Restoring Vortex and mods after a system reload

[capella6707]

Forgive me for this wall of text, but I'm not sure why this is happening and I thought I'd be thorough in case it's a bug and needs to be looked into in detail.

 

I posted this on this thread late last week. Not exactly sure why it was never responded to, but I'm guessing it's because the initial question was answered (by Tannin) and then I wrote the below information, so probably it would be better to open a new thread, since it's really a new question/issue, not directly related to my initial question in that thread.

 

Anywho, I am reinstalling everything (full computer refresh, not just Skyrim/Vortex) and I planned on just reinstalling/deploying all of my mods to Skryim that I had installed prior to wiping my system. So I had a bunch of existing mods in the Vortex downloads and mods folder.

 

I have Vortex set to a network drive for the downloads folder to save space on my limited 250GB SSD on my laptop. (Just the downloads folder - the deployed mods folder is my AppData folder on my C: drive). Before I wiped my system, I copied all of my downloaded mod archives from the Vortex downloads directory to another directory. After I restored my computer I installed Skyrim & ran it once. Then I installed Vortex and set it up just like I had it before. My assumption was that all i had to do was simply copy the archives back over to the designated Vortex downloads directory, start Vortex and it would find them all and list them as "Never Installed" in the Mods tab. That's not what happened.

 

To test moving the archives to the Vortex downloads directory, I just moved one archive file that I had already installed using Vortex, plus a mod that I had not yet installed. After opening Vortex after copying those two archives to the Vortex downloads directory, I went to the Mods tab in Vortex here is what is shown:

http://www.eventidewebdesign.com/public/Mods%20tab%20showing%20mods%20added%20to%20downloads%20directory.png

 

The Engine Fixes is the one that I had already installed with Vortex and Elemental Eyes I had not.

 

Here is what is shown when I click on the down arrow for Engine Fixes:

http://www.eventidewebdesign.com/public/Dropbox%20in%20Version%20column%20for%20Engine%20Fixes.png

 

Clicking on the top minus symbol gives me this message:

http://www.eventidewebdesign.com/public/Message%20for%20Top%20Minus%20Sign%20for%20Engine%20Fixes.png

 

Clicking on the bottom minus symbol shows me something similar:

http://www.eventidewebdesign.com/public/Message%20for%20Bottom%20Minus%20Sign%20for%20Engine%20Fixes.png

 

And this is what I see when I click on either minus symbol for Elemental Eyes (which I have not yet installed):

http://www.eventidewebdesign.com/public/Elemental%20Eyes%20Message%20for%20both%20minus%20signs.png

 

I was especially surprised getting two minus symbols for the mod that I had not yet installed.

 

My expectation was that upon Vortex starting it would check the downloads directory and bounce what is there against what it knew was there the last time it ran and then list mod archives appropriately (a dropdown for different versions of the same mod, or just list the uninstalled mod if it's never been there before).

 

An important note: Before reinstalling Skryim and Vortex, I know there was nothing left over from before the system restore - No Skyrim game directory, no Skyrim saves directory, no Vortex program directory, and no Vortex directory in my AppData folder. So nothing could have been carried over from my previous installation setup.

 

Is this expected behavior, a bug?

 

Enlighten me please!

[Tannin42]

I don't fully understand the description, you say there was nothing left over from before the system restore, including the Vortex directory in AppData but if that were the case, where do the installed mods come from? Obviously they did carry over, both the files themselves and the meta data.

 

Now the duplicate entries here are mostly expected, when you move downloads manually instead of using the integrated option of moving the download directory the download gets "disassociated" from the installed mod, so then you have an installed mod that vortex doesn't know which archive it came from and an archive that, as far as vortex can tell, has never been installed.

 

Why you have two entries for the not-installed archive I can't say, unless you actually have two copies of that archive. I could probably say more if you sent in a feedback and attach the application state (from attach special file).

[capella6707]

I'm sorry if I was not clear.

 

I'll lay it out step by step:

1. Prior to wiping/reloading the system I had Vortex's downloads directory set to a network folder, all of my installed mod archives were in there.
2. As a backup, so I didn't have to re-download all of my mods when I was reinstalling everything, I copied all of my mod archives from that network folder to another network folder
   1. I wasn't sure how Vortex would react to having files in the downloads directory when I set it to the network folder after reloading everything, so I cleared that out - the designated downloads directory (I seem to remember something about the directory needing to be empty when the downloads directory is set)
3. I then uninstalled SSE, Steam and Vortex, deleted the Vortex folder in AppData and deleted the archives in the downloads directory
4. So at this point, as far as the game and Vortex are concerned, nothing ever existed (unless there are additional files/folders that I am not aware of)
5. After things were back up and running I installed Steam/SSE and ran that once to the game's main menu
6. I installed Vortex and set everything to how it was before, so at this point the downloads directory was empty (again, I think it has to be anyway)
7. I then installed the Engine Fixes mod by using the Install from File option in the Mods tab in Vortex
8. The downloads directory is still empty at this point and it is here that I copied over the Engine Fixes mod to the downloads directory
   1. I totally get that there would be two entries for this mod in the Mods tab per my screenshots, since it was already installed prior to me copying the archive file to the downloads directory. Really, I just wanted to verify that this was expected behavior
9. Then, I copied the Elemental Eyes mod archive to the downloads directory - I did not install it - I just copied the archive file
10. Then I looked at the Mods tab in Vortex after putting that file in the downloads directory and saw the two entries in the Version column as explained in the screenshots

It's mainly the behavior in steps 9 and 10 that I am wondering about. Everything I provide prior to that point is to demonstrate that, as far as the game and Vortex were concerned, nothing ever existed prior to reinstalling them. I was under the impression that, after manually putting a mod file in the downloads directory that had not yet been installed by Vortex, that Vortex would "see" it there, listed it as Never Installed, and I'd be able to install it, as if I actually downloaded the file from the Nexus.

 

If that is expected behavior: two entries in the Version column for a mod that had not yet been installed and manually put in the downloads directory, let me know and I'll be on my way. :smile:

 

I hope that more clearly explains what I did and what happened.

 

Let me know if you'd still like that application state file.

[Tannin42]

Yeah, I agree, everything up to 9 is expected but the duplicate in 10 doesn't make sense. I'll see if I can reproduce that.

[Tannin42]

I'm not able to reproduce this, could you please send in the application state I asked for?

[capella6707]

I'm not able to reproduce this, could you please send in the application state I asked for?

 

Done.

[Tannin42]

Soo, the state you sent in contains absolutely no mention of the Elemental Eyes mod, neither as an installed mod nor as an archive. And the Engine Fixes mod is installed but there is no Archive to go along with it so I'm having a hard time believing there would be duplicate entries.

[capella6707]

Engine Fixes:

Its mod folder is in the designated Install Path (naturally - it's installed) so we're good on that

I'm assuming by saying "there is no Archive to go along with it", you'd be expecting it to be in the Downloads directory, which is correct - there is no archive for Engine Fixes there - I manually installed the using the Install from File button in Vortex

However, I just opened up Vortex to compare that with your findings and I found two odd things:

There is no Version in its column (see screenshot)

Also, as you noticed, the Engine Fixes archive is no longer in the Downloads directory, but In Step 8 in my previous post, I said that I moved the Engine Fixes archive to the Downloads directory and then saw the duplicate versions, which I had the screenshot of.

I have to be totally honest at this point and say that I'm not sure if I manually removed the archive from the Downloads directory, so really it cannot be assumed that Vortex somehow removed it (or some such similar cosmic occurrence)

http://www.glaciallakesmn.com/public/Engine%20Fixes.png

 

Elemental Eyes

Sorry about this one. It appears that I removed the archive from the downloads directory at some point between the post where I listed my steps and when I sent the logs.

So just now I manually copied the archive to the Downloads directory and started up Vortex like I described before and observed the same behavior - two duplicate entries in the version column for the mod - one with Remove Mod, and one with Remove Mod and Remove Archive. I did not install it at this point.

I did install it then, and still, two Version entries showed. I closed then reopened Vortex and am still seeing the two duplicate Version entries.

I'll stop at this point with my experimenting and wait for direction if you'd like the State file after doing something specific with the mods.