I tried to delete a quest dialogue topic, but whenever I reactive the mod in the CK, it reappears with a *DELETED-* prefix. It also reappears in the dialogue views as a grey box. How can I get rid of the topic for good?

When you delete something in the CK, it's marked as DELETED, however if you save, the next time you open the CK and load your file it should be gone.

It's not, it reappears.

It's still there but also says Deleted after you save, close the CK then open it and load your mod? I have no clue what should be causing that, it's a very starightforward system, it sounds like you're missing a step somewhere.

1. Delete the topics/branches whatever you need.
2. Save your esp.
3. Close the CK.
4. Open the CK again.
5. Load your mod.

It should be gone. If you've followed those steps exactly then it will be gone.

I did exactly what you said. it's still there.

So what could be causing the problem?

Is the topic you're trying to delete something you added yourself, or is it from the vanilla quests?

Do other changes/deletions save correctly?

It's vanilla, and I think so.

Then that's why I believe.

It's vanilla, which means it's present in Skyrim.ESM. Then you delete a master record with an esp, it isn't gone. The ESP just marks it as deleted. That's why. So it's deleted and wont show up or affect anything, but it doesn't go away because it's present in the Skyrim.esm.

Plus, what are you deleting from vanilla Skyrim? That's usually bad idea.

IMO it's better to send the topic into "purgatory" rather than deleting it (i.e. just break it off from whatever quest, so that nothing points to it, or put an impossible condition on it so that it never shows up). in my experience its usually a bad idea to markfordelete anything in an esm via esp.

This. I agree completely. I regularly get rid of vanilla dialogue I don't want with the "impossible condition" trick.

I agree with both posts. Just slap something on them that can never be true:

 GuardRef.ArrowInKnee() == 0

@Alexander J. Velicky: Why don't deleted objects and perks behave the same way? They disappear completely. As for why I deleted it, it was accidental
@Amethyst Deceiver: The topic isn't showing up ingame, so putting any impossible conditions shouldn't matter. I broke any connections to it as well,


I just don't want to see it in the CK anymore.

The other examples, which incidentally should also not be "Deleted", are single forms while DIALs have children INFOs and sometime necessitate DLBRs. Just tack on IsXBox checks or something if you want them gone from the game, but there's no safe way to delete them from Skyrim.ESM nor is there a need to to so. Avoid the delete key unless you're killing your own stuff or all kinds of unforeseen problems can and will arise.

Like I said before, it was by mistake.