Dragon killer skeleton glitch

[NessieCz]

So, I looted a chest in a location where a dragon usually is. I didnt kill the dragon (wasnt there) and didnt learn the shout from the wall and left. Since I looted the chest, it said ´cleared´ on the map with the location.

A few days later, im running a quest, near the dragon nest but still far away. Then this dragon decides to attack me.
I decide to fight it, but I cant seem to hit it with my arrows. It starts howering as if to breathe out frost. Starts glowing and burns down to the bone. The game then says I observed its soul.

The skeleton of a dragon takes flight again and continues fighting! I tried to hit it with magic, blade and arrows, but none of it does any damage. And it still kills creatures around and damages me.

I suppose since its already ´dead´, i cant damage it.

Note that i dont have fast travel enabled, never used any cheats and dont have any mods.
Tried to search the net but noone seems to have had this problem.

(the only solution seems to delete it, but that doesnt feel fair to me... I wanted to either face it or run until i feel like fighting it and gaining my soul fairly... Idk what to do tbh)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3166071806

[Alex]

Did you use auto- and quicksaves? How often?

[NessieCz]

Originally posted by Alex:

Did you use auto- and quicksaves? How often?

yeah I do, like once per 5 minutes

[Alex]

Then it's most likely a save corruption issue.

The auto/quicksaves aren't safe! Do not use them if you can avoid it. Use full saves instead.

You see, for a full save, the game is paused and all instances are properly recorded. But a quick or autosave is just a snapshot, which may miss out stuff that is being processed right at that moment. Such errors will then accumulate, up to a moment where the game goes bonkers, or the save becoming unusable altogether.

[Death Approaches]

that's a stretch, they're semi-reliable... it's more the issue. they'll work, right up until they don't, and this will include how many mods you use that are taking advantage of the internal saving of their variables into the save, because not all mods are created equal. But even vanilla quicksaves go wonky, so relying ONLY on them, is the folly of gamers.

"cleared" isn't about chests but no enemies present; you killed all the baddies, it's cleared... we've all had to run around and find that one hidden bandit stuck behind an opened-outward door that pinned him in place.

none of this should affect you learning your shout word from the wall, and why didn't you just walk up to it when you were there? Just walk back, or look up the location on UESP or any wiki and see what dragon words were possible there, see what parts you have already, and give it to yourself. Say that word wall was Eldersblood Peak which would be part of the Disarm shout, and you have none of the bits unlocked yet, unlock the first part Zun (weapon) with 'player.unlockword 5fb95' which you'll also look up on UESP or a wiki. (you could also use teachword or learnshout to get all parts if you want, we're not your cheating morality coaches. do what you want).

"near the dragon nest but still far away" well then it's probably not the same one. Dragons for the most part are just for souls and bone; other than like 4 (3) who they are doesn't matter, they're just badasses to give you dragonbone. There are skeletal dragons, but just open the console and 'kill' or 'disable' it. It's a generic dragon, but unless you're using some dragon-related mod that isn't well-made, this is the kind of stuff Alex is warning you of.

just know, once a save goes wonky, it only gets worse. It's worth going back an hour or two now, than compensating future goofy things or using a savegame cleaner/rescuer... and please pick up the habit of full saves, there's even mods to make them every so often.

Minimalistic AutoSave does this, every 5 auto-saves it makes a full save for you, and gets rid of the auto-saves that happen everytime you walk through a load zone door, or sleep/wait, or pause. (you still need to disable them in the ini though, so follow install instructions.) It also knows about autosaves happening at bad times that make them unsafe, so it won't save when bad conditions exist. And you'll get a full save every 30 minutes or so, without you remembering to do it. It's quite handy.