Preston Garvey Bug - Completely silent and ignores me

[Foghide]

So I just retook the castle and was trying to finish "Old guns" when I realized I cant talk to preston garvey. Clicking on him just gives me the "interact" noise. He doesnt say anything when I walk by him, I cant talk to him to turn in quests, he is completely silent. Ive tried a bunch of fixes recommended on the wik, such as the remove faction console commandi but nothing is working. I tried uninstalling my mods but that didnt change anything. Unfortunately, reloading a previous save is out of the question, as for some reason there is a 12 hour gap between when I saved after retaking the castle and my previous save (I have no idea what caused that issue either, its very frustrating). Any help would be greatly appreciated

[Red River]

try shooting him in the face. maybe that will snap 'im outta it.../

[Zekiran]

Will others including other companions speak with you?

What happens when you click?

I'd strongly suggest not doing anything in the console, and make sure that when you do go back onto a save that you're using one that you did NOT 'remove faction'. That's... going to break your game.

What's likely happened is that somewhere - SOMEWHERE in the game, you've left an NPC hanging in the middle of a sentence.

If you're not manually saving often, or at least "before doing big things", that's going to hinder your overall game anyway. Use manual saves more.

Find the npc. Finish their conversation.

[Foghide]

Originally posted by Zekiran:

Will others including other companions speak with you?

What happens when you click?

I'd strongly suggest not doing anything in the console, and make sure that when you do go back onto a save that you're using one that you did NOT 'remove faction'. That's... going to break your game.

What's likely happened is that somewhere - SOMEWHERE in the game, you've left an NPC hanging in the middle of a sentence.

If you're not manually saving often, or at least "before doing big things", that's going to hinder your overall game anyway. Use manual saves more.

Find the npc. Finish their conversation.

So everyone else is able to talk to me, he is the only one that wont talk to me at all. He is completely silent, walking by him does not trigger any sort of even passing comment.

when I click e to interact, all i get is the generic interact sound, that soft click noise. Nothing else. He doesnt say anything and no prompts pop up. I have gone back to an older save and am able to talk to him, but this save is 12 hours behind where the bug happened. I am going to attempt to speed run to the castle and see if the problem happened somewhere in there.

[Nitemares]

That means his scripts are stuck. Usually this means an NPC is waiting for a response from the game script engine.

Is your game modded? If yes, looks for mods that add events or "scenes" to the game, they could have fired off and are waiting fro a response.

Shooting Preston is an option and MAY reset whatever script is not working, If that doesn't work you can try to reset his AI with the console,

However, if you have 12 hour missing block of saves that you KNOW you made, you have bigger issues to worry about....

[Löthar Storm]

just talk Dogmeat into fetching yon Cryolator. I remain convinced that's what it's there for.

[Foghide]

Originally posted by Nitemares:

That means his scripts are stuck. Usually this means an NPC is waiting for a response from the game script engine.

Is your game modded? If yes, looks for mods that add events or "scenes" to the game, they could have fired off and are waiting fro a response.

Shooting Preston is an option and MAY reset whatever script is not working, If that doesn't work you can try to reset his AI with the console,

However, if you have 12 hour missing block of saves that you KNOW you made, you have bigger issues to worry about....

I have a few mods, including America rising 2 (the only one that I think adds scripts) and a mod that adds minutemen armor and a supplier in the castle. And a mod that adds allows you to always have dogmeat.

I tried shooting him and using console commands and nothing worked unfortunately.

As for the saves, what I think might have happened was I played for a week or two for only an hour or so at a time max before logging off and may not have saved except for exit saves, which do get deleted. I think that could be the case as I have played for another 10 hours without any issue, and my saves before are also unaffected

[FafnirChaos]

I've had this and I play vanilla, you'll run into this once in a while - just need to reload the save.

[Nitemares]

I haven't tried America Rising 2, but as a story mod, it could have a script for Preston, or something to do with the castle.

What you can try is going off and doing a couple of other missions and coming back to Preston, that may clear it up... but I also have the feeling you tried that too.

Not too sure what else you can try.

Usually when a single NPC won't respond to prompt, its because they are involved in a scene and are "busy" to your prompt: And you usually have to wait for the scene to end.

Now, if I remember the old guns quest correctly, you only have to talk to Preston once, to start the quest, and once at the end...

The first time he tells you that the Castle has been trying to reach you,

And the last time when he says "And Ronnie Shaw returns..."

In between that, you have to deal with Ronnie, clear the basement, open the Bastion door, rebuild the mortars and blow up the building/truck... and finally talk to Ronnie again...

you have done all that right?

Going to sound stupid, but go up to Preston, (get in talking range) and press a number key 1 to 4... you may be stuck in dialogue, but the interface window is invisible (seen this issue).
Pressing the number key may provoke a response.

[Foghide]

Originally posted by Nitemares:

I haven't tried America Rising 2, but as a story mod, it could have a script for Preston, or something to do with the castle.

What you can try is going off and doing a couple of other missions and coming back to Preston, that may clear it up... but I also have the feeling you tried that too.

Not too sure what else you can try.

Usually when a single NPC won't respond to prompt, its because they are involved in a scene and are "busy" to your prompt: And you usually have to wait for the scene to end.

Now, if I remember the old guns quest correctly, you only have to talk to Preston once, to start the quest, and once at the end...

The first time he tells you that the Castle has been trying to reach you,

And the last time when he says "And Ronnie Shaw returns..."

In between that, you have to deal with Ronnie, clear the basement, open the Bastion door, rebuild the mortars and blow up the building/truck... and finally talk to Ronnie again...

you have done all that right?

Going to sound stupid, but go up to Preston, (get in talking range) and press a number key 1 to 4... you may be stuck in dialogue, but the interface window is invisible (seen this issue).
Pressing the number key may provoke a response.

The problem initially happened durnig the "Old guns" quest. He gave me the quest and I moved thorugh it but at the end I couldnt talk to him to turn it in. I did just try the pressing the arrow keys/1-4 keys and unfortunately it didnt work, (It was a great idea though). I played for an additonal 10 hours after the bug first appeared hopping ti would just resolve and unfortunately nothing. Really debating on whether its worth going back to the old save where he will still talk to me but losing now 20 hours worth of gameplay.

[Nitemares]

Ouch mate... I'm out of ideas then :(

Guess this is going to depend on who you want to finish the game with.... without Preston working, your cut out of the Minuteman ending, or using them to get into the institute.

On the plus side, you never have to worry about another settlement that needs your help (I'll just mark that on your map for you... since Preston is busy...)


If it makes you feel better?
I lost 60 hours of game play, and 25 levels to a similar bug on my BoS Play through when Mason did the exact same thing a few months back... (I found no solution to it then... other then pushing him off the Pridwyn in frustration... (modded game, essential tags off. He bounced 2 twice!!)

[X]

Originally posted by Foghide:

Originally posted by Nitemares:

I haven't tried America Rising 2, but as a story mod, it could have a script for Preston, or something to do with the castle.

What you can try is going off and doing a couple of other missions and coming back to Preston, that may clear it up... but I also have the feeling you tried that too.

Not too sure what else you can try.

Usually when a single NPC won't respond to prompt, its because they are involved in a scene and are "busy" to your prompt: And you usually have to wait for the scene to end.

Now, if I remember the old guns quest correctly, you only have to talk to Preston once, to start the quest, and once at the end...

The first time he tells you that the Castle has been trying to reach you,

And the last time when he says "And Ronnie Shaw returns..."

In between that, you have to deal with Ronnie, clear the basement, open the Bastion door, rebuild the mortars and blow up the building/truck... and finally talk to Ronnie again...

you have done all that right?

Going to sound stupid, but go up to Preston, (get in talking range) and press a number key 1 to 4... you may be stuck in dialogue, but the interface window is invisible (seen this issue).
Pressing the number key may provoke a response.

The problem initially happened durnig the "Old guns" quest. He gave me the quest and I moved thorugh it but at the end I couldnt talk to him to turn it in. I did just try the pressing the arrow keys/1-4 keys and unfortunately it didnt work, (It was a great idea though). I played for an additonal 10 hours after the bug first appeared hopping ti would just resolve and unfortunately nothing. Really debating on whether its worth going back to the old save where he will still talk to me but losing now 20 hours worth of gameplay.

Did you talk to Ronnie first after the cannon shot the building?

Go as far away as possible like inside of vault 111 and spend the night there save and exit the game then restart the game and go back to Preston.

[Foghide]

Originally posted by Nitemares:

Ouch mate... I'm out of ideas then :(

Guess this is going to depend on who you want to finish the game with.... without Preston working, your cut out of the Minuteman ending, or using them to get into the institute.

On the plus side, you never have to worry about another settlement that needs your help (I'll just mark that on your map for you... since Preston is busy...)


If it makes you feel better?
I lost 60 hours of game play, and 25 levels to a similar bug on my BoS Play through when Mason did the exact same thing a few months back... (I found no solution to it then... other then pushing him off the Pridwyn in frustration... (modded game, essential tags off. He bounced 2 twice!!)

alright so I sped run my previous save from before I took the castle to see if I could fix it.

Was able to talk to preston and got the quest to take teh castle. was able to talk to him to complete teh quest. then proceeded to do some other quests to try and get the old guns quest. Completed a few minutemen quests and then finished greentop nursery. When i returned to preston, same bug now. going to reload and see if its the greenland nursery that might somehow be causing this, or if its just after x time retaking the castle he breaks


EDIT: Reloaded to before greentop nursery, i just had completed abernathy farms. Preston is broken. Going to try another earlier save. will update

UPDATE 2: SO abernathy station is the problem, but if I have preston as a companion when I complete it, it doesnt break him immediatley. But I dont know how long that may last.

[Nitemares]

Verify your steam files.


SOMETHING is going wrong... and if its just a broken file, that may fix it... if its broken code... yikes.


Are you opposed to modding?

[X]

Originally posted by Foghide:

So I just retook the castle and was trying to finish "Old guns" when I realized I cant talk to preston garvey. Clicking on him just gives me the "interact" noise. He doesnt say anything when I walk by him, I cant talk to him to turn in quests, he is completely silent. Ive tried a bunch of fixes recommended on the wik, such as the remove faction console commandi but nothing is working. I tried uninstalling my mods but that didnt change anything. Unfortunately, reloading a previous save is out of the question, as for some reason there is a 12 hour gap between when I saved after retaking the castle and my previous save (I have no idea what caused that issue either, its very frustrating). Any help would be greatly appreciated

I just seen your "12 hour" gap between saves and that could very well be when your problem started, normally your game will save after opening and closing the pipboy map and you should have many saves between that gap.

When the game encounters a major bug/problem its stops most types of saving of your game.

[Foghide]

Originally posted by Nitemares:

Verify your steam files.


SOMETHING is going wrong... and if its just a broken file, that may fix it... if its broken code... yikes.


Are you opposed to modding?

as in making a mod myself? I have no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ clue what to do ahaha. Using mods? Not at all, I am using a few in this run through (though only 2 *might* be causing the issue but as neither actually involves the quest that seems to be breaking him I doubt it.

Update: Verified steam files, came bacck clean and didnt fix the problem on those newer saves. Currently testing if I ignore abernathy farms will he break