Vortex not overwriting old mod files

[GhostofPOOP]

Hello, good day! I will begin by saying I am a huge fan of this new software. It works incredibly. The interface for me so far has been user friendly, and it gives me great control over mods, and how I want to utilize them. Every feature I've come across has so far been very useful for me, including the separate profiles.

 

 

 

This issue, however, has been a nagging thorn in my side. First of all, I had accidentally uninstalled NMM, the software I used to manage my mods on, before I transferred my SkyrimSE mods to Vortex. (I had already transferred my Fallout 4 mods, and forgot about the other game I play, lol...) I sighed to myself, cracked my knuckles, and got to work reinstalling all the mods I had for SkyrimSE.

 

ALL of the mods were already installed, deleting NMM didn't delete the mods off the game. But I still wanted the mods connected to the Nexus so I could delete, undelete and manage all my mods at will without much issue. Nexus is great at doing that.

 

 

But here's where the problem begins. It seems like even though I've installed the mods, all of the mods that are already installed in the game are...unmodified.

 

 

I noticed this very apparent when I tried to install "Serana Renewel" on the game, and she came out with a black face, and purple tinted hair.

 

 

I reinstalled the mod several times. I even uninstalled the mod. She looked exactly the same, no matter what I did in Vortex. The files were still there.

 

 

 

I had to go into my skyrim folder, manually delete every folder and file relate to the Serana Renewal mod to get it to uninstall. Then I reinstalled Serana Renewal, and it finally came out everything as I wanted it to. Perfect face and hair.

 

 

------------------> I need a tool in Vortex that's like a "hammer" tool to force delete or overwrite existing files so I can overwrite and modify files of old or manually installed mods. I've become aware that Vortex has this thing where it hesitates to overwrite files already there, even the ESPs. I appreciate that sometimes, other times I need Vortex to hit my game with a HAMMER and force the files to change, or delete when I don't want them, instead of having to go in manually to change them. It's one mode of control I don't have and need. I'm thinking about other situations where I may need to transfer my mods somewhere else, and I'll need Vortex to be able to ride into the new place and take control of everything.

 

Please tell me if this tool already exists, or some setting I don't know about. Thank you, kindly, looking forward to the continued development of this very useful software. :3

[Tannin42]

That's a feature, not a bug. Vortex intentionally tries to be as un-invasive as possible and thus doesn't overwrite files.

However, when you install files through vortex that are already in the game directory, vortex will rename the existing file to vortex_backup, so it can restore it later.

If you're absolutely sure you want to get rid of the old files, just install and deploy the mods through vortex, then use any decent file manager or the command prompt to delete all files with the .vortex_backup extension.

[GhostofPOOP]

Thanks for the reply! I never infered it was a bug that Vortex isn't invasive, however, I'm fully aware it's a feature. That part is a request for a very powerful tool to be developed that wouldn't require me to go into the files and have to seek out those files, which sometimes there are a LOT of them, and delete them one at a time.

 

That's a pretty fantastical hassle, right there.

 

Rather a simple tool to make Vortex do that for me. It's invasive, but that's the point. Sometimes, you need to be invasive to get something to work. (hit it with a hammer, lol) It would be nice if the hammer was mod by mod so you had complete control over the files that are getting taken fully control of.

 

 

But the BUG is when Vortex refuses to write files in the first place. Vortex is meant to install these files, backup or no backup. I'm saying I'm not getting it to even get the files in there, it just seems to plain ignore it. It says it's installed, but nothing changed, hense the Serana incident. I installed the mod, and it should've overwrote the files it needed to overwrite. It did not, and I had to go delete the files before it actually installed anything.

 

That makes me have to sit in the Vortex interface twiddeling my thumbs, lol. Some of these mods have complex installations, and it makes a keg waiting to explode on me when Vortex refuses to replace the files I need it to replace.

 

 

To combat this bug, thus the feature I request here. A nice little hammer in the adv. options to get Vortex to take complete control of the files by deleting the old files and replacing them so I don't have to go file hunting, as you suggested...which can end up being a tedious process. After that, it can do the whole backup thing and being unobtrusive all it wants. I just need it to do that invasive file swap once to get the engine started.

[rmm200]

My two cents:

 

You are far better off purging mods from Vortex, then delete the Meshes, Textures, and Scripts folders within game Data. And anything else you think does not belong.

Delete any esp and esm files you don't think are part of the game..

Then tell Steam to Validate. It will replace any files you should not have deleted.

This will be as close to a clean install as you can get, without doing a clean install.

Then go back to Vortex and Deploy. Done.

[GhostofPOOP]

A useful tactic for sure! And would work, but seems like a drastic throwing the baby out with the bathwater solution to me. D: Seems very drastic of a solution when the only issue is you've lost control of a mod, and the simple solution to that is for Vortex to overwrite those files and take control, instead of forcing me to completely disintegrate my game because Vortex is missing a means of control. Besides, like I said, there's old mods on there I don't want to lose. Manually installed ones and the like, some that I went through a lot of hassle. (like Skyrim mods I converted to SE) and some that simply don't exist anymore.

 

I fear the next time I lose control of a mod, lol.

[rmm200]

Mixing manually installed mods with use of a mod manager will always be problematic, and likely unsupportable.

Problems you encounter will be unique to your specific setup.

I have a large number of personally converted SE mods also - I zip them up and use Vortex to install them.

You are far braver than me if you install those manually.