dragonborn not advancing? can't get boat ride

[yudhi108]

Something happened where I was unable to loot the body of the cultist who attacks and initiates the dragonborn questlines. To get around this I simply added the item through console command, and I did get the quest when I added the item. When I get to the docks in windhelm however, the guy (forget his name, he's the guy that takes u from Skyrim to the island) has the quest marker arrow over his head, but I cannot initaite any dialog with him, and therefor am unable to progress in the questline and cannot get on the boat to get to the island at all.

 

Anyone ever had this happen before?

 

When I first got to windhelm I was experiencing massive CTD by the docks, but after an hour or so of troubleshooting managed to (barely) get to the boat, only to be disappointed in not getting a ride to the dragonborn island. considering i got the glitch with the clutist before getting to windhelm, I don't think the CTD has anything to do with the glitch but i thought i'd mention it anyways.

[saurusmaximus]

Any chance you can load a save prior to killing the cultist to see if the problem pops up again? I've never had your specific problem, but I have had CTD issues with the docks when returning from Solstiem. I believe there's a mod for that, thought I've never tried it. Do you have any mods that change anything in regards to Dragonborn?

[stoaty6666]

Just one thought Elianora has a house mod which if installed will take you through to the island,the mod is called raven nest

[Dragonfire12]

Just re read you post and realized I had asked the wrong question. Because picking up the note triggers the quest you can't get it by using player.additem. Try dropping the note and picking it up? If that doesn't work your only option is to load a prior save and try again. Sometimes the cultists attack again, but I don't know if they carry a note when they do.

 

As to what caused the note not to drop...

 

Update and the DLCs have quite of few dirty edits contained within them which isn't generally a problem until you start adding mods. Have you cleaned them with TES5Edit (the Nexus mod site has a tutorial).

I had an issue with not being able to absorb the dragon soul from the dragon you kill first outside Whiterun (I have around 130 mods running). This was corrected by cleaning dragonborn.esm with TES5Edit (I had to clean some twice for LOOT to be happy). Its possible that you have a mod that is stopping the quest from running properly, because of dirty edits within a mod or esm file. IF you sort your mods with BOSS or LOOT, they will generate a report identifying the mods and esms with dirty edits (make sure your mod manager and Wrye Bash are both closed down before running BOSS or LOOT they can hold mods in place and it will look like the mods were sorted by a shotgun). Some mods contain dirty edits as a workaround to get the mod to function the way the author wants it. BOSS and LOOT should both tell you not to clean them for this very reason. However, their system can not be all inclusive so make backups in case cleaning a file causes bigger problems later. Using Steam to verify the integrity of your game or if any more updates occur, Steam will identify any cleaned files as invalid and replace them. So if you have to re-install you also have to re-clean with TES5Edit.

 

Also Wrye Bash will combine leveled lists from Skyrim, Update, the DLCs and any mods as needed to clarify them. The problem is that the last leveled list to load wins, so if a mod references a leveled list from one file that was edited poorly by a following mod or esm the result can be unpredictable. While this is very rare and I haven't personally encountered any problem that I connected to this issue, I still use the bashedpatch.esp.

 

Another thing Wrye Bash will point out is mods with masters referenced in an order not the same as in your load order (flags them orange). This can also be corrected using TES5Edit by loading the mod and selecting, Sort Masters, from the pull down list. While this is usually benign (most of the time the game figures it out and no problems result), I have experienced one CTD issue that I attributed to mismatched load order within mods that edited the same area. Again for better or worse the last to load wins.

 

Lastly, some mods don't uninstall correctly. I had an experience with an alt mod site where uninstalling their mods caused havoc in my game and I had to re-install.

 

Good luck. Eyes open, walk with the Shadows...