How to Complete Broken Quests

If you are stuck on a broken or bugged quest, this guide may help you complete it.

The The way of the voice and Forbidden Legend quests are used as examples.

This is a step by step guide that will show you how to move a quest to a different stage with the use of console commands. This does not always work and may cause problems if used incorrectly, so only use as a last resort. That being said, this guide has helped a lot of people.

Basic console usage for this guide

If you do not know how to use or navigate the in-game console, read this first.

• To open the console on an American-English keyboard, press the Tilde(~) key. To open the console on a British-English keyboard, press the Grave(`) key. The key is usually located below Escape(Esc) and to the left of the One(1) key.
  
• To navigate the console, press Page Up(PgUp) and Page Down(PgDn).
  
• Press Enter to use a command in the console.
  
• Use the Up and Down navigation keys to scroll through previous commands.
  
• The terms quest_id and stage_number must be replaced by the ID of the quest and the number of the stage.

Basic step by step guide

1. Find the quest ID

   Use one of these methods to get the ID:
   
   • In the console, type:

     ShowQuestTargets

     This will list all of your active quests.
     
   • Look up the quest ID on the Web.
     A good place to start is the UESP Wiki[www.uesp.net] page.
     
   • If this is a quest from a mod, read the details on the mod page and make sure you installed everything correctly. If everything was installed correctly, you can use the first method to find the quest ID.
   
   Note: If you are stuck on a quest from a Mod, check the Mod page for the quest ID in the Mod details. If the Mod ID is not listed, try this:
   
   1. In the console, type:

      save funclist 1

   2. In the Notepad that opens, search for the quest name and make a note of the quest ID.
   
   

2. Find the current stage your quest is in

   • Once you know the quest ID, type:

     Player.sqs quest_id

     This lists all of the stages in the quest. Each stage is marked with a 1 if you completed that stage or a 0 if you have not completed that stage yet.
   
   

3. Move the quest to the desired stage

   • Look up the stage you want to jump to.
     You can either jump to the final stage ending the quest or to the next stage in the quest.
     In some cases you learn new spells or shouts, or receive new items during certain stages that you should not skip.
     
   • Once you know the quest stage you want to jump to, type:

     SetStage quest_id stage_number

     If you selected the correct stage, the quest will complete or move on.

Example: The Way of the Voice

This is how I used these steps in the The Way of the Voice quest.

Problem encountered and the reason behind it

In the Demonstrate your "Unrelenting Force" Shout stage, the Greybeards would attack me after using my Shout. This would repeat after the Learn the Word of Power from Einarth stage.

Why this bug happens:

• You did other quests before the The Way of the Voice quest.

Known fix:

• Start a new game.

How to fix the quest without starting from zero

1. Get the quest ID.
   In this case, you should find this page[www.uesp.net] that gives the quest ID: MQ105
   
2. Open the console and type:

   Player.sqs MQ105

   This will show you all the stages for the The Way of the Voice quest.
   At this point, you should be in stage 30, Demonstrate your "Unrelenting Force" Shout.
   
3. Look up the stage you want to go to. Make sure you don't skip over any items, spells, or abilities that you need to gain.
   In this case, we want to skip to stage 50, Speak to Arngeir, because we will learn a new Shout.
   
4. To skip to stage 50, type:

   SetStage MQ105 50

   The quest should now think you just used your Shout and will continue.
   At stage 58, Learn the Word of Power from Einarth, you learn the new Shout.
   Problem:
   • At stage 80, Demonstrate your "Unrelenting Force" Shout(3 times), the bug from stage 30 will repeat.
5. Look up the stage you want to go to.
   Even though stage 100, Learn the Word of Power from Borri, is where we want to get to, we need to skip the quest to stage 90 if we want stage 100 to work.
   
6. To skip to stage 90, type:

   SetStage MQ105 90

   The Greybeards should start moving outside.
   You will still see a quest marker asking you to complete what was in stage 80, but it is safe to ignore that.
   The final stages of the quest should not be bugged and after you complete them, you should no longer see the quest marker for stage 80 because the quest was marked as complete.

Example: Forbidden Legend

This is how I used these steps in the Forbidden Legend quest.

Problem encountered

In the Reforge the Gauldur Amulet section of this quest, the third of the three bosses would not come down and fight me.

How to fix the quest

1. Get the quest ID.
   In this case, you should find this page[www.uesp.net] that gives the quest ID: dunGauldursonQST
   
2. Open the console and type:

   Player.sqs dunGauldursonQST

   This will show you all the stages for the Forbidden Legend quest.
   At this point, you should be in stage 300.
   
3. Look up the stage you want to go to. The Wiki does not list these stages, so we have to rely on the 1/0 marks.
   In this case, we want to skip to stage 301, the next stage.
   
4. To skip to stage 301, type:

   SetStage dunGauldursonQST 301

   The third boss should now teleport down and start fighting you.

Other tricks

If changing the quest stage does not fix the quest, there are a few other things you can try.

• One of the first things you should always try is leaving the area and returning. This has worked several times because it reset everything.
  
• If an NPC won't move, try getting him to attack you and then leave the area. When you return he may have reset and continued moving.
  Example:
  • In the Waking Nightmare quest, after stage 191 (Defeat Veren and Thorek), Erandur will not move to the next waypoint. I attacked him, forcing him to attack me, and I left the dungeon. Everything went back to normal when I re-entered the dungeon and there was no need to use any console commands.
• If you can't enter an area, try looking up the ID of the location[elderscrolls.wikia.com] and use the console to move there. Example:
  

  coc location_ID

• If a normal room to room door won't open or if your character is stuck, use this console command to enter a no-clip state:
  

  tcl

  Use the same command to resume.

If you have ever encountered a problem and found a fix for it, post the details in the comments and it will be added to the list.

Reference and contributors

These are the Web sites or guides that helped me fix my broken quest and helped me write this guide:

• Google[www.google.com]
  
• How to Use the Skyrim Console to Get Past Broken Quests on the PC[news.softpedia.com]
  
• UESP Wiki[www.uesp.net]
  For the The way of the Voice example, this page.[www.uesp.net]
  For the Forbidden Legend example, this page.[www.uesp.net]
  For the Waking Nightmare example, this page.[www.uesp.net]
  
• Console Commands (Skyrim)[elderscrolls.wikia.com]
  
• Skyrim TCL command?
  
• Text Formatting

These are the contributors that added extra information that people could use to fix their broken quests:

• DeSync
  
• Duke Of Death PT

If you found this guide useful, Rate it, Favorite it, and Share it with friends. This does nothing for me, but it might help others find this guide and fix their game.

That being said, if you like my guide and want to drop by and say hi, you can find me on TwitchTV[www.twitch.tv].

[kindo500]

Is there any chance that these commands can help me bypass a different strange error? I have an NPC which is just standing there waiting for me to talk to him. When I click on him a message pops up for no reason which always says "This person is busy right now". I've left the area and come back later, and it still does it.

[[HG]Drebing]

Very useful. Thank you!

[Pigão69]

In hired muscle, i need to intimidate the bloodchill manor waiter, but i already killed him, and the setstage command doesn't change anything

[Ecthaelion]

Thanks, this helped a lot. My Greybeards still think I need to learn a word from Wulgar, and Arngnier won't give me word spots to learn.... But I can at least progress now.

[Dominic]

Hi! I have an issue with the mission "The Horn of Jurgen Windcaller (MQ105Ustengrav)" wich none of the commands work correctly and fuctions as if nothing was ever done in the first place. How can i solve this? Thank you very much.

[TempoSpark]

Ok, so how I got this to work, is instead of "SetStage MQ105 50" I typed 60 instead to get the word, then I typed 80, I couldn't figure out how to get the knowledge of the word, so I just used this command: player.modav dragonsouls <number> (Replace <number> with an actual number, like 1) to give myself a soul to unlock the word

[Regecide]

2024, and I discovered that for bugging out NPC's (in quest scenes like Seasons Unending), selecting targets with cursor or "prid" command, followed by "Disable", then immediately "Enable" fixes many weird scripting bugs. Kinda like it refreshes them. Hope this helps anyone still sitting with bugs in this 25 year old game. The irony is that they re-sold the game and STILL haven't fixed most bugs. Lol

[dBone]

"Guests For Dinner" Quest. anyone else struggle with this one? Tried a few Reddit trick.

I ran away because I was far too low a level to kill the Gargoyles. then the DawnGuard Orc follows me everywhere. I went back to find the doors locked. I console command skipped through the doors and killed the bad guys in there. but the Gargoyles are stone again and I cant kill them.

Any Clue if this process will work?

[Akalonian]

Hey, glad it helped. I wrote this guide while I was still learning to be a Technical Writer.

[Tristessa]

It's 2024 and your post just saved my fresh Tale of Two Wastelands run. This is the exact information I needed, and it was easy to understand and follow. Thank you so much. The fact that OP originally posted this in 2015 is one of the great things about PC gaming and the Steam forums.

Thank you very much! Great Post! Favourited for all time.