Cannot start Hitting the Books

[Nintendude1236]

As the title suggests, I cannot start the next College of Winterhold quest "Hitting the Books". I've talked to Savos Aren and cleared "Under Sarthaal", and he says to go talk to Urag, but the new quest is not added to my journal and Urag has no additional dialogue options. I've tried setstage MG03 X, but it will not work either. I realize this is a common bug with modded Skyrim play, and it is probably just a matter of removing the right mod(s), as has been the case for others. Trouble is, I'm using many mods, and none of the usual perpetrators for this bug as far as I can tell (Des Mons, 7K Better Whiterun, Undeath).

 

I've included my load order below. If someone could help narrow down which mods to temporarily disable (and if possible, a way to restore lost progress on them after reinstallation), or better yet, recommend an alternative fix for this bug that doesn't involve removing mods, that would be fantastic.

 

Load order:

Dawnguard

Hearthfires

Dragonborn

Unofficial Skyrim Legendary Edition Patch

ApachiiHair

SexLab (don't judge me)

ZaZAnimationPack

SexLabAroused

Schlongs of Skyrim -Core

Vampire Slavers Den V.2.0

paradise_halls

CreatureFramework

The Blade of Awe

Elemental Destruction

Thunderchild

Hothtrooper44_ArmorCompilation

SexLabNudeCreatures

SexLabNudeCreaturesDB

SexLabNudeCreaturesDG

HentaiCreatures

zMirai

Cloaks

AmazingFollowerTweaks

ImmersiveWeapons

Run For Your Lives

PAH_HomeSweetHome

MoonstoneCastle

StaticMeshImrovementMod

SL Sleeping Necro

sofiafollower

midas magic expanded

SkyUI

SexLab Romance

SkystoneCastle

paradise_halls_fellglow_slave_camp

The Paarthurnax Dilemma

hg

Apocolypse - The Spell Package (Workshop)

karifollower

multfollow

the dance of death - dawnguard edition

FNIS

FeahFollower

Better Vampires

db - Realistic Ragdoll and Force

ASX_Spells

AetheriumSwordnArmor

Medusa and Drakul Armor

Contractor Armor

Evil MasterMind Armor

Masters of Death

Tauriel

Cloaks -Dawnguard edition

a quality world map- with roads

convenient horses

Sexual Vampire Feed

yami_amagi

SLAnimLoader

Schlongs of Skyrim

SOS - Smurf Average

XPMSE

DeadlyDragons

DeadlyMonsters

When Vampires Attack

DragonBoneWeaponsComplete

SexLabDefeat

paradise_halls_farengar_study

paradise_halls_SLExtension

MoreNastyCritters

NecroAnims

 

 

 

I know technically setstage MG04 X would probably work, but it's my first playthrough of Skyrim, and I'd like to experience as much as I can with this character. Thanks in advance!

 

[kevkiev]

By setstage mgo3 "X" did you mean setstage mgo3 20?

[Nintendude1236]

By setstage mgo3 "X" did you mean setstage mgo3 20

Yeah. I've tried 20 and 10, but neither worked.

[kevkiev]

Well, from your original post it seems you've already looked at a lot of the stuff on the net about this problem (7k Whiterun etc.), but I did stumble upon one post that mentioned that disabling sex-type mods or others that involve character scripting can fix it. Maybe start there as a first step? Otherwise my only other suggestion would be to disable everything (except maybe follower and item-addition type mods, I can't imagine those being a problem - although I guess those are the most famous of last words when it comes to mod troubleshooting) and trying again. Even if that doesn't produce Urag's correct dialogue, maybe it'll allow the setstage 20 command to get things going again. I'd wager (read: hope) that just getting the quest started would be all you'd need to do and could re-enable everything after that so there'd be almost zero progress loss. Goof luck!