Is there a way to symmetrize a mesh without messing up the armature underneath? I've been working on a character rig that I am currently in the process of weight painting to get better relationships between the bones and the mesh, but as I go about my business, it's become clear to me that there are parts of the mesh that must not be entirely symmetrical. Most of the mesh is as it responds to the x-mirror, but there are areas that blender doesn't seem to register as being symmetrical, even if it looks symmetrical to my naked eye. No idea what happened.
Ideally, I want to re-symmetrize the mesh again, but the problem comes in where symmetrizing now messes up all of the bones and drivers and things that I already have assigned - specifically, it de-parents half of the bones on one side of the x-axis, and the other side of the x-axis will end up controlling both limbs. Not ideal.
If I try re-parenting the armature back to the mesh in this case, it is destructive as well - it either destroys bone relationships I've already set up, or if I do it with automatic weights in pose mode, there goes all of the weight paint work I've already done as well as me needing to set up my drivers again. (...Unless I'm fundamentally just misunderstanding something about the different types of parenting. I'm still a beginner.)
I'm basically wondering if there's any way to either a) symmetrize a mesh without affecting the armature (or already established weight paint) or b) somehow be able to force weight paint to go in the same-ish places on both sides even if there isn't perfect symmetry (not a big fan of option B out of pickiness and perfectionism though).
It's a little late in the game to be having mesh symmetry problems, I don't know how it always seems my mesh becomes asymmetrical when I keep x mirror on all the time. If I have to restart all of this over again just to symmetrize then I guess it's par for the course, but I'd really like to avoid it if possible. Maybe there's some really obvious answer to it, I'm crossing my fingers. I'm happier to look like a clown than have wasted a few days doing all this work on a doomed mesh. :(
Alright so I figured it out so I figure I'll update just in case anyone ever finds themselves stuck in my situation. Turns out the fix was very obvious and simple after all. :)
The thing that fixes the symmetry in a way that isn't destructive is actually 'mesh &gt; snap to symmetry' rather than using symmetrize. This will preserve not just the armature but all of the weight painting, too. You can either select the entire mesh or just the opposing areas on each side of the mesh that you want symmetrical and you will get this wonderful popup.

I guess prevention is always best but I'm really relieved that it's not the end of the world (and all of my weight painting) if the mesh accidentally loses symmetry.