FO4Edit 4 0 3 cannot remove masters

[jet4571]

How in the hell do you remove a master with the latest version of XEdit(4.0.3)? Clean masters isn't the option because the 300+ records in the new mod are also in the merged and if I create an empty version of the merged mod it wont remove it as master either because the first two digits of the form ID are the same as the merged.

 

Copy as new record removes the texture sets in the armor addons and the armor addons in the armors. Ontop of that it added the merged mod as a master anyway so may as well copy all of it as an override and not fix 300+ entries.... and yet I cannot remove a master because right clicking on the master and remove is gone... gives the same options as the first column.

[VIitS]

Right click -> Remove is gone because doing so would result in a horribly broken plugin that would only work by shear luck. The option was removed due to many, many people breaking plugins in that manner then blaming xEdit.

 

You could try selecting all the records that are from the master you want to remove and using the "Change FormID" option. If Clean Masters still doesn't work after that, use the "Report Masters" script. It will report all records that rely on the master you select.

[jet4571]

Right click -> Remove is gone because doing so would result in a horribly broken plugin that would only work by shear luck. The option was removed due to many, many people breaking plugins in that manner then blaming xEdit.

 

You could try selecting all the records that are from the master you want to remove and using the "Change FormID" option. If Clean Masters still doesn't work after that, use the "Report Masters" script. It will report all records that rely on the master you select.

 

I have never had a broken plugin by removing masters. I use Xedit all the time to merge esp mods with copy as override or deep copy then remove the master Xedit automatically sets. Well first thing is change all the FormID numbers so theres no duplicates and then the CK breaking crap by changing the name to have duplicate00000000001 but not changing whatever uses it to point at that(and then saving it automatically so you can exit it without saving and fix the ID's). Stupid CK lol.

 

As for what you suggest there was nothing in the .esp that relied on the master because I swapped it out for an empty .esm of the same name. All the entries started with 01 instead of 02 and thus Xedit wouldn't change the FormID or clean the master... but it did remove Fallout4.esm when I did clean Masters which would have broke the mod. Only option to change the FormID was manually, one at a time and with over 300 that was a huge Nope.

 

Fixed it though by copying and old XEdit from a backup FO4 and pasting into the working directory then opened the mod and right click remove. Done in less time than it took to load it and works perfectly in the game.

 

*Edit,

I have a mod on the hot files right now that was originaly made in the master I am moving other armors to their own mod when i discovered the newer version ofd Xedit won't let me remove the .esm. It works perfectly fine after removing the .esm. So no it isn't luck that prevents a mod from getting broken and removing masters wont break them unless you didn't copy over everything needed and that's not Xedit's fault or removing the master itself but PEBKAC.

Edited March 21, 2020 by jet4571

[Thirdstorm]

If it's failing to remove a master it's due to a dependency still being rooted in the ESP/ESM..

Sometimes (Rarely) if you've removed all linked files that show up using the script you'll need to restart XEdit before it will allow you to remove the now unneeded master.

[VIitS]

If you select multiple records at once and Right Click -> Change FormID, it will let you choose the target plugin those records should now be from (i.e. change the formID prefix), and you can change them all at once. It will also edit any references to those records to have the new formID. On a semi-related note, if you are merging a plugin into a master, you can use the "Inject Forms Into Master" option (right click on the plugin name) to change the formID prefix to that of the selected master, turning them all into injected records (hence the name). You can then use Copy as Override (with Overwrite) to copy those records into the master, and then disable the child plugin.


https://imgur.com/4u9IquU (posted as a url because the nexus is refusing to let me post an image directly. It is just a screenshot of the file selection window you get when you apply the "Change FormID" option on multiple records at once)


And yes, lucky is the right term. If you tried that with a mod that had multiple masters, and the master you removed wasn't the last in the master list (in the file header), you would be GUARENTEED to have a broken plugin. If your plugin had a new record that matched the formID (excluding formID prefix), you would have two records that insisted they were both, as an example, record 02002346.

You are right about it being a PEBKAC error, but for it to not be lucky you would need to understand enough about what happens to the internal plugin formIDs* to know why it is an unnecessarily risky way to do things when "Change FormID" works just fine for as many records at a time as you could want.

*which is how records are actually stored in a plugin (I think Elimnster uses a different name, but that is not relevant to the discussion at hand). A record from the first master would be 00xxxxxx, from the 3rd master in a list would be listed in the plugin as 02xxxxxx, etc... If there are only 3 masters in the file header master list, then any record in the plugin with a prefix of 03 or higher is converted by xEdit to have a prefix of 03 upon saving. Messing with things before saving can cause problems. If you remove the 2nd master, then everything that was listed as 01xxxxxx would now be considered as coming from what had been the 3rd master, and everything listed as being from the 3rd master would be considered to have come from the plugin itself.


If you have actually been using it carefully enough to be perfectly fine, as opposed to just not noticing the brokenness, I still think it is important to explain why the old "Remove" option was INCREDIBLY risky and not the best way to do things, as people often search for and find answers in nexus threads years after they were posted, and those people would not realize the very specific limitations in which doing what you are doing might work, rather than breaking everything. Also, there may be other possible breakage vectors I have forgotten that removing the master can result in.

[jet4571]

If you select multiple records at once and Right Click -> Change FormID, it will let you choose the target plugin those records should now be from (i.e. change the formID prefix), and you can change them all at once. It will also edit any references to those records to have the new formID. On a semi-related note, if you are merging a plugin into a master, you can use the "Inject Forms Into Master" option (right click on the plugin name) to change the formID prefix to that of the selected master, turning them all into injected records (hence the name). You can then use Copy as Override (with Overwrite) to copy those records into the master, and then disable the child plugin.

 

 

https://imgur.com/4u9IquU (posted as a url because the nexus is refusing to let me post an image directly. It is just a screenshot of the file selection window you get when you apply the "Change FormID" option on multiple records at once)

 

 

And yes, lucky is the right term. If you tried that with a mod that had multiple masters, and the master you removed wasn't the last in the master list (in the file header), you would be GUARENTEED to have a broken plugin. If your plugin had a new record that matched the formID (excluding formID prefix), you would have two records that insisted they were both, as an example, record 02002346.

 

You are right about it being a PEBKAC error, but for it to not be lucky you would need to understand enough about what happens to the internal plugin formIDs* to know why it is an unnecessarily risky way to do things when "Change FormID" works just fine for as many records at a time as you could want.

 

*which is how records are actually stored in a plugin (I think Elimnster uses a different name, but that is not relevant to the discussion at hand). A record from the first master would be 00xxxxxx, from the 3rd master in a list would be listed in the plugin as 02xxxxxx, etc... If there are only 3 masters in the file header master list, then any record in the plugin with a prefix of 03 or higher is converted by xEdit to have a prefix of 03 upon saving. Messing with things before saving can cause problems. If you remove the 2nd master, then everything that was listed as 01xxxxxx would now be considered as coming from what had been the 3rd master, and everything listed as being from the 3rd master would be considered to have come from the plugin itself.

 

 

If you have actually been using it carefully enough to be perfectly fine, as opposed to just not noticing the brokenness, I still think it is important to explain why the old "Remove" option was INCREDIBLY risky and not the best way to do things, as people often search for and find answers in nexus threads years after they were posted, and those people would not realize the very specific limitations in which doing what you are doing might work, rather than breaking everything. Also, there may be other possible breakage vectors I have forgotten that removing the master can result in.

 

Yeah I understand how FormID's work. I have authored more than 150 mods here and been making mods since the 90's (though the years is irrelevant since I only started modding Bethesda games with Oblivion). But I have been using Xedit to merge or split up mods for years now and never broke a mod by doing it... well a few times forget one or more bits such as a texture set or oops an armor addon but all easily remedied. Worse break is when forgetting to change FormID's before merging then opening up in the CK and the CK decides to rename and break links such as armor addon with armors or OMod parts with weapons in FO4 and saving the plugin without consent baking in the breakage. Anyway if I fubar my plugin I have it backed up or if I miss something in a merge or split I can fix it... or I could remake the whole thing which I don't want to do ever.

 

PEBKAC is the issue and why they never should have advertised a game editor to mod manager users who don't even know how to browse Windows Explorer to get to the game files. A mod cleaning tool that removes ITM's or fixes other minor issues? Sure, that would be handy but also something that should be part of the mod manager because PEBKAC is real. There should have been a user and an author version of Xedit, author allows breaking mods because of no limits while user only cleans them. If you are a mod author and use it and break your mod you know you screwed up. Users blame the tool. Unless it's the CK and it's save the plugin without consent during the load and baking in errors it creates that XEdit could have been used to fix before they would be an issue to the CK the next time it was loaded if the CK didn't save.

 

Anywho I am done with this topic, I wont be updating XEdit for any game I have it on now and future games I wont make my own .esm mods I may want to merge other mods into or split it up later. Just an esp so I can use the CK to remove the .esp master by loading it into the CK and then saving it without changing anything.... don't even think saving is needed unless the CK is trolling and only saves when it breaks mods lol. Wouldn't be surprised.

[mohawk32]

Anyone coming here trying to figure out why you can't get clean masters to actually work:  Go to "apply script" use "Report Masters" Then tick the plugin you are trying to eliminate and run the script.  Read the Message panel as it will tell you every instance you need to remove.  Once those are all removed, try "Clean Masters" again.

Edited May 10 by mohawk32

[worm82075]

We have a severe lack of programmers in our community these days and with a shitty attitude like this...

On 3/21/2020 at 2:30 AM, jet4571 said:

I wont be updating XEdit for any game I have it on now

...coming from someone that claims to have been doing this since Oblivion and yet saw fit to take a freshly updated and largely untested version of xEdit and lean on it as if it were a bullet proof version and THEN come here of all places to complain about it not working..well it's no wonder we can't attract any new talent.

Nifscope hasn't been updated in 8 years FFS.

I miss Timeslip, Elminster and Wrye. Truly talented programmers that would have come in here and told you to sit down and shut up and let what may very well be a lower skilled person that is STILL a volunteer have some time to work out the kinks in the new version BEFORE you up and abandon it.

The sheer unadulterated entitlement is truly astounding.