I don' even know how incompatibility between "SpecialK", "TBOI:R" and mod "External Item Descriptions".

[MikiP98]

I have an issue with Special K and The Binding Of Isaac: Repentance with mod External Item Descriptions.

When all 3 are enabled when I get in close proximity to the pedestal containing the in-game item it disappears and the mod switches to thinking that current level has an in-game curse showing "correct" curse symbol.

When disabling curses blocking the description of the items, the bug seems to be fixed (It isn't ideal solution). If this actually fixed it (It was kind of random so it can come back), that would mean that Special K is somehow tricking the mod to think that the game is in state of a constant curse…

I’ve created an issue on the mod’s side. The author of the mod has no idea why this happens and hadn’t implemented any antipiracy or anti cheat in the mod that could be tripped by Special K.

I can’t even comprehend how on earth Special K breaks this mod… but it happened.
I don’t know on which side it could be fixed so now I post it here.

[Aemony]

Disable Special K's texture cache feature as a start, then restart the game.

If that doesn't work, apply the compatibility profile from SKIF (right click SpecialK.ini in the app) which also disables a couple of other random components that may or may not be relevant.

[Kaldaien]

I’ve created an issue on the mod’s side. The author of the mod has no idea why this happens and hadn’t implemented any antipiracy or anti cheat in the mod that could be tripped by Special K.

What even does that mean?
You're not of the impression that SK has anti-piracy, are you?

It tends not to work in pirated games, but that's because it uses SteamAPI features that cracked games do not support.

It's unlikely I will be able to help you with this, as I see no source code repository for that mod. I'd review the code if there were one.

[MikiP98]

I’ve created an issue on the mod’s side. The author of the mod has no idea why this happens and hadn’t implemented any antipiracy or anti cheat in the mod that could be tripped by Special K.

What even does that mean? You're not of the impression that SK has anti-piracy, are you?

It tends not to work in pirated games, but that's because it uses SteamAPI features that cracked games do not support.

It's unlikely I will be able to help you with this, as I see no source code repository for that mod. I'd review the code if there were one.

I meant that the Mod could have had some anti-piracy or anti-cheat code that would get activated by the injection from Special K, but that was not the case.
This is the Github repo of the mod.
I also didn't had time to test if fixes provided by Aemony work. When I find some time, I will check those and get back to you. For now, just ignore this issue :/

[MikiP98]

UPDATE!

First the fixes:

• disabling Special K's texture cache did NOT work
• applying the compatibility profile from SKIF worked kind off...

Now details:

Compatibility profile has HDR disabled, after I enabled HDR back the fix did not work, but I decided to apply it again and check if it works while HDR is disabled, and it does. I noticed that enabling HDR AFTER entering a room with an item makes the problem not manifest. It did however manifest when entering a new floor/level with new item room. Then I checked if I can just disable HDR temporarily just before entering the item room and enabling it back inside and it worked! Its tedious but works!
I also noticed that after picking up broken invisible item its texture is gone until a restart of the run. (quitting to main menu and loading the save)

Now Summary:

The problem manifests only when HDR is enabling during the entrance to the item room (or during getting closer to the item because it only disappears if you get closer to it, I forgot to check that).
If HDR is disabled during entrance to the room, it can be safely enabled back in the room.
So, it would mean that there is something happening inside the HDR pipeline that deletes some item related stuff including its texture, and it does it only when "External Item Descriptions" mod is present and tries to 'check' the item.
Note that all the HDR on/off testing was performed on top of the compatibility profile so it may or may not be a relevant step to 'fixing' the problem