Accidental removal of external drive with Vortex download directory destroys Vortex

[LadyMilla]

The following undesirable behaviour was observed:

 

Background:

• My download directory is on a removable USB-drive. I needed something from another drive so I unplugged it, plugged in the other drive, and grabbed what I wanted. I forgot to reconnect the drive with the Vortex download directory, and when I saw some updates here on the Nexus, I clicked on the download link. Vortex started-up and warned me that my L: drive (the removable drive with the download directory) was missing. I unplugged the other drive, re-plugged my L: drive and clicked on the "Re-initialise" button in Vortex when the L: drive was operational.

Result:

• Most of the downloaded archives on the removable drive were "unlinked" from the mods appearing in the MODS section of Vortex, making it impossible to use the "Reinstall" function. Attempting to "Reinstall" mods resulted in a red "Unknown Download" error message. The downloaded archives appeared as uncategorised entries in the MODS list, without any link to their Nexus mod page. It seems the problem cannot be repaired in any way other than re-downloading all mods again so that they appear in the MODS list as intended.

 

Suggested fix:

• If Vortex detects that the download directory is not present, it should not make any changes to whatever file or database it uses to store mod<->downloaded archive associations.
• It should ask the user if the download directory has been permanently removed before purging mod->download association from the database;
• When shut down, Vortex should create a backup copy of its mod database (and keep the last five backups) so that an accidental database corruption does not destroy mod<->mod category<->downloaded archive<->download URL associations.
• The function of the "Re-initialize" button should be made clear if it means something other than "re-initialize Vortex to clear the error condition and allow it to use the download directory again as if it has never been removed".

Other suggestion:

• You might want to consider storing the meta-database in a subdirectory within the download directory. The benefits are obvious: a) if the download directory is accidentally moved, Vortex cannot corrupt it (it should not corrupt the database in the first place under such circumstances even if it stored in its current location); b) the Vortex installation would be much easier to back up, as the .ini files in the X:/Users/<username>/... directory would just include the path to the metadatabase inside the download directory so after reinstallation Vortex could simply ask the user to browse to their old download directory, if such a folder exists, and would be able to restore Vortex to its pre-opsys-reinstall state.

[BigBizkit]

The message you were presented with should say "If you continue now, a new downloads folder will be created but all your previous mod archives will be lost".

When you clicked "Reinitialize" that's exactly what happened, so this is expected behaviour.

 

 

What you should have done (Captain Hindsight, I know) is quit Vortex, re-attach the drive, and start Vortex again.

 

In any event, I have relayed your feedback, but to ensure it doesn't get lost it would be ideal if you send it in via Vortex directly.