Farkas missing after returning from 'Trouble in Skyrim'

[Alembrik]

I decided to join the Companions. After completing 'Take Up Arms', Farkas gave me the 'Trouble in Skyrim' quest. After I killed the Spriggan Matron, the quest updated to 'Return to Farkas'. So I fast-traveled back to Whiterun, and went in search of Farkas. I can't locate Farkas anywhere! This was on a second effort after a weird crash.

The first time I was returning to Jorrvaskr to talk to Farkas, just as I was entering Jorrvaskr to talk to Farkas, I typed 'E' in response to 'Open Jorrvaskr', then the screen faded to black as usual, and instead of finding myself inside Jorrvaskr, I got a weird BSOD — not the sort Windows generates (I haven't gotten one in Win-8) — but a large frowning character smiley ' : ( ' that I couldn't recover from. I don't know whether that came from the game or Steam. This wasn't a CTD; my computer was unresponsive and I had to do a manual reboot from the power switch, which otherwise went uneventfully.

After not being able to find Farkas after the crash, I went back to a save before I joined the Companions, and while completing the 'Take Up Arms' and 'Trouble in Skyrim' quests a second time, still could not find Farkas after I returned to Jorrvaskr to complete 'Trouble In Skyrim', so that doesn't work. This problem hasn't been reported in the forum (not that I can find, anyway), so I'm at a loss as to what to do.

The problem is also that the 'Trouble in Skyrim' quest is now listed as completed (below the line in the Journal Quest list), although the diamond symbol next to 'Talk to Farkas' is an open, not filled, diamond. The door-triangle-diamond symbol that indicates where a person is (both in the game and on the map), indicates Farkas is behind a door somewhere in Jorrvaskr, but Farkas is nowhere to be found. It's not a failed quest, but one I can't complete, apparently because of some glitch and the crash, so all the other Companion quests are closed to me.

I normally don't use the Console, so I have no idea if it is possible to 'fix' this from the Console. Is it possible to use a Console command to make this quest active so I can complete it? Will Farkas reappear so that the game, this quest, and subsequent quests will run normally?

If I were to reinstall Skyrim (which may be required), how do I make sure that I don't destroy all the progress I've made so far? Would I have to uninstall it, then reinstall it, or could I reinstall it over the existing installation?

I'm enough of a noob to Skyrim and videogames generally that I don't know how the game is organised or how to 'fix' it when it breaks. I don't want to start over from the cart at Helgen!

Game: Skyrim Legendary Edition + High Resolution
Mods: Unofficial Patches for Skyrim, DLCs (5 total)
No changes in the past couple weeks (and many uneventful hours of playing Skyrim)

Thanks!

[Jogon]

Try going back to a save before that quest. Like the save when leaving to undertake the quest. It is a good idea to save often, even if you just use the quicksave F5 key. You can use a command to get Farkas to come to you but I don't know if that is a good idea.

[Alembrik]

Thanks. I did that. I went back to a save before I joined the Companions and started over with them. (Fortunately, that wasn't much of a sacrifice, since I just started with them.) That (second time) worked normally until I got back from 'Trouble in Skyrim', then I couldn't find Farkas. Something is broken; I can't figure out what it is or how to fix it.

I just e-mailed Bethsoft Support about this (essentially the same content as my post here), so I'll see what they say. I'll post their reply.

EDIT — I also verified the cache. The problem persists.

[Alembrik]

I'm sort of scared to use 'Console' commands (I'm still too much of a noob to be comfortable with it), but after getting absolutely no help from Bethesda, and not being able to find any information on this in all my searching over two days, I finally took the plunge to see if I could get my game back on track.

I looked up 'Trouble In Skyrim' on UESP to get its code (CR05), and then the appropriate commands for the 'Console' ('getstage' and 'setstage'). Even though the quest is still listed in the 'Journal' as complete (with a hollow diamond next to 'Talk to Farkas', and Farkas nowhere to be found), the 'Console' response to 'getstage CR05' was: GetStage CR05 1.00. I still don't know how that occurred.

Holding my breath and hoping, realizing that my game was broken and I risked breaking it even more, I entered:

setstage CR05 20

When I went back into the game and went to the Journal, I now had two entries for 'Trouble In Skyrim', one broken and one operating normally. I found Farkas, who rewarded me for completing my quest, then directed me to Skjor for the next one.

With any luck, this solved my problem and didn't create any new ones. We'll see.

I don't like unsolved problems, so I decided to post the results of what I did regardless of the result. Fortunately, it seems to be fixed now. If anyone has any suggestions or cautions about what I did and wants to warn me about what may yet go wrong as the result, please do so!