So what is it with people using random nonstandard file formats? "RAR?" what, is a ZIP file too hard to make?

Hope I can finally clean this mod up...it's so badly dirty that attempting to clean any part of it up crashes CK.

Well either I'm using TESVsnip wrong (You delete the branches containging the things you want to "clean" right?) or this mod is well and truly un-cleansable.

Guess that's what I get for trying to copy an existing dungeon.

Nothing wrong with copying an existing dungeon. Just locate the branch under cells with the original dungeon and delete the group. Just don't delete your dungeon.

It's best to back up the esp, then make the changes. Test to make sure it's working, make some more changes...once it doesn't work anymore, you know you've gone too far. Don't forget to load and save it in the CK as well to take care of the header information related to the number of form ids.

yeah, noticed that part...I think what's happening is when I copied the cells, the quest related to it corrupted the copies and cross-pollinated between the originals and the copies, and keeps doing so somehow, because when I "Clean" the originals, they are dirty again by the time I reload into the CK.

Are you using an esm file with your esp file? If so, the esm needs to be clean as well.

You can check the esp file for the quest and any activators you did not add that may have been copied over. Removing them from your mod will not affect the master files they were copied from.

pure ESP. No master involved.

Something is weird with Korvanjund...I finally gave up and deleted both the copies AND the originals from the mod, and after a couple of hours of frustrating fiddling, it appears that I have finally lost the little * next to the dungeon cells...I think I've figured out what was causing it...the quest has links to a lot of markers and triggers in there...if I delete every single marker and trigger from my copies before I save, hopefully I'll be able to clean the originals without getting this cross-contamination problem.

It will mean re-triggering all the traps and ambushes, though.

There are warehouse cells you can pull premade traps and what not from. And since they are not used in game, changes made to it won't be an issue.

And I'm definitely gonna use those, since this version of the dungeon is gonna be handling a case where the player returns after getting the crown, and it's been completely taken over by bandits, who have rewired the traps and things, added some of their own, and so on.

".rar" is the recognized standard on the Nexus for a lot of the modders. Depends on your definition of "standard" I guess.

Here is one thing that I’ve noticed that might be related somehow?

Let’s say that I’m adding some of my new content to a vanilla cell and need a new Xmarker to enable some of my objects for example. With the GECK’s, I could simply find another Xmarker in the cell, select it, hit CTRL-D to duplicate it, and slide it to where I needed to be and keep on working. But I would always have to give it an Editor ID because that was always blank. Now, if the object you duplicated already has an Editor ID, it keeps that name and adds something like 001 to the end of it instead of making an empty duplicate. When you duplicated the cell, it very well may have also given these new Editor ID’s to everything in there that has an Editor ID. Just a thought.

As for .rar, get 7zip. It's a great utility to use for all compression types and it's free.

I have it, but it doesn't automatically recognize the RAR file type, you have to manually link it the first time. This tells me that rar isn't any kind of common or standard format.

Rar is kinda deprecated. It is still used mostly by modders along with .zip, but in this generation, it's an old 'standard'.

Winrar will open .rar files.

The "trial" isn't really a trial, as you can keep using it long after its expired.