I messed with Roaming\Vortex, now getting "Vortex seems to be running already..." ; Can I fix it?

[raisedbywolv3s]

Heya. I know this is totally my fault, but anyway...

 

Versions...

 

Windows 10

Vortex 0.16.12.0

Fallout 4 1.10.114.0

 

Everything was working great. I have about 50 or so mods installed. Vortex was working great. The game was running fine.

 

Then the other day I decided to make my FO4-related dirs Git repos and create branches "playthrough_01", "other_playthrough", etc. That way (I thought) could have different mod configs for different playthroughs & switch easily.

 

Also when a Steam update breaks F4SE, no problem.

 

So ran git init in these three dirs...

 

1. FO4 install dir (the default path)

2. HOME_DIR\Documents\My Games\Fallout4

3. HOME_DIR\AppData\Roaming\Vortex

 

At first it worked ok, but then I started getting this error when I tried to launch Vortex...

 

 

Vortex seems to be running already. If you can't see it, please check the task manager.

 

I Googled it, found this code and saw that it had to do with the DB being locked.

 

I tried deleting the LOCK files (from Git and from the filesystem), and also rolling back to older & older commits, but I can't get it into a state where Vortex will launch.

 

Here is the error in the log...

 

 

Sun, 02 Dec 2018 07:51:36 GMT - info: --------------------------

Sun, 02 Dec 2018 07:51:36 GMT - info: Vortex Version 0.16.12

Sun, 02 Dec 2018 07:51:41 GMT - info: failed to open db message=IO error: C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Vortex\state.v2/MANIFEST-000120

: The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect.

, type=OpenError, name=OpenError, cause=undefined, stack=OpenError: IO error: C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Vortex\state.v2/MANIFEST-000120

: The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect.

at C:\Program Files\Black Tree Gaming Ltd\Vortex\resources\app.asar\node_modules\levelup\lib\levelup.js:87:23

at C:\Program Files\Black Tree Gaming Ltd\Vortex\resources\app.asar\node_modules\abstract-leveldown\abstract-leveldown.js:41:14

at C:\Program Files\Black Tree Gaming Ltd\Vortex\resources\app.asar\node_modules\deferred-leveldown\deferred-leveldown.js:20:21

at C:\Program Files\Black Tree Gaming Ltd\Vortex\resources\app.asar\node_modules\abstract-leveldown\abstract-leveldown.js:41:14

at C:\Program Files\Black Tree Gaming Ltd\Vortex\resources\app.asar\node_modules\abstract-leveldown\abstract-leveldown.js:41:14

 

In the Task Manager there are three instances of Vortex running. Clicking "End Task" has no apparent effect (no error message, the processes remain in the list).

 

I see that I misunderstood the way that dir works and I shouldn't have touched it.

 

Is there a way to fix it without reinstalling all my mods? Thanks

[HadToRegister]

 

 

Then the other day I decided to make my FO4-related dirs Git repos and create branches "playthrough_01", "other_playthrough", etc. That way (I thought) could have different mod configs for different playthroughs & switch easily.

 

 

 

Something that Vortex already does on it's own.

[raisedbywolv3s]

For anyone searching here's how I resolved it...

 

(To review the point is to get Vortex working again without having to re-download all mods. If you only have a few mods, you may be better off re-downloading them. I have several dozen.)

 

- Close Vortex. I my case, as described above, I was unable launch Vortex. But if for some reason you have it running, close it.

- Made a backup of HOME_DIR\AppData\Roaming\Vortex. (I copied it to Desktop\Vortex.bak)

- Delete AppData\Roaming\Vortex

- Launch Vortex. Vortex will recreate the dir you just deleted

- At this point Vortex appears as if newly-installed with default config, no mods. Redo all the first-time-launch stuff, including pointing it to Fallout 4.

- Restore the mods. Copy the mods within Vortex.bak\Fallout 4\mods into the newly created AppData\Roaming\Vortex\Fallout 4\mods

- Vortex will list all the mods as "Disabled". Go through and enable them.

 

From here, Vortex can't update these particular mods. But it seems able to do all its other functions with them.

 

Hope this helps someone.

[raisedbywolv3s]

Oh BTW versioning my FO4 install dir actually did help out when Bethesda released a new game version & broke F4SE. I just put Steam in offline mode & rolled Fallout4.exe back to the previous version.

[HadToRegister]

Oh BTW versioning my FO4 install dir actually did help out when Bethesda released a new game version & broke F4SE. I just put Steam in offline mode & rolled Fallout4.exe back to the previous version.

 

You could've solved that really easily without having to 'version' your FO4 install, by just downloading cdante's mod called "Fallout4.exe Auto Backup" (there's also one for Skyrim SE)

 

If Steam updates, cdante's "Fallout4.Exe Auto Backup" will automatically back up the current Fallout4.exe, so you can restore it and continue playing the game without the old EXE until F4SE and the mods that use it are updated.

[raisedbywolv3s]

 

Oh BTW versioning my FO4 install dir actually did help out when Bethesda released a new game version & broke F4SE. I just put Steam in offline mode & rolled Fallout4.exe back to the previous version.

 

You could've solved that really easily without having to 'version' your FO4 install [...]

 

Why do you put "version" in quotes? It's an actual thing, I swear. There's books about it and everything.

 

Vortex itself is versioned using Git-SCM. And I think it uses Git internally as well to track certain program data.

 

 

...solved that really easily...

 

I'm not sure installing a mod is easier than using a familiar tool that's already on my machine.

 

I heard about Fallout 4 Auto Backup when it was released. Now it has over 2K endorsements! It probably is solid, and easy as you describe.

 

I like my way better, though. Generally I like versioning things. I find it comforting.

 

(Admittedly, messing with the AppData dir was a screwup. I was hasty there & didn't do my homework. Live & learn, eh?)