[Solved] I CAN'T START ELDER KNOWLEDGE MAIN QUEST

[Smithy Joe]

Yes, I have mods, and if you want, I can post mod list.
I already got the dragon elder scroll during the dawnguard questline.
The previous quest gets completed, but the next quest won't start!
I would really appreciate solutions :)

Edit: I got a mod from a very nice person that fixed my problem :) I can probably send the mod to whoever is needing it. Thanks for all answers in this thread :D

[Vosu]

First of, get LOOT from Nexus, or use BOSS, also, check TESVEdit for any dirty edits. Your mod list won't do much here, if you don't know what you're doing.

[smr1957]

Originally posted by ChokeBee:

First of, get LOOT from Nexus, or use BOSS, also, check TESVEdit for any dirty edits. Your mod list won't do much here, if you don't know what you're doing.

Do NOT use BOSS - it has been obsolete for years! If you use it, guaranteed your game will not work. And, here is where you get LOOT: https://loot.github.io/

As to dirty edits, do not clean ITMs, as some mods require them to work, and cleaning them will break the mod. Do, however clean deleted references:

As regards LOOT telling you to clean mods other than the Masters (Update.esm, Dawnguard.esm, Hearthfires.esm, Dragronborn.esm), DO NOT clean ITMs (unless the mod author or a reliable forum regular says otherwise) as LOOT does not pick up whether these edits (ITMs) are necessary or not, and some mods require them to run correctly. Do, however, clean deleted references, as these may cause problems in your game.

Ilja:
"As a general note: it is worth to mention that cleaning mods is not supported, unless mod author or forum regulars especially recommend doing so for spesific mods. Not all "dirty" edits are unwanted and cleaning them may break the mod. LOOT only tells that these edits exist. It does not know if they are needed or not." - Ilja
http://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/485622866448653331/#c485622866448823239

"Be careful when cleaning mods. Not all mods should be cleaned, despite that LOOT says so. LOOT only detects dirty edits from mods, but it does not know if they are needed or not.

Mod authors are mostly aware of the problem, so they usually clean their files. Edits left in files are usually required. However, they do not usually remember to comment the mod, so that LOOT would know if those edits are required." - Ilja
http://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/357286663686405782/#c357287304423390982

As to cleaning the Masters, see:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=818230170

For more info, see:
Advanced Tips : Memory, .Ini's and Myth Busting (v2.6) by Nazenn - http://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/619573787397876592/
Note #2 - Cleaning Files With TES5Edit

Also, you should refer to the following resource for further info:
HELPFUL LINKS AND REFERENCES
https://steamcommunity.com/app/489830/discussions/0/2828702372997628701/

[GLsimtam]

Someone posted a similar issue recently https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrim/comments/8k8zb5/main_quest_broken/

But while the symptoms look similar, the underlying cause might be varied for you two.

That's because when the game cannot find a thing or npc that is required in a quest, it does not break at the very moment it is used in a quest, but rather a little earlier, at the boundary of quests.

So in your case it could be any of aliases of MQ205 ("Elder Knowledge"), which I find interesting.

Do you want to debug it yourself, or will you share your savegame file?

[Smithy Joe]

Originally posted by GLsimtam:

Someone posted a similar issue recently https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrim/comments/8k8zb5/main_quest_broken/

But while the symptoms look similar, the underlying cause might be varied for you two.

That's because when the game cannot find a thing or npc that is required in a quest, it does not break at the very moment it is used in a quest, but rather a little earlier, at the boundary of quests.

So in your case it could be any of aliases of MQ205 ("Elder Knowledge"), which I find interesting.

Do you want to debug it yourself, or will you share your savegame file?

Thank you for your reply :)

After I read the part about the game not finding an npc, I thought of something.

After I had done the quest to find the dragon elder scroll during the dawnguard quest line, I did septum’s blood collecting quest. After that septimus died. Do you think that could be causing the problem? Or the fact that the dragon elder scroll isn’t in blackreach, but in my inventory?

[Mringasa]

If you have the scroll already, you should be able to take it where it needs to go and complete that section. On my prior playthrough, I just straight up went to Septimus' outpost as I was working on the Oblivion Walker achievement. Completed the MQ as well on that playthrough and when it went on about finding the Elder Scroll and such, I just took it where it was needed... Greybeards? Can't remember the target NPC I was supposed to report to, but the quest continued on from there.

[GLsimtam]

That's why I think it is interesting, because Septimus alias is flagged Allow Dead, Disabled, Reserved. It's not flagged Allow Destroyed, and to exclude it I would just test it with DebugAlias_MQ205 from my mod, sorry I don't have a SSE port yet or article to explain it, just the changelong mentions it
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/90548?tab=logs

There are some aliases that are not Allow Disabled but they point to various doors in Blackreach which are used as target marker for the "Find Elder Scroll" objective when in appropriate dungeon part. They don't even have Allow Reserved so if a mod would add a quest that would reserve one of them, it would block MQ205 from starting. I do that on purpose with MQ104 in one of my mods.

Of course everything can be changed with mods, including alias definitions, so it's better to do some digging in than speculating. Here's what I guess it will be when running console commands

setstage MQ205 10 -- no quest in the journal, eh?
sqs MQ205 -- 0 for every stage
getqr MQ205 -- 0, meaning not running
sqv MQ205 -- all aliases are None, quest not running
<after loading with vx_mqdo.esp enabled>
setstage DebugAlias_MQ205 0
sqs DebugAlias_MQ205 - stage 0: 1
getqr DebugAlias_MQ205 -- 1, meaning is running
sqv MQ205 -- most aliases value are set, but one or more alias is None, Urag may be None if for example is dead but that's good, Urag alias is optional. Any other alias was left None?

I'd do also some poking for MQ204 and MQ206 to make sure that it is indeed MQ205 that should be started next

[mikk011]

If you already have the Elder Scroll: Dragon you can skip Elder Knowledge. Return to Paarthurnax. see the notes here http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Elder_Knowledge or here http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Elder_Knowledge

If you can't start Alduin's Bane, please disregard this post.

[Mringasa]

Originally posted by mikk011:

If you already have the Elder Scroll: Dragon you can skip Elder Knowledge. Return to Paarthurnax. see the notes here http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Elder_Knowledge or here http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Elder_Knowledge

If you can't start Alduin's Bane, please disregard this post.

Ah, Paarthunaax is the target. It's just like Seasons Undending. If you have already completed the Civil War questline, this won't even start. I did that in my first playthrough and was wondering wth quest it was when I was scrolling through the Wiki one time.

Bethesda has a solid number of bugs of course, but they did a pretty good job of making sure the MQ won't bug out due to incorrect order of things. Too bad they didn't do that on FO4 *sigh* Just head back to Paarthunaax with the scroll and it should move along just fine.