Serena Won't follow me

[MrValiant]

I did a search and cannot find a duplicate problem to mine. I went to the crypt and freed her from the tomb. after the dialog where she said she had to return home, I told her to follow me and she said lead the way but she does not follow. left cave and came back later, she is still there and the only dialog I have is to ask her to follow me. I tell her to follow me again and she says okay but never follows.. any ideas?

[Tao314zdin]

Well I don't know for your specific problem. But I had follower getting stacked recently and fast-traveling solved the problem (follower spawned in the location I fast-traveled to).

Also if you have follower-overhaul mods like AFT there might be options to catch-up. For example in AFT the option is to catch up on weapon draw. That could help too.

Just do not try to spawn her with console, it creates a copy and a ton of problems so far I heard.

[Ihateeverybody]

You really don't want to add Serena to any follower Frameworks. UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT you are doing, I do not advise.

2 options that won't harm your game. SPRINT into her an see if knocking her around gets her back in line (I do not endorse abuse against anyone of any gender. Vampires however. #($* them!). If that doesn't work open the console and target her (Should see her REFERENCE ID) and type the command MOVETO PLAYER . (Two Words) and enter. See if that unsticks her. I don't recommend unSTACKing her.

Anything else...you are playing with one fragile Daughter of Coldharbour.

[Tao314zdin]

Originally posted by Ihateeverybody:

You really don't want to add Serena to any follower Frameworks. UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT you are doing, I do not advise.

2 options that won't harm your game. SPRINT into her an see if knocking her around gets her back in line (I do not endorse abuse against anyone of any gender. Vampires however. #($* them!). If that doesn't work open the console and target her (Should see her REFERENCE ID) and type the command MOVETO PLAYER . (Two Words) and enter. See if that unsticks her. I don't recommend unSTACKing her.

Anything else...you are playing with one fragile Daughter of Coldharbour.

You are definitely right that frameworks are not safe, but as a last measure between risk and not having it at all probably worth to try at least (and keep the save beforehead of course).

You sure about the move-to-player though...? Would not that create a copy?

[Ihateeverybody]

Nah. To add a copy you would have to player.placeatme baseid . Where BaseID is a similar 10 character string. YOU NEVER WANT TO DO THAT EVER with a Named or Unique NPC. Summoning in Generic Bandits to fight for fun.....make a save first just to be safe.

[MrValiant]

I have tried running into her, attacking her, even used the consol to make her follow me but, when we left the cavern, I didn't get the new quest. I am using a few mods but nothing concerning her or followers.

[Ihateeverybody]

Honestly I would try loading an earlier save where you know she was working right and just going on from there once you verified she was good. You would save yourself so much pain.

What you are descibing sounds like what happens if you skipped doing something (Such as not using the rowboat to Castile Vampire (I can't spell the Clan Name). I am not a serena expert (Stopped doing the Dawnguard stuff ages ago) so maybe someone else will have a better answer..

Edit: I just thought of something. Did you trigger both Gargoyle attacks immediately after freeing her (Like up the path near the walls?

Edit2: Which leads to a question, did you go back out the entrance or follow the dungeon through the Exit?

Edit3: Let me explain. They have stuff fire off other stuff an if you don't dot every I and cross every T you will soon come to ruin. Its ....I'm gong to stop there. I will be typing for hours about my thoughts on Dawngaurd DLC, you don't need that.

[MrValiant]

Originally posted by Ihateeverybody:

Honestly I would try loading an earlier save where you know she was working right and just going on from there once you verified she was good. You would save yourself so much pain.

What you are descibing sounds like what happens if you skipped doing something (Such as not using the rowboat to Castile Vampire (I can't spell the Clan Name). I am not a serena expert (Stopped doing the Dawnguard stuff ages ago) so maybe someone else will have a better answer..

Edit: I just thought of something. Did you trigger both Gargoyle attacks immediately after freeing her (Like up the path near the walls?

Edit2: Which leads to a question, did you go back out the entrance or follow the dungeon through the Exit?

Edit3: Let me explain. They have stuff fire off other stuff an if you don't dot every I and cross every T you will soon come to ruin. Its ....I'm gong to stop there. I will be typing for hours about my thoughts on Dawngaurd DLC, you don't need that.

I have tried a save from before I freed her and same thing. She stopped functioning right after our first dialogue both times. I have the option to tell her to follow me out of the cave and she answers me but doesn't move. I cannot get her out of the cave to get the quest to visit her father.

I have gotten past this point in the game many times in the normal version. This is the first time getting this far in the special edition version.

I am going to start a new game and try again. I don't see how it can be any different, though...

[Ihateeverybody]

See now I am wondering about the Main Quest. How far are you into it? I use LAL: Alternate Start and I know I have done Dawnguard Before White Run Dragon before (because I didn't have the twin Dragons pop in the Vale). So I don't think thats it.

Do you have any Selena Mods we should know about?

[MrValiant]

Only mods I use add more areas to the game. After serena broke, I added the unofficial tweeks for special edition and started over. I have not gone to Dawnguard place yet, though I do have the quest. Maybe she will work this time. Funny, on the original Skyrim, I used a lot of Nexmods to change the game as I played it a lot, and none of the mods broke here. This is the first time I got as far as Serena in the special edition. If she breaks again, I will just go back to the original game.

[MF]

Originally posted by MrValiant:

I did a search and cannot find a duplicate problem to mine. I went to the crypt and freed her from the tomb. after the dialog where she said she had to return home, I told her to follow me and she said lead the way but she does not follow. left cave and came back later, she is still there and the only dialog I have is to ask her to follow me. I tell her to follow me again and she says okay but never follows.. any ideas?

Did you uninstall or disable any mods prior to her going bad ? I had bad problems with her a time ago when I stupidly uninstalled some mods mid-game. It wreaked havoc in all sorts of different areas. One of the results was that her AI got totally broken, even though the mods in question had nothing to do with Dawnguard !!

[MrValiant]

It was a new game. I learned a long time ago, not to remove or add mods on a current game.. anytime i add or remove mods, I start a new game.

[xybolt]

Does she even function? (walk around) or stand idle there? Can you share your mod list (especially the follower framework's name)?

Something is tampering with her AI packages, limiting her to follow you. I am using Nether Follower Framework and I know this one does not cause trouble because I did that quest recently and Serana followed me without problems.

[MrValiant]

I got through the conversation that ended with come with me, but she just stands there. I can talk to her and tell you to follow but that is it and she never moves. I am unsure how to share the mods I am using. I also started over, removing the mod that adds more powerful spells but I am using all the others I had. If you explain how to share the mods, I don't mind sharing them.

[smr1957]

Originally posted by Ihateeverybody:

You really don't want to add Serena to any follower Frameworks. UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT you are doing, I do not advise.

2 options that won't harm your game. SPRINT into her an see if knocking her around gets her back in line (I do not endorse abuse against anyone of any gender. Vampires however. #($* them!). If that doesn't work open the console and target her (Should see her REFERENCE ID) and type the command MOVETO PLAYER . (Two Words) and enter. See if that unsticks her. I don't recommend unSTACKing her.

Anything else...you are playing with one fragile Daughter of Coldharbour.

You need to use the Reference ID, not the Base ID - for Seranna, that is: 02002B74

so, to move her to you, open the console and type:
prid 02002B74
hit enter
then type:
moveto player
hit enter and close console. That will move her to you.

or you can just target her as Ihateeverybody posted and then type moveto player

EDIT - I had Reference and Base reversed originally - LOL! Corrected that.

[MrValiant]

when I used the console to make her follow me, the gargoyles never came to life when I was leaving the tomb and she never gave me the quest to take her home.