Deployment interrupted - Addins file is invalid (Dragon Age: Origins)

[CrocodileMundi]

Bug Description: When asked to Elevate and Deploy mods for Dragon Age: Origins (DAO), deployment always fails due to an invalid AddIns.xml file located at C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Vortex\dragonage\mods__merged.dazip\Settings\AddIns.xml. If you navigate to this location, open AddIns.xml in a text editor (e.g., Notepad++), then it appears that the file is essentially empty (i.e. no mods are included).

AddIns.xml Contents:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<!--   AddIn information -->
<AddInsList />

Steps To Reproduce:

1. Login to Steam and (uninstall/re)install DAO
2. Install Vortex Mod Manager, go to the Games tab, scroll through the list to find DAO, and then click the Manage button for DAO.
3. Login to my nexusmods.com account, navigate to an arbitrary DAO mod that has a "Mod Manager Download" option rather than the "Manual Download" option (e.g., Morrigan Restoration Patch), and then click on the "Mod Manager Download" button to wait for the download to complete in Vortex.
4. Either wait on the Downloads tab or go to the Mods tab in Vortex to enable the downloaded mod, and then when notified about the need to elevate and deploy, click the Elevate button in the notification.
5. After completing these steps, I always get the same error message: Deployment interrupted Addins file is invalid - "C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Vortex\dragonage\mods__merged.dazip\Settings\AddIns.xml"

Expected Behavior: For mods to successfully deploy, which was not a problem in the past (pre-2023) using either the Nexus Mod Manager or the Vortex Mod Manager.

Screenshots: Error message pop-up

Platform:

• OS: Windows 10 Home (Version 22H2, OS Build 19045.3693, Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.19053.1000.0) --> formerly Windows 7 before updating in mid 2023
• RAM: 8 GB
• CPU: Intel Core i7-3610QM CPU @ 2.30 GHz (Driver Version 10.0.19041.3636)
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660M (2 GB VRAM, Driver Version 23.2.13.8857)
• Vortex Version: Vortex 1.9.7 (Electron 25.8.4, Node 18.15.0, Chrome 114.0.5735.289)
• DAO Install Location: E:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Dragon Age Ultimate Edition

Additional Context: The reason I got in this mess in the first place was that after updating from Windows 7 to 10, I ran into an issue where my save games would not load properly (i.e. they would load indefinitely). I thought perhaps something got corrupted during the Windows update, so I made a backup of the C:\Users\\Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age directory, uninstalled all of my mods via Vortex, then uninstalled Vortex, and finally uninstalled DAO itself. After doing this, I also did my best to purge all traces of Vortex on my machine by deleting all files in the following locations:

• C:\Program Files\Black Tree Gaming Ltd\Vortex
• C:\Users\CrocodileMundi\AppData\Local\Black_Tree_Gaming
• C:\Users\CrocodileMundi\AppData\Local\vortex-updater
• C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Vortex

I also looked through my Windows registry entries to see if I could find any lingering Black Tree Gaming or Vortex-related items, but couldn't, so at that point I figured I'd gotten rid of it entirely.

After going through these steps, I worked through the "Steps to Reproduce" listed above as a bare bones test and still kept running into the same issue. No amount of clean installs of DAO and Vortex seem to help, so hopefully you see something here that I missed, or else find a bug that needs addressing.

Thanks!

[KhantheDon23]

Same issue here, much luck 2 u warden