The Cook's Request - bugged shutters

[Sym Gryphon]

Every time I enter the Crew Quarters and kill the Telepath in the Restaurant, the cook refuses to open the shutter and talk to me. I walk over, get the "Talk to the survivor in the Kitchen" objective complete, and... nothing. I walk around into the freezer, mess with the console, cook just tells me he's not letting me in. I also noticed the Save options in the esc menu are greyed out until I exit into the Arboretum.

I thought having the Water Pressure Regulator in my inventory was causing the issue, so I reloaded a save from before I entered the greenhouse and avoided picking it up, and the same thing happened.

[Sym Gryphon]

I am beginning to suspect I have a corrupt data file, but verifying integrity of game data doesn't fix the issue, and I do not want to fully reinstall or start the game over from the beginning.

Anyone know which file contains the script that runs The Cook's Request or associated encounters, like the chef opening the kitchen shutter? If I delete that file, THEN verify and redownload it, I might fix the quest

[Sym Gryphon]

*SOLVED*

I restarted the game from the beginning, this time reloading ONLY manual save files, avoiding autosaves. The Cook's Request functions normally now.

The previous playthrough apparently had a corruption in an earlier autosave, and every save file made after reloading from that point inherited the error.

[Genesic Savior]

Did you ever figure out any alternative way to fix that? The same thing just happened to me, and I really don't want to go all the way back to the beginning.

[RabidBurp]

Did you by chance have a friendly phantom spawned? If so he will treat it like a hostile typhon and close up shop until it's gone.

[Genesic Savior]

I was doing a no-Typhon mods run. It's fine. I gave up and restarted already. Would be nice to know if you have a solution in case I or anyone else runs into it again.

[jEck]

Same bug happened to me on gog version. Can't find anything about this bug outside of this thread. Tried to reload to the point just before entering CQ, to no avail.

[Augmenti]

Is it possible he is sensing one on the 3rd floor above, in the executive suites?

[Genesic Savior]

I had to delete all of my save data and then restart the game (if I just restarted, the save files would start melding together, and quests would be cleared, containers would be looted, and doors would be unlocked where they weren't supposed to be. Great job, Bethesda). It was a royal pain, but when I got back to that point, the game worked just fine. Same for every run after that.

[jEck]

Originally posted by Augmenti:

Is it possible he is sensing one on the 3rd floor above, in the executive suites?

I havent gotten to the 3rd floor yet, but I reloaded a few saves outside of CQ and consistency of this bug makes me think that's not the case. I have 40+ hours in my campaign now (yeah I know - I like to take it slow) and thinking to take a break before trying to restart from scratch. Most frightening thought is that I can stumble upon this same bug in my new campaign. Is this bug not widespread? This is the only thread (not counting 1 post on reddit) on the internet where it is discussed. Strange and disappointing, because it's gamebreaking, really.

P.S. Btw, i got another bug upon entering CQ - Nightmare without timer. Had to kill it, else it won't go away. Maybe it's connected somehow?

[Augmenti]

Yeah, sounds frustrating. I've really got no idea, only been playing about a week (GOG release with no drm) and it's buggy. Honestly seems like the game was not patched enough, especially for a 3 year old game.

I only knew about the 3rd floor by accident. I didn't even know it was there but when in the theater my scope kept picking up a phantom that looked like it was in the ceiling. I tried every nook and cranny but no luck. Some how I heard the name Executive Suites and looked it up. Then realized that the Lift by the stairs wasn't broken but a keypad. Hacked it or found it, then ended up finding 2 or 3 up there. But there are definitely at least 2 up there and they DO track through the ceiling.

[jEck]

Yeah, and the most disgusting thing is that I got some nasty spoilers looking up this bug. :(