Vortex corrupted, how to save what is possible?

[Frittyblack]

@Rattledagger: Thank you.
1) I don't see any place where I have 0KB files (before installing+deploying Fnis), but I may test more to see if I find out the reason for this and will also try to choose option A.
2) I have a backup from 1 month ago from the appdata/roaming/vortex folder and also a backup of the downlaods and unpacked folder from the same date.

I think the rules are also still there, the reason why I see conflicts is:

 

edit:
Regarding 2): I guess this is linked to 1), the rules I set up are only valid for the now "uninstalled" mods.
So I need a way Vortex recognizes these unpacked mods as the same and as installed...

will it help to: - empty the downlodas and unpacked folder. zip all my unpacked backup mods (so I don't have to do fomod again), put tehm into the downloads folder, start vortex and vortex will use the conflict rules on them? Or will vortex simply see "new mods" without conflict rules set up?
How exactly does vortex links the conflict rules? With help of a checksum of the files?

In case there is really no way to make vortex think the enabled mods are the correct ones, is there instead a way to copy conflict rules to new mods (with same files)? Or at least have an overview about all my rules, so I at least know how to set (the same) new rules for "new" mods manually?

But seriously, modders and also mod users always need a way to restore a backup. And from what we see here currently is, that vortex is unable to restore a backup? Vortex developers can't be serious with this...

[fore]

 

But seriously, modders and also mod users always need a way to restore a backup. And from what we see here currently is, that vortex is unable to restore a backup? Vortex developers can't be serious with this...

 

Seriously? Are you a "modder"? I don't think so, at least I haven't found anything from you here on Nexus. Then why do you talk for us?

 

Because I AM an modder, and I would never ever develop under a mod manager. And therefore I don't need a mod manager to handle my backups.

 

So why do you? Have different profiles? Backup prior mod installations? For both ideas there are other ways to do it.

 

Because what you do is bypassing Vortex installation functionality, and by doing that you mess up the links that Vortex creates to make Virtual Install possible. And apparently Vortex tries to fix that MESS that you as a thoughtless user have caused. Maybe not perfect (yet). But apparently tries what no other mod manager ever has attempted to do. And what you think of being indispensable in you demanding tone.

[Rattledagger]

No idea if it's accurate, but would guess the process goes something like:

 

1, assign a new unique id to the just added mod archive.

2, use same id then install mod

3, use same id to store conflict rules

4, if you manually add a new mod to mods directory, create new id for this mod

 

Since 4 gives different id than 1, mods shows up twice and since mod rule was stored under another id the rule must be re-created.

 

Now one problem is, the actual rule can work for multiple mod versions, so if each download has unique id where must be some more information to store. Still, as far as storing the mod information, 1 - 4 does explain Vortex behaviour.

 

...

 

If you have backup of downloads + mods + %appdata%\vortex this should be a full Vortex backup, meaning using this should restore all missing rules etc., except for any changes done since backup was created.

 

In this case using backup + deleting contents from data-directory and verifying game in Steam should hopefully work.

[Frittyblack]

No idea if it's accurate, but would guess the process goes something like:

 

1, assign a new unique id to the just added mod archive.

2, use same id then install mod

3, use same id to store conflict rules

4, if you manually add a new mod to mods directory, create new id for this mod

 

Since 4 gives different id than 1, mods shows up twice and since mod rule was stored under another id the rule must be re-created.

 

Now one problem is, the actual rule can work for multiple mod versions, so if each download has unique id where must be some more information to store. Still, as far as storing the mod information, 1 - 4 does explain Vortex behaviour.

 

...

 

If you have backup of downloads + mods + %appdata%\vortex this should be a full Vortex backup, meaning using this should restore all missing rules etc., except for any changes done since backup was created.

 

In this case using backup + deleting contents from data-directory and verifying game in Steam should hopefully work.

thank you very much.

Where do I assign an ID for a mod? Or are these just thoughts from you and you already dismissed them? (sry english is not my native language and I have trouble to understand if I should try this or not)

 

Okay, then I will try to delete everything and use the backup (in fact I'm already using backups, but I did not cleaned the installatios folder of skyrim, mainly because I can't remember what files I put manually there (eg SKSE and maybe more, I don't know..)

 

@fore: feel free to contribute helpful information how to do it right next time

(and no I'm no skyrim modder, I'm a user who has that many mods enabled, that I don't want to do the process of installing again and therefore made a backup of every file. And now I'm unable to restore it, because of Vortex limitations. I think this is a very good reason to be upset. Rattledagger is the first one who writes me how to possible restore my backup, but we will see if this works, I don't have a good feeling. Anyway, thank you very much for your mods.)

 

[Frittyblack]

Thank you Rattledagger it worked ! :smile:

So to sum it up:
To make a backup, you need:
1) backup of downloads + unpacked folder
2) backupt of appdata/roaming/vortex
3) backup of documents/mygames/skyrim
4) backup of clean skyrim installation, at best with all manual files already added, like skse (or install again/verify cache).

To restore a backup you should NOT only restore one of those at a time, because vortex can't handle this.
You have to restore everything at once before starting vortex again.

@Vortex developers:
please add a "make backup" mechanism to vortex, this would make things much easier for everyone.
And of course the holy grail would be, if you could save all installation/rules settings from vortex and give them to somoeone else -> new user can download mods at nexus and use all the settings from the other person, so in the end he will have the same configuration easily. This would elimate the need of all the "how to install mods" tutorials and no beginner has to spend days just to install some mods. And of course this would also be another way to do backups.

[BigBizkit]

What is it you needed the backup for in the first place i.e. what did you actually do that you wanted to revert?

 

The reason I am asking is because your mod staging folder basically is your backup. You could, for example, make any number of edits to a given plugin in your mods folder with the creation kit, save, test it ingame, and then the next time you launch Vortex simply "revert" and your plugin will be redeployed from the staging folder.

 

Backing up the staging folder etc. does not hurt, but it is not necessarily a requirement if you simply want to restore mods.