Cleaning out "Identical to Master" in the Hearthfire Extended Mod is a mistake

[garthagain]

After a year or more of running mods which Loot identified as haveing Identical To Master "dirty edits" I decided to clean them. Big mistake.

Everything built with the Hearthfire Extended Mod by Kinaga started disappearing over a period of time; beds, tables, benches, everything. Replacements I made went even faster.

I didn't know what was going on, tried many things, and finally reinstalled the mod. Loot once again reported a "dirty edit" and I said Aha.........That's It.

I've now run Skyrim for over 10 hours after reinstallng, and no more disappearing furniture.

It's been said before don't clean a mod just because Loot says it has a "dirty edit' or ITM. I've reinstalled the five mods I cleaned on the advice of Loot.

Edited June 5, 2017 by garthagain

[Urtho]

There are very few legitimate reasons for an ITM to be present in a mod, so few that I can't really think of one right now. I'm sure someone will be along shortly to chime in with such a "valid" reason but in 99%+ of the cases ITMs are errors that should be cleaned, preferably by the author before releasing the mod.

[cdcooley]

Cleaning is not a problem in general but changing things mid-game can be.

 

If you clean the mods and start a new character I doubt you will see any problems. The problems you're seeing are basically the same as the ones you can see if there's a mod conflict and you switch the load order of the mods. Many times reordering mods is harmless but in some cases it is not. You have probably just stumbled on one of the problem cases.

[Jannifer]

Some mods do have changes that LOOT will flag as a "dirty edit" when, in fact, the mod is clean. For example, mods which add new spawn points will cause LOOT to throw a "dirty edit" warning. ITM records do not affect a mod's stability and can safely be left alone. I would suggest that if you are not sure about cleaning a mod, then asking the modder would be the thing to do. :smile: