Wanting to uninstall everything and start over.

[PF45]

Hey guys,

I started modding this game with very little understanding of how everything works. I've corrupted several GBs of data that I literally can't delete. I'm wanting to uninstall everything and start over. But at this point, I'm wondering if I should just reformat... Corrupted data is never good. Any advice from someone in the know would be greatly appreciated.

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

18 minutes ago, PF45 said:

Hey guys,

I started modding this game with very little understanding of how everything works. I've corrupted several GBs of data that I literally can't delete. I'm wanting to uninstall everything and start over. But at this point, I'm wondering if I should just reformat... Corrupted data is never good. Any advice from someone in the know would be greatly appreciated.

what exactly did you do?  and what do you believe is corrupted?

[PF45]

1 hour ago, SpannerMonkey(smce) said:

what exactly did you do?  and what do you believe is corrupted?

Well, I messed up several mod installs, (separated files into specific locations), I believe it was you that set me straight on how to install mods the correct way. Since then, I've had memory leak issues, as well as what I can only describe as an epileptic-event inducing glitch when at high altitudes above a planetary body. To rectify this issue, or issues related to messing up the installation of a mod in the past, I just copied my clean copy of KSP and modded the new copy. Anytime I try to delete the old file for an updated one, it will not allow it to be deleted. I do believe this might be related to my other project on this PC: X-Plane 11 in which I somehow or another corrupted 64gb of data... So I guess a better question is do you think this is HD related or KSP installation related lol? 

Edited May 13, 2017 by PF45
syntax

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

Hi, can't think of any way that KSP could corrupt any data, aside from writing it's saves and logs it doesn't have permission to do anything else

Simply deleting everything except the Squad folder from GameData , and deleting the PartDatabase.cfg from the main KSP folder,  clearing out the old damaged saves from the save file,  and starting a new game should get you a fresh start, unless of course you messed in the squad folder too. In which case just delete the whole lot and reinstall the game. 

So yeah data corruption I'd be looking elsewhere rather than at KSP no matter what you did to it

 

[PF45]

5 minutes ago, SpannerMonkey(smce) said:

Hi, can't think of any way that KSP could corrupt any data, aside from writing it's saves and logs it doesn't have permission to do anything else

Simply deleting everything except the Squad folder from GameData , and deleting the PartDatabase.cfg from the main KSP folder,  clearing out the old damaged saves from the save file,  and starting a new game should get you a fresh start, unless of course you messed in the squad folder too. In which case just delete the whole lot and reinstall the game. 

So yeah data corruption I'd be looking elsewhere rather than at KSP no matter what you did to it

 

Just thought of something: My original copy is a steam copy, could these files be on lock down because of steam? Should I uninstall though steam? Thank you for the quick reply!

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

Depending on your operating system and the location of the steam library it could cause problems with permissions especially when it comes to deleting things. 

It is regarded by many to be good practice to clone the steam copy of the game in another location and use  the clone as your modded install, the nice thing about doing it this way  is that you always have a clean game as a reference, should you run into trouble. And your modded install is safe from sneaky steam updates .

You can uninstall through steam , I suppose though I don't know for sure , that the manifests etc would not be updated if you manually deleted KSP.

Though a reinstall should not be required,  simply re validating the files should clean up any changes you made in the Squad folder, unless you actually added files.

[PF45]

10 minutes ago, SpannerMonkey(smce) said:

Depending on your operating system and the location of the steam library it could cause problems with permissions especially when it comes to deleting things. 

It is regarded by many to be good practice to clone the steam copy of the game in another location and use  the clone as your modded install, the nice thing about doing it this way  is that you always have a clean game as a reference, should you run into trouble. And your modded install is safe from sneaky steam updates .

You can uninstall through steam , I suppose though I don't know for sure , that the manifests etc would not be updated if you manually deleted KSP.

Though a reinstall should not be required,  simply re validating the files should clean up any changes you made in the Squad folder, unless you actually added files.

That's a good idea, I think what I will try is verify the game cache and copy the game folder from steam and start over from there. I'll let you know how this goes, 2150 game files failed to be validated lol.

[PF45]

Fresh copy runs flawlessly without memory leak or any weird glitches. I posted another question in the modding section about where to find a list of the latest mods and their dependencies; any chance you can point me in the right direction? I don't even remember what mods I need to get started lol (I was very unorganized in the beginning)...

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

Thats good news

 As for the mods I get all mine from the addon releases section  and the github links of the mod I use.     Of course there's the CKAN method that many favor.

All depends I suppose on how extensive your mod list is, mine generally center around adding things that the game doesn't have,  that I can exploit when making mods, robotics, weaps etc  so the list isn't long and most of those end up just being the plugins with all the parts removed. So it easy for me to keep tabs on whats going on simply by following the mod threads.

[PF45]

6 hours ago, SpannerMonkey(smce) said:

Thats good news

 As for the mods I get all mine from the addon releases section  and the github links of the mod I use.     Of course there's the CKAN method that many favor.

All depends I suppose on how extensive your mod list is, mine generally center around adding things that the game doesn't have,  that I can exploit when making mods, robotics, weaps etc  so the list isn't long and most of those end up just being the plugins with all the parts removed. So it easy for me to keep tabs on whats going on simply by following the mod threads.

It sounds like we have similar interests! I have probably 22 mods or so, I like to build various bombers and fighter jets as well as some sub orbital high-speed bombers. Procedural wings and BD armory is a must, I can hop over to that NKD forum where we first met and get the BD link from there. I should check github for procedural wings though?

LOL I'm an idiot, I understand now. Thank you so much for the help! Now if I could only find someone to make starwars parts.....  

Edited May 14, 2017 by PF45
grammar

[Capt. Hunt]

Well, it sounds to me like you didn't actually "corrupt" anything, that's actually pretty hard to do that on a large scale on a modern computer.  However, Windows 10 changed the way access and r/w permissions work, and it can adversely effect PCs that have been upgraded from older versions of windows.  If that's the case with your machine, it might be the cause of the access issue.  There's a bunch of threads on the Windows help forum for dealing with that.  If something does corrupt in the base game, you can always have steam verify the integrity of the cache and reacquire the bad file.

Edited May 14, 2017 by Capt. Hunt

[PF45]

On 5/14/2017 at 1:37 AM, Capt. Hunt said:

Well, it sounds to me like you didn't actually "corrupt" anything, that's actually pretty hard to do that on a large scale on a modern computer.  However, Windows 10 changed the way access and r/w permissions work, and it can adversely effect PCs that have been upgraded from older versions of windows.  If that's the case with your machine, it might be the cause of the access issue.  There's a bunch of threads on the Windows help forum for dealing with that.  If something does corrupt in the base game, you can always have steam verify the integrity of the cache and reacquire the bad file.

Thanks for the info! That helped ease my nerves about trying new mods. I found out that it seems to be a glitch with something not related to KSP. It would say it deleted a file, but then show the file in the folder. Then it wouldn't let me touch it. As it turns out, I just have to close the folder and it disappears. I'm probably doing something silly to make that happen but it appears to be a non-issue. But anyway, thanks for the information and my apologies for the delayed response.

Edited June 4, 2017 by PF45
grammar