lock pick keeps disappearing from my inventory and can't talk to the chef??

[Kobogo]

*MINOR SPOILERS (early game)*

Problem one:
I've just recently started playing this game and I am currently stuck on Band of Brothers because I need to pick open the door to the dump but my lock pick keeps disappearing from my inventory. At first I thought I had accidentally dropped it while dropping other stuff from my inventory and as I only had one bobby pin (pretty sure I at one point had like 12 and they had also disappeared) I went backwards to try and find another one. After a bit of searching (and beating up a few guards) I found one, crafted the lock pick, went back to the dump and to my surprise (bad surprise btw) the lock pick had disappeared from my inventory. No idea where it could have went and now I am stuck because I can't open the door.

Problem two:
There's a quest to free a chef that is somewhat near to the train station (can't remember the exact name of the location). I've got the kitchen key and can see it in my inventory but when I approach the chef it doesn't give me any options to talk to the chef or to open the lock. I have already opened the other door leaving out from the tower but when I did that the guards attacked me so I had to fight them off. Upon returning the chef seemed to be scared of me and was taking cover / ducking down. I figured I'd restart the game and come back there. When I came back the chef was doing their cooking, acting all normal but still wouldn't talk to me. The only thing I can think of is that I might need to put on the better looking suit, would that have any effect?

Is it best to just restart the story and hope for no bugs or is there something obviously dumb that I am missing? Thanks for any help already.

Yours truely,
BALLSHAq

[Smoking Flowerpot]

Problem one, I've never heard of, so I'm not sure what to do. Maybe try making the lockpick while you're right at the door instead of making it in advance. There'll be an option that combines it when you don't have one crafted already, something like "craft and then use lock pick" instead of "use lock pick". You can only craft when you're not currently in combat.

Also, try keeping the bobby pins in your stash box instead of in your backpack. You'll be able to still use them remotely for crafting when needed (in story mode, that is, not survival mode since for that one you need to have crafting ingredients on your person). Maybe that will prevent whatever bug's causing some of them to be lost.

For problem two, I think you have to knock out all of the guards first. If there's any of them alive from within the kidnapping compound, then the quest's not done yet. There's three of them, I think. After it's done, the chef should thank you and then offer you some chunky soup. You have to go right up to his cage's window.

After that, whenever you go back there, you should be able to get another chunky soup over and over (might be limited to one a day, though). The problem with it is that the soup usually disappears if you don't eat it right away. I've never heard of lock picks disappearing, but inventories in procedural games can do weird things sometimes. That soup always disappears, in my experience.

You're near enough to the beginning of the story, that starting over wouldn't be too bad, but you might not need to. If the lost inventory thing continues though (other than that reward soup which always disappears if you get it from the chef), then it might be a good idea to roll for a better random seed number on a new playthrough. That could get annoying to never be able to have a bobby pin or lockpick when you need one.