"Acess Is Denied"

[psychotrip]

Hi there. I've been using mod organizer with no problems for a long time now, but I've run into a strange problem. I was trying to remove and reinstall Climates Of Tamriel, when I began running into various errors. Long story short, even though the mod is no longer showing up on either side of the mod organizer program, the file still exists in the mods folder for mod organizer. As a result, I can not reinstall the mod. 

 

Whether I try to "replace" the mod within mod organizer, or manually open the folder and delete it, I'm told I don't have the permissions to alter the file and that "access is denied". Everything else about mod organizer is working. Skyrim is working. SKSE is working. I can run SKSE through MO just fine. I have administrator permissions on seemingly everything on my computer except for this one file.

 

In my attempt to solve this,  I've gone to "properties", "security", and "permissions" for the Climates of Tamriel folder. I was told I didn't have permission to view or edit permission settings. I went to "advanced" and "owner" and under "current owner" it says "unable to display current owner". I tried to change the owner to myself, but was told "Access is denied".

 

I'm only moderately computer savvy, so I'm obviously missing something, but I'm about to start pulling my hair out, and I have quite a bit of it to pull. I feel like I'm losing my mind here. Does anyone know how to fix this? 

 

Edit: Thought I should mention the file is set to "read only" and I can't uncheck it for the same reasons listed above. 

Edited October 20, 2017 by psychotrip

[Greg]

It's most like something has one or more files in that folder locked when you attempted to delete the mod. When this happens, Windows deletes all the unlocked files and adds the locked files to a "pending delete" queue. Unfortunately, Windows Explorer is dumbed down and doesn't have a clue how to handle this scenario so it reports an "access denied" error that often leads people down the wrong path instead of the correct error reported by Windows. The folder will most likely vanish if you log out or reboot to force whatever to release to lock.

[psychotrip]

It's most like something has one or more files in that folder locked when you attempted to delete the mod. When this happens, Windows deletes all the unlocked files and adds the locked files to a "pending delete" queue. Unfortunately, Windows Explorer is dumbed down and doesn't have a clue how to handle this scenario so it reports an "access denied" error that often leads people down the wrong path instead of the correct error reported by Windows. The folder will most likely vanish if you log out or reboot to force whatever to release to lock.

Dude thank you so much. That explains the last time this happened too. I had this exact same problem with another mod and, as if out of nowhere, the problem fixed itself. It must've been because I rebooted. I'll try that and report back. 

[psychotrip]

Okay so now the issue is expanding into mods I haven't even touched in any way. I noticed Amazing Follower Tweaks wasn't working. It was working about 30 minutes ago, then I exited the game, and when I came back it was no longer working. It's still in mod organizer and active on both sides of the mod list. When I try reinstalling it, the same issue happens. Access is denied. 

 

Edit: So I restarted the computer like you suggested, and it seems to have...worked? The Climates of Tamriel folder is gone and reinstalled successfully, and ATF is gone as well and I'm going to try and reinstall it now. Still, what happened to ATF in the first place? I did nothing to it and the file became denied...and then vanished? 

Edited October 21, 2017 by psychotrip

[Greg]

It seems some process on your system is locking files in the mods folder for some reason. The easiest way to find out what's locking the mods is to download and run Process Explorer from the SysInternals suite. When Process Explorer comes up, click Find | File Handle or DLL, enter the name of one of the locked files (e.g. somerandometexture.dds or somerandommod.esp), and it'll tell you which processes have an open handle to that file.