Why are my vertices all disconnected? I built a character using the mirror, skin, and surface smooth modifier, and when I was ready I applied visual geometry to mesh and deleted half the character, then re-added the mirror modifier so I could start sculpting the vertices directly.

At first each vertex moves normally, then suddenly its like all the vertices are disconnected from each other. The odd thing is that the edges and faces move normally, they warp as if they're connected, but the VERTEXES do not and this is the second character I've had this experience with.

I've tried merging vertices and this changes nothing. I wonder if perhaps they're not disconnected but I've accidentally toggled something that disconnects them when I move them?

Can anyone help? I'm also only about 3 days into using this program so I'm definitely a beginner. Thank you!



UPDATE: As of right now this isn't happening anymore. I reopened the file and everything was magically stuck back together, so I think it might be a bug of some kind. If it happens again I will upload the file. Thanks for your comments and advice.

UPDATE 2: I'm having the same problems! I'll upload the file so you can take a look at it, also uploading another image to show how every vertex seems to move independently. This seems to start when I select the whole mesh and write "merge by distance", suddenly everything is disconnected and won't merge back together again. What's happening?
While I'm not certain what process you went through that resulted in your edges being split wierdly, you should be able to fix all wierd verts on the model by selecting all, pressing Alt+M and selecting "By Distance". This merges vertices that are X distance from other vertices.