I have gotten kind of strange issues with Wrye Mash all of a sudden. I spent the last 4 days getting mods together, packaging them correctly, and setting them all up in Wrye Mash. I just now went and
tried to download/install the pegasus and suddenly Wrye Mash has started throwing strange errors. This has never happened before. I have been using it for 2-3 days. This just now happened. The only
difference was possibly the Mlox which I installed, and doing the Bashed Lists. Those are the only two things I have recently done since it last worked. This is kind of strange, is there any way I can get it working again
without having to redo the entire thing. Re-installing them all and adjusting load order would take forever. I tried a test run also..I tried uninstalling sable dragon so I could re-install it and see if Wrye was working, but
nothing but errors. It's happenign with any mod. I tried restarting my computer as well.

When I tried uninstall something it throws errors along the lines of

That happens when I try to install the pegasus house.

Then if I go to a mod I have had setup for awhile (Ravenloft) I try to uninstall so just to see what it does and it
works (lets me uninstall, but then when I try to re-install again I get another slew of errors.


It seems to be completely broken. What is strange, is it worked fine for 3-4 days. Not sure if it had something
to do with MLox, or if it had something to do with the bashed lists.

I am really hoping someone else has had a similiar issue. I am going to go crazy if I have to redo all of this to get wrye
to work again. Thanks.

Could the pegasus mod have been what caused it? Not the mod itself, but somethign that conflicted with Wrye Mash that made it start throwing this. It was working consistently for 4 days (installing/uninstalling and working perfectly)...then
suddenly it started messing up. These are the last three thing I have done since it last worked.

1. Setup Mlox and ran a sort order. The updated the sort order with it.

2. Did Bash Lists using Wrye Mash.

3. Installing Pegasus. Which immediately threw errors when I tried to install it. So I am not sure if this was what it messed up at, or 1 or 2 instead.

Thanks again.

It might be a situation where no-one knows what the issue is.
So here is my question. For "Stability", which program should I use for the installation of Morrowind Mods. I have
always used Morrowind Mod Manager instead of Wrye Mash, until recently.. I have always used Wrye Mash for load
order management, among other things. However, I liked a lot of features in Mash. Should I go back to Morrowind Mod
Manager just to be safe, considering what happened with it today.

Did you install the Windows 7 service pack this week?

No, I just now saw that. I am installing it now. I located the issue...I think. There was some strange error that had something to do with the temp installion directory. I am not sure. SOmething to do with the temporary extract folder..maybe it had a glitch during one of the installs and started messing it up. Not 100% sure what is going on. I am trying to do a fresh install of all the mods...after I cleared all the Wrye Mash stuff. I am not concerned about being able to fix it this time, more of concerned about it happening again but at a time when I have much more mods and don't want this type of thing to happen.
I think it might have been user error, so I am going to try again. Going to make a backup of my data files folder, Installer Folder, and Wrye Mash folder from now on every few days. In case if something happens.

Do yourself a favor, whenever you install something on Windows 7 x64 that was not written for windows 7 or x64, don't install to the Program Files or Program Files (x86) directories. Make yourself a new directory, call it C:\Gaming, or better yet, don't use your root drive at all. Windows 7 doesn't like programs to write to *any* "program files" directory. It also likes to play with file attributes, marking them "Read Only" arbitrarily. If you install all your games and gaming-related third party programs to a custom directory, you can be sure they can interact with one another. You can also reset the file attributes any time, without getting static from your OS.

To everyone who has been able to get everything to work perfectly using default settings: congratulations. This advice is for those who have had numerous problems, as it appears businessman332211 has, with Morrowind and various 3PP. Another suggestion, businessman332211, set all .exe files to XP SP3 compatibility mode, run them as administrator, and use the http://www.ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php on them. This is especially helpful on MGE and has allowed me to generate distant statics without crashing.

I think I might try to do a total fresh install tomorrow and try that. However, I have a question. How would I install outside of my root, if I only have one harddrive? This laptop has 1 500 gig harddrive. Can you give me an example of a custom folder.. Even a custom folder "Morrowind" would still be
under C:/Morrowind so it's still under root. or did you mean something else?

This looks like a problem with BAIN where when it encounters http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/E/extended_ASCII.html or files with a read-only attribute, it freaks out, like you've described, when it tries to remove them from the temporary installation folder.

In the case of The Sable Dragon, the file "GH_GEO_DMON_M_Groin.nif" is read-only. Closing Wrye Mash, then changing that attribute and repackaging the mod should fix it.

I don't know about the Pegasus House but I imagine if you look through the files you'll find the problem.

I understand the http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1106095-wrye-mash-stand-alone/ of Wrye Mash fixes the problem with the ASCII characters but the read-only problem remains.

Another solution is to manually unpack the package into a "project" folder and install from there, as BAIN has no problem installing from a normal folder.

This is just what I've learned after running into the same problem. Someone with more technical know-how can set me straight if I've got it wrong.

OK, that makes sense. Glad someone else has had a similar problem. It helps me to realize that I am not the only one. OK, a lot of good suggestions here. I want to try to avoid re-installing Morrowind if I can. So basically..
If I have too many issues and have to do a fresh install, I am going to take all of your feedback into account (Installing into another directory, and all of those other suggestions).

I am tempted to try your suggestion. Someone Wrye fixed itself. Not sure how. I played around with Anneal and a few other options and finally it started working...at first, then started throwing issues again on re-installing the
sable dragon. I am about to take that one mod and try what you said. See what happens. If it starts working all of a sudden then I think I am going to create a folder inside the Installers and call it "Backup" and have my zips/rars in there,
but just unpackage them all into Project files instead...might be a lot more affective. I think I want to give that a try.

OK, I am going to try a few things. First I am going to try to clear out everything that I have...I am going to repackage all the mods that I downloaded and set htem all up as projects. Will take a little more space, but I have tons of it (over 300 left).
I want to try running every single mod as a project for a while..just to see if it responds/works more reliably. However, I have an issue. I don't want to have to redo the entire morrowind installation. Is there an easy way I can "Reset" my data files
folder. I mean return it to 100% the way it was before I ever touched it (including any mods or anything else)?
I know I got all of dark nuts textures, as well as the morrowind texture something..not sure if those overwrote original morrowind files though.

Is there anything I can do to just reset the data files 100% like it was before I ever messed with it. After that I am going to clear out all of my archives, and delete/redownload Wrye Mash and Mlox and just start those over. Then going to unzip
everything into project files. The appealing thing about project files it seems is if I make my own personal changes to a mod, I can reverse them back into the pacakge so I can have a backup of my adjustments.

Anyway, is that possible with the data file?

If you only have one HDD, then that's the one you'll have to use

Mine looks like this:

D:\Gaming\Bethesda Softworks\Morrowind

Yours (if you so chose) would look like this:

C:\Gaming\Bethesda Softworks\Morrowind

Personally, I use the Wrye Mash Standalone, as eltrane above me recommends. Messing with python isn't exactly my cup of tea. I had to use WMSA when I upgraded to Win7 and I had the python version working just fine on XP. As far as using the installers tab . . . I don't. I've never trusted it and (as I'm sure you've found) a wagonload of mods have archive structures that just aren't compatible with it. I don't like the long wait time to load the installers, and more often than not, it tells me there are missing or skipped folders and esps that are *supposed* to be left out because they are *optional*. In addition, since I mix and match pluginless replacers, it doesn't really do me much good there, either. If I don't like how something looks in my game, I'll do a console check and delete that texture/mesh to revert to the default and find another replacer. Using the installers tab seems (to me) to make things more complicated than they have to be.

This is actually hard for me to admit, since I love to use all the bells and whistles on any new toy and other people seem to like the installation function . . . but it's just not for me.

I wouldn't get too worried over running into this error very much. I have installed and or uninstalled well over 300 mods and The Sable Dragon is the only one I've had trouble with. I've seen a couple other mods reported as well but very few.

Actually, that might be a good idea for a thread. Listing mods that can cause this error with Wrye Mash (not that its the modder's fault of course) and then pointing out the file(s) that its choking on, just as an easy reference for fixing. But again, I think the list is pretty small for an English based install.

Thank you both for the feedback, I am heading to bed shortly. Thanks for helping me sort this out. So Eltrane, out if curiosity..do you personally put ALL of your mods into project folders?

Also, how do I reset the Morrowind data files folder? Can I just delete EVERYTHING except the 3 main master ESM files and that's it? Or does it take more care than that?

And final question, what do you do if you have this issue? So assuming I have 100 mods installed..then I try to install one and/or uninstall one and I get this error. What can I do at that
point to fix the issue, and not lose all of my mods. I got panicked last time and started trying to uninstall re-install a lot of them and it corrupted a lot of the stuff in my data files. I was
wondering why it happened. Now that I have more feedback, what steps would I need to take if it happens again? So let's say I was playing the game. I have 75-130 mods installed.
They all had worked fine. Then I go and download a new mod. I install it, and I get the error..what should I do? Should I try to find the file it's hanging on and manually deleting it, will that
allow me to finish the install? Then at that point should I just repackage it as a project instead?

Or as I was asking previously, do you put ALL of your mods into projects instead, as a default...every single on you have installed?

You could try installing that one mod manually. You can put the mod archive into your installers directory (or wherever else you store your mod archives) and extract it, putting the files into the correct folders yourself.

As for restoring your install to default, no, deleting everything except the .esms won't work. There are BSA files which are also part of the default install. Without uninstalling everything myself, I couldn't really tell you what is default and what isn't, besides the .esm's and .bsa's.

On the other hand, unless you've used a pluginless replacer that you absolutely cannot stand, there's no harm in leaving all of those files right where they are. If you uncheck a mod that points to a particular mesh/texture, then that particular mesh/texture just sits there, taking up space, but not hurting anything.

All you have to worry about backing up are your morrowind.exe and morrowind.ini files. If these get corrupted, then you're screwed until you re-install.

I keep them in archives. For a while I had just The Sable Dragon installed from a project. But when I learned how to fix it (someone had already done the work of identifying the problem file and posted it in the mod's thread) I did it like this:

1. Upon Wrye choking I closed the program, then opened the installers folder and manually unpacked the archive into its own folder.

2. Found the file, from its properties window, unchecked the read-only box. (btw, if its read-only it will have an R under the attributes header in the folder or archive - this makes it easier to identify read-only files when scanning a list of files.)

3. Renamed the original archive, then repackaged the project folder with the same format (zip, rar, or whatever) and renamed it exactly like the original was before closing Wrye, effectively swapping it with the original version.

4. Started up Wrye Mash again and did an uninstall/ install from the now fixed archive.

How to fix it if its a problem with extended ASCII characters, I wouldn't know. Maybe someone that knows the workings of BAIN better could answer that. But as posted above, you can avoid the problem altogether by using the stand-alone version.


Its been so long since I've seen a virgin Data Files folder I couldn't add anything to what Elaura said above. But, if you can't fix the Mash problem with the suggested method above, you could just reinstall Wrye Mash and not the whole game. The mod files will still be there when you go back to the installers tab but this won't stop you from reinstalling the mods, while avoiding the errors from previously, of course.

That's nothing wrong with either Wrye Mash or your game, because I know what's wrong with that kinda of errors you have got there.

Traceback (most recent call last):WindowsError: [Error 13] Access is denied: 'InstallerTemp\\Meshes\\GH_GEO_DMON_M_Groin.nif'

That file has a read only attribute active and that attribute must be deactivated, but you fix this and here is what you need to do.
Just installed the Sable Dragon mod and find the file Morrowind\Data Files\Meshes\GH_GEO_DMON_M_Groin.nif to uncheck the read only attribute by right click on file properties to confirm the changes. Now you can uninstalled The Sable Dragon mod in Wrye Mash.

I've had similar issue recently that was caused by a simple fact of renaming plugin extension from uppercase ".ESP" to lowercase ".esp". Mash kept crashing till I reverted extension back to uppercase..

So, I checked out the Pegasus House mod. After looking through it I couldn't find any problematic files, so I tried installing, and sure enough got the error. After looking again I found two files I missed before - Textures\_Dni_Décor004.dds and Textures\_Dni_Lumière001.dds. I then manually made a "project" folder and tried to install from there - still got the error message. I did a full refresh for the heck of it and then manually installed the mod the old fashioned way without BAIN so all the files would be in place. Going back to the Installers tab, the .7z reported the two files as missing and the rest as matched. The "project", however, reported all files as matched, including the two problematic files. I then had BAIN install the "project" version of the mod and got the plus sign in the box as desired. Since I now had underrides for higher up mods like NoM, I did an anneal all. BTW, in case you're wondering why I don't use the stand alone version, its because I've been avoiding having to reorder my crap load of mods I have in my installers folder if I were to switch over.

Anyway, hope that helps.

OH wow, thanks for all the feedback.


I am about to tonight. I am going to be removing all of my mods (maybe even an entire re-install of Morrowind, not sure yet). But planning on doing it a little differently. I will try to revert back..maybe I can find a download of the original data files folder online that someone put as an example or something. Will
look around.



OK, thanks. I will take that into account.






Yes, that took awhile to identify. Thanks to all the feedback from people in this post. I did see one ESP file that I renamed..but I started leaving them alone after that..if I see them as.ESP I change them to lowercase. I will probably stop doing that now that you brough that up.



Yes, it helps a lot. I will try that. So you found the same error. That is why everything was messing up all of a sudden. I didn't know, so basically if it throws an error then it doesn't do the install at all? That makes a lot more sense..I thought it was going to corrupt the data files folder that's why I tried to uninstall everything.

So what I am going to do..is go ahead and do a fresh install or clean of morrowind. Then I am going to take some time to re-install my mods. When I get to the dragon one, I am going to break it open and do as suggested, then reload it. Then again for the Pegasus house mod, I am going to follow your fix to begin with and see if that works. Then I will just be more careful. One thing I am going to do is after I am doing..I am going to do a backup of the MOPY, Data Files, and Installers folder... If I keep taht backup then I will always be able to restore it exactly like I had it before? So just do 1 backup for each new mod...if I get any issues, revert back all the files and everything is perfect? Or is there something else I need to backup as well?

So just to clarify...

1. Use the archive files whenever I can.
2. If the archive does not work, then try to identify problem files and then repackage, reinstall. If it still has issues then use it as a project instead.
3. Any of my own personal mods do as projects.
4. To backup my mods, I need to backup the Data Files, Installers, and Mopy folder..is that all? Should that constitute a full mod backup?
After that, I should be good to go.

1 - I'd say yes, don't let the bug scare you from installing from archives in general. Its pretty rare, unless you plan on using foreign mods.
2 - To identify the error, you can easily check for foreign characters from the General tab. To check for Read-only files, you'd need to scan the files in the archive or folder, looking for the letter R under the properties column.
3. If the personal mod is an ongoing project, yeah, but if its final, why not archive it? You would know if the two problematic file types would be in your own mod, right?
4. I don't think the error in question corrupts your Data Files or Installers folder, but it never hurts to have backups anyway for whatever reason. Actually I need to back up my Installers folder myself. I would cry for a week if I lost that due to a computer crash. I'm curious about the Mopy folder as all those files in there mean nothing to me. Perhaps you would only have to back up one of those files to be able to revert after getting the error? Hopefully an expert can respond to that.

I'd suggest backing up the entire MW folder. I made a "vanilla" backup right after installing MW so that I could restart from a "fresh" install without having to actually go through all 3 disks. If you don't use the uninstall program and just delete the MW folder, then copy the backup to it's original place it works perfectly. Using the uninstall program will remove the registry entries and make it not work. I can't count the hours this has saved me. The only other files that would need to be backed up would be third party programs that aren't installed in the MW directory.




KF

Wow, I appreciate that. I am going to try that at. I am working up a series of blog posts on my website that deal with a lot of this stuff. Drafting one blog post about the entire base installation, and the all the configuration setups I use. Also going to be
doing a lot of blog posts about Wrye Mash later as well. I have a basic one there now but once I am done going through this learning experience I am going to archive all of this that I have learned and the knowledge you guys have passed on into a blog post.

Thanks again. I am about to do a fresh install, back up the game, and then setup all my stuff again and get all of these mods working and then do another backup. Thanks again for all the feedback.

I have been programming for a long time. However, I don't know Python. However, since Wrye put the code as open source.I am getting the itches to learn Python. If I decide to do that, the FIRST thing I am going to do is fix these two Wrye Mash issues. I will
adjust the code to account for strange characters, and the read only. The read only should be easy. I will just do a permissions check on the file before it try to move it. If it detects a read only file, I will cause it to roll back the install to the previous state (before that
mod was partially installed) and then throw a better error than what it was..something simply like


Those two bug fixes are the very first thing I am going to try and do if I decide to learn a little bit of python. All languages have utilities that check file permissions, so this should be a pretty easy fix.

I might actually do that. I would want to get a few people to test the fix. It's going to probably be a few months, but after that I think I am going to give that a try. If I am able to get it working, then I might just do a "Unofficial Wrye Mash Expansion Pack" that you
can install into the MOPY folder, which enhances the functionality. That might actually be fun. Something I might toss around some ideas on.

Don't forget the "ESP" "esp" issue.