(Solved) After Uninstalling 2 Gameplay Mods My Character's Armor Is Invisible And I Am Too Tired To Figure It Out Myself

[ColinSkyhi]

First of all i would like to get out of the way that i am absolutely spent and i would really appreciate any help for what seems to be a very weird and technical problem. I am using Skyrim SE 1.5.97 and Vortex has been my go to for modding. I've been modding this damn game for over 10 years probably and yet i am now completely stumbled yet again. 

The problem is that after testing and finding out that the two mods Naked Defeat and SL Dangerous Nights 2 just weren't for me i decided to uninstall them and test the next mod which was Private Needs Orgasm. That's when about a thousand animations from my OAR counter seemed to go missing. I thought to that it was very weird and tried loading the last autosave after i had disabled both previous mods thinking their scripts would be gone. But no. The game told me the save file was corrupt and i thought i would just go back to the main menu, but for some reason SOS decided to also give me a prompt which i couldn't interact with. So i stopped the game manually by alt tabbing. After that i loaded a cleaner save before i had any of the said mods in here installed and the game DID load, but i could only see my character's bald head and no body. Also my character is not supposed to be bald. My custom animations, running, attacks and jumping were working as intended, more than less. But my IDLE animations seem to trigger an A-pose. Now once i remove my armor i can see the vanilla body type, yellow underwear and all, but with the textures and tattoos i normally use. 

This issue was very similar to something i had to fix some 8-10 hours ago as i was struggling for the whole damn day trying to get Pandora to work as a replacement to my FNIS + Nemesis installation. To say it was a massive pain would still be an understatement. But in the end i somehow managed to get it to work after fiddling with fixes, removing FNIS and Nemesis output files, disabling some old combat animations i hadn't used for a long time, re-building the character body in Bodyslide and finally fully deleting and remaking the PandoraOutput folder which is where all the behavior files end up in. I of course did that same thing right after deleting the two mods i didn't need, just to be safe. But it seems like i brought on yet another problem somehow.

Now i went on throught the files and tried as much as i could to fix this new issue, but to no avail. It's like the game itself does NOT want to read the files or isn't allowed to for some bizarre reason. Thanks to a mod called Cached Recursive Directory Walk i can check quickly if the game is ok since the mod asks me to cache my files with every run of SKSE. And when i hit YES but the game doesn't start, it tells me that something isn't right. Because before i had this issue and everything was working, when i hit the YES button the game would just turn on and i would see OAR loading all the animations it should have. I use CRDW as it supposedly cuts down on startup time and all that and it hasn't really given me any issues for a long time now. But just to be certain i decided to disable it just to test if i can run the game without it, but for some reason it wouldn't start. I supposed it might have something to do with the .chache files that i found in my DATA folder.

I would be grateful to any help that can be provided. I'll be answering in 8 to 10 hours as i really need some sleep cause this garbage has tired me out way too much.

Edited August 28 by ColinSkyhi
The problem was solved

[CaptainJ03]

Did you start a new game? Or even better yet, did you make a hard save before installing mods for testing if you like them, and now have a fixed point to go back to?

If not, you're fucked, and not in the way you want from being here on LL. Not even a re-saver can save your corrupted savefiles.

Start a new game and come back when things still don't work.

 

7 hours ago, ColinSkyhi said:

re-building the character body in Bodyslide and finally fully deleting and remaking the PandoraOutput folder which is where all the behavior files end up in. I of course did that same thing right after deleting the two mods i didn't need, just to be safe.

Yeah, you read that quite often, that people tend to delete folders, re-install their games etc.pp instead of reading the instructions.

In Vortex, you make your Pandora Output Folder a mod. Disable that "mod", deploy, run Pandora, re-enable that "mod", deploy, done. On a slow machine the whole process might take  a whole minute.

 

7 hours ago, ColinSkyhi said:

Thanks to a mod called Cached Recursive Directory Walk i can check quickly if the game is ok

Why? Vortex does that for you.

You should have three places for your mods. The Downloads folder, where the zip-files are kept until forever. The Vortex staging folder, where your MM decides to put the mods and maybe makes changes on your behalf, and the Data folder, from which the game loads.

I have a diary where every downloaded and installed mod goes with links, description, problems, fixes, and a small writeup what I changed for myself if I need to re-install said mod for a new version. That helps a lot when things go awry, because even if I don't remember what sillyness I've done, my diary will.

[traison]

1 hour ago, CaptainJ03 said:

Why? Vortex does that for you.

 

This is a recently released mod that caches directory query API calls so that the next calls can be faster. It essentially caches your Skyrim directory tree so that subsequent calls don't have to ping your storage devices for the same directory file listings every single time. Apparently speeds up game startups quite a bit.

 

As far as I'm aware, Vortex does not do this.

 

8 hours ago, ColinSkyhi said:

...a thousand animations from my OAR counter...
The game told me the save file was corrupt...
...SOS decided to also give me a prompt which i couldn't interact with.
...i could only see my character's bald head and no body.
...my IDLE animations seem to trigger an A-pose.

 

2 reasons for these:

1. I found Vortex far too unreliable back when I tried it. I could reliably break it by shuffling mods around or uninstalling several mods in one go. I labeled it good for modders that don't like to play around with their setup and switched to MO2 where I'm free to do anything I want. This was years ago so one might assume this has all been fixed by now; but on the other hand, threads like yours occasionally pop up with unexplainable file IO errors and it's always a Vortex user.
2. Cached Recursive Directory Walk.

 

Edit: To the Vortex fanboys out there, yes I know MO2 has a tendency to lose the entire usvfs too but for me that usually happens when MO2 has been running for half a year or so. I'd say at that point it is excusable; a restart and everything is fine again since it's all virtual - no real damage being made.

 

8 hours ago, ColinSkyhi said:

...i was struggling for the whole damn day trying to get Pandora to work...

 

Unrelated to the rest of your issues, unless the issues you were seeing were in-game in which case both of the above apply.

 

8 hours ago, ColinSkyhi said:

...fully deleting and remaking the PandoraOutput folder which is where all the behavior files end up in.

 

I don't see how Vortex could have an output folder option considering it has no usvfs equivalent. This is an MO2 concept and even there it only serves to add to the confusion most of the time.

 

8 hours ago, ColinSkyhi said:

I would be grateful to any help that can be provided.

 

To summarize:

1. Disable Cached Recursive Directory Walk, you don't need it making this even more complicated.
2. Do a sanity check on Vortex.
   1. Go get More Informative Console.
   2. Pick out something that's simple and broken in-game, say a missing texture. If you want to use the missing idle animation then disable OAR first.
   3. Using MIC, xEdit and NifSkope, find the file that's responsible for the resource that is broken.
   4. Make sure it exists in the Skyrim data directory where it's supposed to be.
   5. If you're capable: verify that the file in the Data directory is a hardlink to the correct file in the Vortex mod repository.
   6. Delete the file in the Skyrim data directory and redeploy mods from Vortex. Make sure the file reappears.
   7. Test again if any changes were made.

If the file does not exist or it is linked to the wrong mod file then you're basically having the same issue I was having with Vortex years ago.

Edited August 28 by traison

[ColinSkyhi]

43 minutes ago, CaptainJ03 said:

Did you start a new game? Or even better yet, did you make a hard save before installing mods for testing if you like them, and now have a fixed point to go back to?

If not, you're fucked, and not in the way you want from being here on LL. Not even a re-saver can save your corrupted savefiles.

Start a new game and come back when things still don't work.

Nope, no new game. Used a save file that did not have the mods installed and it WAS a hard save. It is what i used when i was having issues with Pandora because for some reason i was ending up in an A pose after jumping or falling down and couldn't move my character at all, but in those instances before i fixed it all of my armor and hair still worked.

 

 

45 minutes ago, CaptainJ03 said:

Yeah, you read that quite often, that people tend to delete folders, re-install their games etc.pp instead of reading the instructions.

In Vortex, you make your Pandora Output Folder a mod. Disable that "mod", deploy, run Pandora, re-enable that "mod", deploy, done. On a slow machine the whole process might take  a whole minute.

You see i did read the instructions and when said instrucitons kept insisting on reading the instructions again when i had an issue that DID NOT fall into any of the instructions i decided to figure things out for myself and would you look at that it actually fixed my problem. The problem which i just mentioned above, the A posing and not being able to move, was fixed by deleting said "PandoraOutput" mod folder and remaking it since it still had old files from before i had completely deleted FNIS and Nemesis that i had used before. Once i cleaned that out and ran Pandora again to remake the files everything worked. So while quite tedious i did manage to get it working.

 

 

48 minutes ago, CaptainJ03 said:

Why? Vortex does that for you.

You should have three places for your mods. The Downloads folder, where the zip-files are kept until forever. The Vortex staging folder, where your MM decides to put the mods and maybe makes changes on your behalf, and the Data folder, from which the game loads.

I have a diary where every downloaded and installed mod goes with links, description, problems, fixes, and a small writeup what I changed for myself if I need to re-install said mod for a new version. That helps a lot when things go awry, because even if I don't remember what sillyness I've done, my diary will.

Vortex caches the GAME files so they load faster? I'm sorry, i must have not seen it happen as i was very sure Vortex only work with my mods and said mods actually affect the game. You could do some reading on what that mod actually does since i'm not exactly great on the technical terms, but from what i remember it says that it makes audio, textures and other game specific files load more quickly since the basic Skyrim system is a bit slow by loading every single thing individually by scanning everything first every single time. It's supposed to stream line the process. Aside from that Vortex is the one doing all my modding. What i meant when i said that i can check if it's ok is that when i run the game a popup from the mod asks me if i want to make another cache of the game's files and when i say YES and the game doesn't start it indicates an issue. Pretty sure i said that already...
 

 

8 hours ago, ColinSkyhi said:

Thanks to a mod called Cached Recursive Directory Walk i can check quickly if the game is ok since the mod asks me to cache my files with every run of SKSE. And when i hit YES but the game doesn't start, it tells me that something isn't right. Because before i had this issue and everything was working, when i hit the YES button the game would just turn on and i would see OAR loading all the animations it should have. I use CRDW as it supposedly cuts down on startup time and all that and it hasn't really given me any issues for a long time now. But just to be certain i decided to disable it just to test if i can run the game without it, but for some reason it wouldn't start. I supposed it might have something to do with the .chache files that i found in my DATA folder.

Yes, yes i did . . . as a solid an explanation from a tired mind can get really.

[ColinSkyhi]

10 minutes ago, traison said:

2 reasons for these:

1. I found Vortex far too unreliable back when I tried it. I could reliably break it by shuffling mods around or uninstalling several mods in one go. I labeled it good for modders that don't like to play around with their setup and switched to MO2 where I'm free to do anything I want. This was years ago so one might assume this has all been fixed by now; but on the other hand, threads like yours occasionally pop up with unexplainable file IO errors and it's always a Vortex user. To the Vortex fanboys out there, yes I know MO2 has a tendency to lose the entire usvfs too but for me that usually happens when MO2 has been running for half a year or so. I'd say at that point it is excusable; a restart and everything is fine again since it's all virtual - no real damage being made.
2. Cached Recursive Directory Walk.

I did try MO2 at one point but couldn't get it to work as it felt rather unintuitive and so i stuck with Vortex. I've had some issues here and there, but none like this one.

Will be trying to remove CRDW and see if that helps, but since everything worked fine before it i kinda doubt it.

 

12 minutes ago, traison said:

Unrelated to the rest of your issues, unless the issues you were seeing were in-game in which case both of the above apply.

I thought it could be somewhat related since the issues were sort of similar when i was trying to get it to work and i just got done with that.

 

 

13 minutes ago, traison said:

I don't see how Vortex could have an output folder option considering it has no usvfs. This is an MO2 concept and even there it only serves to add to the confusion most of the time.

It's not Vortex's output folder, it's Pandora's. It's within the mod's instructions to make it if the user is using Vortex. Makes all of the generated files separate and easy to move by having them stand by as another mod in the stack.

 

 

15 minutes ago, traison said:

To summarize:

1. Disable Cached Recursive Directory Walk, you don't need it making this even more complicated.
2. Do a sanity check on Vortex.
   1. Go get More Informative Console.
   2. Pick out something that's simple and broken in-game, say a missing texture. If you want to use the missing idle animation then disable OAR first.
   3. Using MIC, xEdit and NifSkope, find the file that's responsible for the resource that is broken.
   4. Make sure it exists in the Skyrim data directory where it's supposed to be.
   5. If you're capable: verify that the file in the Data directory is a hardlink to the correct file in the Vortex mod repository.
   6. Delete the file in the Skyrim data directory and redeploy mods from Vortex. Make sure the file reappears.
   7. Test again if any changes were made.

If the file does not exist or it is linked to the wrong mod file then you're basically having the same issue I was having with Vortex years ago.

I'll get right on that then. Thanks for the suggestion

[traison]

12 minutes ago, ColinSkyhi said:

It's not Vortex's output folder, it's Pandora's.

 

Makes sense.

 

Edit: If you can't spot anything wrong, then consider Process Monitor from Sysinternals (Microsoft). It'll tell you why the game can't find or read a file.

Edited August 28 by traison

[ColinSkyhi]

23 minutes ago, traison said:

 

Makes sense.

 

Edit: If you can't spot anything wrong, then consider Process Monitor from Sysinternals (Microsoft). It'll tell you why the game can't find or read a file.

There is definitely something really wrong cause for some reason i can't even get More Informative Console to work even though i just checked the files being where they should be. And it's really weird cause if it was an SKSE issue, which is the only requirement for this Console mod, nothing like OAR would be working right now. 
After trying to see why MIC doesn't work i decided to remove CRDW and it's cache files just in case. But now Skyrim doesn't want to turn on at all. So that tells me the issue is weird and somewhere else. This happened yesterday too, but i didn't remove the cache files because i didn't feel like it. Basically it seems like CRDW is like the glue that's making my Skyrim launch, but without it it can't.

[traison]

55 minutes ago, ColinSkyhi said:

Basically it seems like CRDW is like the glue that's making my Skyrim launch, but without it it can't.

 

I would not put CRDW back regardless. It's like having ENB installed while trying to solve a graphics related problem that *probably* isn't caused by ENB.

 

56 minutes ago, ColinSkyhi said:

There is definitely something really wrong cause for some reason i can't even get More Informative Console to work...

 

TeamViewer or RustDesk. Make sure you understand what this means before you agree to anything. Make sure to at least read the warning at the top of RustDesk's webpage. PM me if this sounds reasonable, and I'll come have a look.

[ColinSkyhi]

43 minutes ago, traison said:

 

I would not put CRDW back regardless. It's like having ENB installed while trying to solve a graphics related problem that *probably* isn't caused by ENB.

 

 

TeamViewer or RustDesk. Make sure you understand what this means before you agree to anything. Make sure to at least read the warning at the top of RustDesk's webpage. PM me if this sounds reasonable, and I'll come have a look.

Decided to try out Process monitor and HOLY that's alot of info happening quickly. It's a bit too weird for me to just let someone have access to my PC so i'm gonna be trying to figure this out for myself for now.

 

[traison]

51 minutes ago, ColinSkyhi said:

Decided to try out Process monitor and HOLY that's alot of info happening quickly.

 

Filter it. A Windows installation that hasn't been cleaned does about a million IO calls per second.

 

52 minutes ago, ColinSkyhi said:

It's a bit too weird for me to just let someone have access to my PC so i'm gonna be trying to figure this out for myself for now.

 

This is the correct answer but I figured I'd offer anyways. In the end there's nothing I can say or do to prove that I'm trustworthy, just another creep on the internet like everyone else. My dedication to fixing issues in LL is perhaps the only badge I can show off.

[ColinSkyhi]

52 minutes ago, traison said:

This is the correct answer but I figured I'd offer anyways. In the end there's nothing I can say or do to prove that I'm trustworthy, just another creep on the internet like everyone else. My dedication to fixing issues in LL is perhaps the only badge I can show off.

Still i really appreciate the help. Can't figure out what's going on with the game though. I can see it going through ALOT of files, really helped filtering it. But at some point while loading up animations for OAR, Private Needs, it suddenly decides to turn off. It just says "Process Create . . . WerFault.exe" right after closing one of the hkx files. And then alot of "Thread Exit" and a single "Process Exit". And then it start some Reg stuff and closing the files. 

While i was writing this i decided to look into that Private Needs folder that i saw last in the logs. It remained even after i uninstalled the mod through Vortex. I went in there and in was just empty folders with the only files being from Vortex for managing them and stuff. I decided that it was odd and deleted the whole thing, thinking it probably won't lead to anything but it might at least remove the folder access from the logs. So i turn the log recorder back on, launch SKSE and i watch as the log keeps going and going and going . . . and then the game turned on . . . everything works . . . and now my hands hurt because i slapped them together so hard. So thanks for the help.

TLDR a Folder from Private Needs Orgasm called PNO - Idles and WetSelf (they're seperate but start the same) were somehow messing up my game.


I think it's most likely that when i installed it, right after uninstalling the two mods i mentioned here at the start, Vortex might have fucked something up. So patience is key, yet again. But this mod is one i had tried before, like 2-3 days ago to get running but it SPECIFICALLY required Pandora, while i was using FNIS + Nemesis. So this mod is one of the reasons i tried switching and i can't blame it because it didn't make my game not work at all. Plus after uninstalling it there were no real files from the mod, which again leads me to a fault with Vortex.

Thank you again very much for the help. (And yes the More Informative Console mod did also start working)

Edited August 28 by ColinSkyhi
Extra stuff i forgot

[traison]

14 minutes ago, ColinSkyhi said:

WerFault.exe

 

In similar future problems, check Crash Logger SSE for a crash log, or if there is none (likely since WerFault caught it) then the Windows Event Viewer for AppCrash entries related to SkyrimSE.exe.

 

For future Googlers, the AppCrash logs will not be anywhere near as convenent as Crash Logger SSE logs. You WILL need a debugger to figure them out - there's rarely any easy answers in these unless the crash just so happens to occur in an SKSE plugin or something similar.

 

16 minutes ago, ColinSkyhi said:

TLDR a Folder from Private Needs Orgasm called PNO - Idles and WetSelf (they're seperate but start the same) were somehow messing up my game.

 

An empty folder can not do stuff like this unless there's something horribly wrong somewhere else. This makes no sense.

[ColinSkyhi]

15 minutes ago, traison said:

An empty folder can not do stuff like this unless there's something horribly wrong somewhere else. This makes no sense.

As i said, there were only "__folder_managed_by_vortex" files in there and the log of the game loading stuff always stopped there. Don't know what else to say as stupid as it is.