Dawnguard quest won't initialize: Chasing Echoes.

[Gearsmoke]

After listening to the Moth Priest read the first scroll and talking to Serana, the dialogue seems normal, she doesn't mention a follower, but the next quest just doesn't start up. I've made sure I have no followers - not even pets. I've tried console commands to set the quest stage to the beginning, to the next stage. It does /nothing/. It's like the quest doesn't exist, and I am confused. Has anyone had this problem and found a fix?

Update: So far I have tried
- Dismissing followers and pets.
- Disabling most of my mods.
- Running with and without SKSE.
- Uninstalling and reinstalling Skyrim.
- Disabling Dawnguard (causes CTD)
- Console commands - Setstage etc.
- Cheating by just COC-ing into the area.
- Starting over with a different character.
- Using Steam to verify my game files.

I am very confused.

[Eternie]

Not what you want to hear, however the best bet is loading a previous save ... and not tinkering with quest stages. Think back have you used quest stages previously ... then this could be the result of that tinkering.

If the previous save, doesn't let it play naturally. Then you may need to keep trying earlier save games till you find one that works.

You can help to make skyrim as stable as possible by using a small bedroom to sleep for a month to allow all of skyrim to reset. Then restart computer and retry your earliest save.

[Gearsmoke]

I've tried that. I actually went back to a save about 3 quests prior - to before I found Serana - and did that entire line again. Same problem. I haven't done any other tinkering with the quest stages at any point in the Dawnguard storyline. The only other time I used any setstage commands was to get past an npc that was stuck in place during the main quest. Sorry.

[Eternie]

My advice is purely based on my own misguided attempts to fix things quickly with console ... years ago and finding out later that I'd borked my own game stability

Any problem the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages (UESP) usually has answers
Searching Google with "UESP and your title" brings up several posts including

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim_talk:Chasing_Echoes
This one is a discussion about quest stages so you can check whether the ones you used are correct ... or if better ones may work.

[Gearsmoke]

Eternie, thank you but my issue is not on this page. The quest won't get to stage 10. And setstage does nothing at all. I've tried it with another character starting from the beginning of the Dawnguard questline and it stalls there, too.

[taochaitsung]

I had this problem, except Serana doesn't even talk. No statements of interloper, nothing. She simply doesn't react. From what I've seen online so far no one has a fix for this. You can force quest stages, but she still doesn't talk at all, and that means there's no way to dismiss her after the quest line is over.

[Lupin the Third]

After you complete the quest "Prophet", go to the console and type: "setstage DLC1VQ04 10" That should fix it.

[Dane5]

Thanks Doc, that helped