Should dawnguard.esm still be cleaned twice?

[Satur9]

I'm updating some of my mods and noticed that the cleaning and configuring of the Bethesda master files instructions in STEP 2.2.9 have been revised. Aside from removing the step where cleaned masters were added as Mod Organizer mods loading between the original file and the unofficial patches, the old instructions that specified that the Dawnguard master needed to be cleaned twice have been removed or accidentally omitted.

 

Have there been problems arising from the old double cleaning procedure?

 

Apologies if this has been asked before, but I could not find any answer in my search.

[hishutup]

You can try to clean twice but there shouldn't be any difference.

Personally, I would say leave but there may be other that will argue differently.

 

I'm sure that someone will come around and say to redo it on a new file.

[Satur9]

Thanks for the quick response.

 

I checked it after one cleaning with LOOT, and it was still flagged as "dirty", with, IMS, 6 ITMs and 1 UDR. I cleaned it a second time, as before, and it was no longer flagged as needing cleaning.

 

I don't know how signigicant those errors really are in practical terms, but better safe than sorry. I've got backups in case I need to revert.

[Nozzer66]

You wont have an issue if you clean it twice. I believe the suggestion to do it twice got removed cause not everyone's getting told to do it twice.

[GrantSP]

From memory I believe it is all about the version used.

[alt3rn1ty]

If you are using TES5Edit 3.0.23 - Cleaning it twice will not find any more records to clean on the second time.

 

If you are using the newer ( currently Work In Progress ) TES5Edit 3.0.33 .. That version can find and clean a lot more records than the old version. I am currently using svn 1864, and the unofficial patch team use it to clean all of their plugins before they go live too.

 

A peculiarity of the new version is .. You need to clean Dawnguard.esm twice, the first clean uncovers the ITMs which you clean the second time around ( You need to exit xEdit after the first clean to save the plugin, then load it up again for a second clean ).

The second clean will get rid of a further 6 ITMs ( Identical To Master records ).

 

Dawnguard.esm is the only plugin this works for. All the other official plugins do not need cleaned twice.

 

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Edited December 27, 2014 by alt3rn1ty

[Satur9]

Thanks for all the responses.

 

I used TES5Edit 3.0.23, and it did find additional ITM and UDR records when I cleaned the Dawnguard.esm the second time.

 

Once the holidays are finished I will give the WIP 3.0.33 a try.

 

Would it be best to restore the original untouched master files before cleaning them with the new TES5Edit version?

 

Does the WIP xEdit work with the current 1.75 version of the merge plugins scripts, or does it use a different version?

[GrantSP]

Mator suggests using 3.0.33 with the Merge script and it should be fine to just clean your 'cleaned' files.

If you are really nervous about potential errors though, feel free to let Steam restore them first.

[Aiyen]

Good to know that this is normal behavior