying fruitless experience, it doesn't work properly, I'd rather just have the mods in the game folder then use vortex to add or remove them because it clearly has issues with the current method (Move deployment(Experimental) is the only option given with no alternative or option to disable that). choosing to open these 'empty' mods does indeed lead to empty folders, okay, well I've got them enabled, so why are they now empty? these aren't just patches, these can be important things like entire framework mods that just decide to become empty folders, why? I didn't ask to purge enabled mods, I never clicked a 'I've decided this mod is enabled and useful so please just delete the entire contents of the folder' button either.

No it isn't my harddrive, no it isn't ram, no its not an 'antivirus' problem, nor a permissions issue, no I haven't moved anything, yes its all on the same external drive, a 4tb SSD which has no issues at all and the only issues I have are this constant 'empty' issue on Vortex, so don't try passing the buck, fix it, or is the answer yet again "use mod organizer 2"? (I'd rather not) but if needs must).

Again, don't bother blaming my harddrive or technical difficulties, I've had the same issue for years over a couple of drives, this is a Vortex file handling issue and good for you if you have no issue with 3000 installed mods, I have this problem with 150 in which I am now having to reinstall 71 MODS that have decided to become 'empty'.

[vortexposer]

That's what happen when using Move Deployment (experimental) vs Hardlinks deployment.

MODDINGWIKI Users General Deployment Methods · Nexus-Mods/Vortex Wiki · GitHub

[imprimis432]

But there is no alternative option given as I show in the screenshot snippet, it is hard locked to on and the dropdown offers no alternative, I have the game and Vortex and all its folders on the external drive together, I can't move them all to my internal drive as its only 500gb so if that's a 'must' then I guess I'm forever doomed to this headache.

[vortexposer]

Your external drive is likely the wrong type for windows to use hardlinks and needs reformatted to NTFS file system.

[ChemBoy1]

Yeah bud. Your setup is the issue. Don't use Move Deployment. It will soon be deprecated.

Format external to NTFS as stated above. Also - DO NOT install programs on external drives. Bad idea. Upgrade your internal hard drive if you need more space.

Thanks for the laugh!

 

[imprimis432]

glad a buggy piece of junk software that has terrible programmers brought 'laughs' as opposed to any useful feedback (predictably), the customer is always in the wrong as per the norm around arrogance, I shall just advise people not to waste money on premium in future and to avoid Vortex at all costs, good deal.  Not a problem with other modding tools but yeah, lets blame the user rather than make something that works and insist upon needing to be on the internal drive like its 2005.

[ChemBoy1]

4 hours ago, imprimis432 said:

glad a buggy piece of junk software that has terrible programmers brought 'laughs' as opposed to any useful feedback (predictably), the customer is always in the wrong as per the norm around arrogance, I shall just advise people not to waste money on premium in future and to avoid Vortex at all costs, good deal.  Not a problem with other modding tools but yeah, lets blame the user rather than make something that works and insist upon needing to be on the internal drive like its 2005.

I truly cannot emphasize this enough - This is a problem with YOUR setup, not a bug in Vortex. You do not seem willing to listen to anyone else and just want to assume you are correct in your assumptions. 

Go use MO2 if you want to. No one is stopping you. Do you think your empty threats of telling people not to buy Premium mean anything? 

[vortexposer]

Meh. Is common to not know when dealing with external drives. I didn't run across it, since is only used for storage/downloads vs Staging.
 

Edited August 21 by vortexposer

[showler]

I mean, it does seem like there's a bug of some sort here.  If the move deployment is working correctly then I wouldn't expect Vortex to suddenly report the mods as "empty" just because the files have been moved to the game folder.  That's confusing as hell.

But if the mods have stopped working because of this error then that seems like something that should be fixed.  I know the move deployment is listed as experimental, but not working at all is a pretty serious issue.

[Nagev]

There are just too many external variables that can cause the move deployment method to mess up. We would probably have to create an additional storage spot (Staging folder for the staging folder lol) which can hold the initial mod setup to ensure we can recover from any of those external variables. This will obviously hold double the hard disk space which is silly.

As ChemBoy1 said - the move deployment method is getting deprecated, I just don't see it ever becoming reliable; it has been highlighted as "experimental" for over 7 years, at this point "experimental" is codename for broken af, use at your own risk.

Although in some setups this would mean that the game extension will report its inability to deploy mods more often, it's also easier to walk new users through using the hardlinks deployment method (the "Suggest" button will always try to get hardlinks to work)