Turn Back the Fog Quest - Completely Bugged

[Knoxklay11]

I'm really frustrated about this quest. To keep it short and to limit any minor spoilers, the goal of the quest is to clear out ghouls from the Echo Lake Lumberyard in Far Harbor. Simple enough, right? Well I've killed all the ghouls I could find and get to emerge from the ground (yes, even the ones hidden by the waters edge by the crates as addressed in other forum threads I've read) however, i STILL cannot get this quest to progress. A trapper named Malcolm is supposed to appear when youve successfully cleared the land, but even with all ghouls dead he still wont appear and the quest wont progress. I should point out that some of the ghouls, namely the ones located on the upper floors of the main building including a glowing ghoul were all dead before I even got to the lumberyard. For good measure, I reverted to a previous save to try to do the quest over from the beginning but it still has the same issue. I have even tried to resurrect any ghoul i could find and killed them again just to be sure. Still nothing. Is there something I'm missing? I've been scouring the internet for solutions but it seems like nobody's found a solution to this, the wiki just recommends using VATS to find hidden ghouls, but none appear no matter where I go and no matter how many times i open VATS. Is anyone aware of a solution to this ridiculous bug or at least knows of any console commands that could help in possibly locating + unearthing any ghouls that may not have been triggered to attack despite my best efforts? I've noclipped through the ground and have not seen any ghouls and I've even nuked the area just to see if i can kill any. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Knoxklay11]

***UPDATE*** I found a solution that helps you move along with the quest! I didnt find any more ferals so im assuming I did indeed kill all the ghouls but the quest just bugged out. In order to get Malcolm to spawn just put use this console command: SetStage 0300aec3 200. this will make malcolm spawn and you can finally move along on this bugfest

[tree2000]

I recently encounter this bug and I found the true solution. The reason for this is because the ambush script are glitch and there are three ghouls hidden inside those trash pile. They are suppose to ambush you and climb out but for some reason they didn't. They stuck inside those trash pile. For me, all the ghoul won't attack me when they see me, that's a glitch, I know. so of course those ghouls won't ambush me either. To kill them inside trash pile, you can use console command TFC to see what's inside the trash pile and then use kill command on them. If you don't want to use console command, grenade can't hurt them. The only thing can hurt them are Lorenzo gamma gun, the explode effect will hurt them even they are hiding inside those trash. If you hurt them, they will come out and you can kill them. You can find those hidden feral ghouls in three locatio: 1, Go inside the biulding and go downstair, right infront of you there are some trash pile. 2, go up stair of the biulding and under those shelf, one ghoul hide inside the trash pile. After you kill two hidden ghouls and all those ghouls you can find outside, the game will show you the location of the last ghoul even it's hiding inside those trash pile.

[kresa]

Kinda reviving this dead post...
I had this issue as well... just run at the water / broken bridge nearby, make noise, shoot stuff... this should shake them off ^^

[Vivian Perilous]

I had the same problem, wound up having to use the console to get the quest to forward. Thanks for posting the code needed for that! Lol. I know its like a year old but Im just replaying F4 and running into soooo many bugged quests.

[Karoshi]

For those like myself where setting the stage doesn't work I have the solution. Force Spawn Malcolm. player.placeatme 03049cb8 *Caution that the first two numbers can change as your load order could be different but this is default load. He will now spawn somewhere within arms reach around your character. Good Gaming