NPCs not giving upgrade quests?

[IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII]

So on my first playthrough I could easily get all the NPC upgrades for their quest lines, except one assistant which bugged out for some reason.
Now on my second playthrough on a new character and new world, I noticed I unlocked and housed all the survivors, but I haven't gotten a single quest for any of the upgrades for most of the crafting stations and NPCs. Mortar, Cauldron, Saw, Smelter, etc.

I'm clearly over the level requirement and I've finished the flame upgrades for it, but I wasn't even informed when I could get any of these upgrades because the NPCs never got any of those quests to pop up, even though they gave me other quests. I CAN still complete the quests by finding the items in the world, but I don't have any of them in my journal.

On my second playthrough I was a lot more bold and explored more while underlevelled, but I still finished the pike while at a comfortable level 15, having explored most of the Springlands and Revelwood, and I collected all resources in the area (since you need them for Flame 3 anyway).
I'm not really sure what causes this bug to happen.

[PaPaKat]

im not sure what you mean by upgrades? as far as i know none of the crafting stations can be upgraded just new recipes added to them. if your talking about getting them if you got the pieces before hand then you might want to check completed quests in your journal they might be there. the mortar does nothing but sit there but give the alchemist more recipes for crafting. i just started a new play through on a new character and have had no problems getting any quests from the initial 7 NPC's as for the new ones i dont know just got my first one last night but havent placed them yet.

[Gaming Granpa]

I *think* this is related to something about having already unlocked everything. If I'm right, there is a post that explains it. In that post, you'll find you have to do something more than just start a new game to get everything reset. If that's the case, you can already craft everything. It doesn't reset unless you do something like start a new world (?); just starting a new game in the same world allows you to already have access to everything you've already found. Is that what you are experiencing?