I reinstalled my windows, Now Vortex want to purge...

[AugustaCalidia]

Bene, verum nil tanti.

 

Somehow I had a double post, the first which I edited and the second which I did not. That second post is quoted in HTR's comment below.

[HadToRegister]

 

 

Yeah so I redownloaded Vortex and it forgot about all the mods I had on it previously. But my Data folder had everything still on it. I redownload Vortex and it keeps having a pop up complaining about multiple instances of Vortex and that I should purge my mods. Stupidly, because I should never just blindly trust these things, I click it and about 30 mods I downloaded with Vortex are wiped from my Data folder and are nowhere because the appdata folder was wiped previously.

 

 

I'm kinda gathering they're not in a neat folder anymore. But the silver lining from this is I do have a good number of them still in my Downloads folder, and I can look at my previous downloads and redownload. My SSE wasn't super modded but this is still super frustrating and you guys should implement some safety measures, because that pop up was confusing and screwed me over.

 

 

Reinstalling Vortex does not delete your Vortex folders in AppData\Roaming\Vortex. The default installation folder for the Vortex program is not App\Data but C:\Program Files\Black Tree Gaming Ltd. That folder does not contain any mods and mod archives. Neither does purging delete your mods Purging simply removes hardlinks from your game data folder. These hardlinks can easily be restored by deploying. So if you're missing mods, it's not anything that Vortex did.

 

 

 

 

This is their problem

 

 

ANiceOakTree

Hi I have this same problem, I also reinstalled windows recently and I didn't save my old appdata\roaming\vortex folder.

[AugustaCalidia]

@HTR

 

Well, I'm embarrassed to admit that I had a reading comprehension lapse, even though I had read all the comments in this thread. Thanks for correcting me.

 

I really like your instructive and helpful chart.

[ANiceOakTree]

 

 

Hi I have this same problem, I also reinstalled windows recently and I didn't save my old appdata\roaming\vortex folder. I had saved my old Skyrim folder with my mods and moved it back to my C drive (the backup is gone now), it was all working fine with all my mods after doing that. But, I redownloaded Vortex and it was complaining about there being an old instance of vortex and to purge it. I decided to do that, and now half my mods are gone... The ones I guess I installed with Vortex and not manually. They were all there before I hit purge, they're not in the clean appdata\roaming\vortex folder, they'da not in my Data folder, they're not in my recycle bin, are they just gone forever? Hiding somewhere? I sure love Vortex.

Yeah so I redownloaded Vortex and it forgot about all the mods I had on it previously. But my Data folder had everything still on it. I redownload Vortex and it keeps having a pop up complaining about multiple instances of Vortex and that I should purge my mods. Stupidly, because I should never just blindly trust these things, I click it and about 30 mods I downloaded with Vortex are wiped from my Data folder and are nowhere because the appdata folder was wiped previously.

 

I'm kinda gathering they're not in a neat folder anymore. But the silver lining from this is I do have a good number of them still in my Downloads folder, and I can look at my previous downloads and redownload. My SSE wasn't super modded but this is still super frustrating and you guys should implement some safety measures, because that pop up was confusing and screwed me over.

 

 

 

Purge is NON-Destructive, the problem was was that you wiped the appdata folder where all that info was stored, so Vortex had nothing to reference.

 

 

This is how purge works.

Your problem is the INFO in appdata was wiped.

 

 

 

Ok, I get that the purge disconnected where Vortex was looking for the links to my Vortex installed mods, and because that folder with the archives got cleared in my Windows install, Vortex was confused and wanted me to purge my old profile or something like that. I just have issue that I had copied over my intact Data folder, everything was working fine from that angle, and pressing purge because it was clamoring for me to do so took the files out and linked back nothing and there's no way to reverse. Deploy isn't going to get them back because the zips in that old folder are gone. I just think there should have been a better warning or something.

Here's what I see for a mod I used to have, when I loaded it, Skyrim warned me the esp was gone so I searched my computer archives for it and this is all that remained. I'll be sure to move my mod staging folder somewhere else now.

[NorthgateRebel]

 

 

Hi I have this same problem, I also reinstalled windows recently and I didn't save my old appdata\roaming\vortex folder. I had saved my old Skyrim folder with my mods and moved it back to my C drive (the backup is gone now), it was all working fine with all my mods after doing that. But, I redownloaded Vortex and it was complaining about there being an old instance of vortex and to purge it. I decided to do that, and now half my mods are gone... The ones I guess I installed with Vortex and not manually. They were all there before I hit purge, they're not in the clean appdata\roaming\vortex folder, they'da not in my Data folder, they're not in my recycle bin, are they just gone forever? Hiding somewhere? I sure love Vortex.

Yeah so I redownloaded Vortex and it forgot about all the mods I had on it previously. But my Data folder had everything still on it. I redownload Vortex and it keeps having a pop up complaining about multiple instances of Vortex and that I should purge my mods. Stupidly, because I should never just blindly trust these things, I click it and about 30 mods I downloaded with Vortex are wiped from my Data folder and are nowhere because the appdata folder was wiped previously.

 

I'm kinda gathering they're not in a neat folder anymore. But the silver lining from this is I do have a good number of them still in my Downloads folder, and I can look at my previous downloads and redownload. My SSE wasn't super modded but this is still super frustrating and you guys should implement some safety measures, because that pop up was confusing and screwed me over.

 

 

 

Purge is NON-Destructive, the problem was was that you wiped the appdata folder where all that info was stored, so Vortex had nothing to reference.

 

 

This is how purge works.

Your problem is the INFO in appdata was wiped.

 

 

 

Sorry to resurrect an old thread.

 

I would like to add that the Vortex purge function does actually WIPE mods from the game data folder. I lost my OS drive and had to reload. I thought oh good my games are on a different drive so I am safe. Wrong. Installed Vortex mainly just to reactivate my mods and sort them. But when I clicked remove to clean up an unused mod from the main list (moved my downloaded mods into the Vortex mods folder outside of Vortex to avoid adding hundreds of mods manually one at a time) it asked to purge and I thought well yeah i don't need that particular mod's download folder anymore. Then I clicked over to the plugins tab and everything is gone! 187 mods lost. The mods are also removed from my Skyrim SE data folder! It took me a year of trial and error to build that mod list and it played perfectly, CTD-free. I can't simply redeploy because i downloaded alot more mods than I ended up installing. I have no idea exactly which mods were deployed.

 

Vortex should take 2 additional steps when purging from the game data folder:

1. WARN IN ALL CAPS THAT VORTEX IS ABOUT TO REMOVE ESP AND ESM FILES FROM THE DATA FOLDER!

2. Move them to a new folder named "Purged" or zip them to a file named "Purged.zip"

 

This is a very poor method on the part of Vortex's design team. User data should be protected at all times. The purge operation should never permanently delete files that the user placed in the game data folder manually. Never!

 

As a side note, I was intending to go premium again to update mods and such. Not now. Am disinclined to give them further financial support after this disaster. It's going to take me weeks or months to rebuild my mod list and get back to playing. :-(

Edited March 16, 2020 by NorthgateRebel

[HadToRegister]

 

 

Sorry to resurrect an old thread.

I would like to add that the Vortex purge function does actually WIPE mods from the game data folder. I lost my OS drive and had to reload. I thought oh good my games are on a different drive so I am safe. Wrong. Installed Vortex mainly just to reactivate my mods and sort them. But when I clicked remove to clean up an unused mod from the main list (moved my downloaded mods into the Vortex mods folder outside of Vortex to avoid adding hundreds of mods manually one at a time) it asked to purge and I thought well yeah i don't need that particular mod's download folder anymore. Then I clicked over to the plugins tab and everything is gone! 187 mods lost. The mods are also removed from my Skyrim SE data folder! It took me a year of trial and error to build that mod list and it played perfectly, CTD-free. I can't simply redeploy because i downloaded alot more mods than I ended up installing. I have no idea exactly which mods were deployed.

 

Vortex should take 2 additional steps when purging from the game data folder:

1. WARN IN ALL CAPS THAT VORTEX IS ABOUT TO REMOVE ESP AND ESM FILES FROM THE DATA FOLDER!

2. Move them to a new folder named "Purged" or zip them to a file named "Purged.zip"

 

This is a very poor method on the part of Vortex's design team. User data should be protected at all times. The purge operation should never permanently delete files that the user placed in the game data folder manually. Never!

 

As a side note, I was intending to go premium again to update mods and such. Not now. Am disinclined to give them further financial support after this disaster. It's going to take me weeks or months to rebuild my mod list and get back to playing. :-(

 

 

(moved my downloaded mods into the Vortex mods folder outside of Vortex to avoid adding hundreds of mods manually one at a time)

Wait a minute, you MOVED your Downloaded Mods to the Mod Staging Folder?

You're not supposed to do that, did you read ANY of the Vortex tutorials or watch the videos?

 

 

First, if you lost your OS drive, then that means you lost your APPDATA Folder where the info for all of your installed mods is stored.

If you had a chance to back up that folder before you swapped drives, you should've backed up the APPDATA Folder, because that's where ALL of your appdata resides (bookmarks for browsers etc, Vortex MODS)

 

You clearly don't understand how PURGE works.

 

Your Mods are extracted to your MOD STAGING FOLDER, then Vortex makes HARD LINKS from the MOD STAGING FOLDER, to the GAME\DATA folder.

 

The mods actually exist in the MOD STAGING FOLDER, what you see in the GAME\DATA folder is the linked mods.

All vortex does with a Purge, is it removes the HARD LINKS for the Mods that are actually, physically installed in the MOD STAGING FOLDER.

 

Your Mods haven't been "Wiped", they are still installed, and could've been easily restored quickly by pressing DEPLOY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[NorthgateRebel]

Thanks for your response.

 

I think you missed my point. There were pre-existing mods and loose files in the Skyrim SE Data folder that Vortex had not placed there. When I clicked purge quite by accident it did not clearly warn that it was about to DELETE ALL EXISTING MOD FILES FROM THE SKYRIM SE DATA FOLDER that Vortex had not added. This is a total freaking shock! Who is the selfish Vortex coder that said "If you didn't add mods with my mod manager i am going to delete them without clear warning!"? I author business code for a living and avoid deleting data let alone without plenty of warning. You might say Vortex is free so we get what we pay for. I have used dozens of freeware and shareware apps over the years that manage files and NONE of them delete files without clear and multiple warnings. Vortex is the first program I have seen that carelessly deletes user data. This was a cocktail of mods I had created over the period of a year that worked together flawlessly. It was effectively my user data. Vortex took an axe to my data and dropped the mic.

 

I think a bit more sympathy on your part and the part of the Vortex authors is due. The purge function should be rewritten to either move or zip the files it purges, thus giving the user that misunderstood a chance to recover the data. Yes I understand what the purge function did, but what I don't understand is why the function's author would be so inconsiderate as to not entertain the scenario where the OS drive dies and the app data folder is gone. I mean really? They didn't think that would ever happen and then realize purge will destroy what the previous vortex had created? It boggles my mind that such a not-well-thought-out function would make it past the alpha build. Seriously is bad coding, man.

Edited March 21, 2020 by NorthgateRebel

[Guest deleted34304850]

its nothing to do with bad coding.

if you lost your hard disk, do you have a backup that you can restore from? if you don't, that's on you.

[NorthgateRebel]

wow. so this is the level of support from vortex. eff you if something bad happens? vortex won't try to protect your mod data. just redeploy. you downloaded many more mods than were deployed? oh then you are a fool.

 

Vortex needs a rename: FU Mod Manager

 

And a motto: If you don't like it, kiss my a$$

[Guest deleted34304850]

so you don't have a backup available to you then?