Seemingly super rare bug with Lost to the Ages

[Mi7Sama]

Hey there, seems like I encountered a very rare bug with the quest Lost to the Ages. It's an unnecessarily long and shitty story, please bear with me.

 

I got past the tonal lock without any problems, talked to Katria and picked up the first Aetherium Shard, which obviously adds the objective of finding the remaining shards. However, my quest log still tells me to speak to Katria, which isn't possible, because her ghost already vanished. The quest marker remains next to where I picked up the first shard, as if she was still standing there.

 

First, I thought that the quest might get its s*** together after finding the next shard, but sadly it didn't. After picking up some shard, Katria vanishes again and the quest marker remains right where she went invisible until I'm close enough to the next shard for her to materialize at the new location – still with a quest marker above her head, not willing to talk to me. Even after finding all the shards, I'm still told to speak to Katria.

 

But wait, it gets even better: The Dwemer mechanism where you insert all the shards is buggy as hell, too. After inserting the shards nothing happened, so I went to explore the surroundings a little. After 10 minutes (in real time) the quest miraculously updated itself and congratulated me on finding the Aetherium Forge. I went back there to check out if I'm able to continue the quest, but nasty Katria let me down again. She materialized next to the mechanism and told me to stand back, which I did... once more nothing happend – ghostly Katria and that menacing quest marker silently staring at me.

 

Because the whole forge thing took 10 minutes as well, I tried waiting for an ingame day and to my surprise, the quest "somewhat" advanced to the next stage. The elevator finally appears from underground, catapulting Katria, who is still standing next to the mechanism, straight into the sky. I already considered myself lucky (because of the elevator and Katria being catapulted), but then I realized that the elevator shaft is completely empty. There is no lever or anything to use. In the meanwhile Katria landed safely – still accompanied by her quest marker – and wanders the area silently.

 

The whole quest seems to be badly broken and I'm afraid it f*#@s with the rest of the game as well. (Is that even possible?) I noticed that since I started Lost to the Ages, my werewolf form doesn't properly work anymore. (Nope, no werewolf mods installed.) I hit the beast form button, but nothing happens. After waiting several ingame hours, the transformation finally takes place and makes me be a werewolf for what feels like an infinite amount of time. Is my Skyrim's internal clock f***ed?

 

I tried to disable and enable Katria again via console, which will make her reappear where the quest marker is hovering, but she still won't talk to me. Just says "Hmm?"

Also, the SetStage command doesn't really help as you can't go back quest stages. And if I choose to advance to a future quest stage by using the console, the objective "Speak with Katria" still remains in my quest log.

 

I'm not using a lot of mods (all the unofficial patches, though) and didn't install any new ones recently, but I have AFT and My Home Is Your Home. (I guess Katria is considered a follower during the quest.) I wouldn't even mind starting the quest again, but sadly I don't have any saves before starting it.

 

Did anybody ever encounter a similar problem? What can I do? I'd really appreciate any form of help, because so far I'm incredibly satisfied with this playthrough and my character. Thanks in advance.

 

 

EDIT: I also tried to specifically complete the objective "Talk to Katria" via console, which works and makes her properly appear at all the shards' locations with fitting dialogue, but as soon as I reach the Dwemer mechanism that calls the elevator, things get buggy again. Tested it a few times. Sometimes Katria doesn't show up at all, sometimes I can't speak to her (again), sometimes the elvator seems to be stuck, sometimes I just get an infinite earthquake in the elevator area.

 

I managed to restore a backup version of my saves folder from two days ago, which made me lose some progress obviously, but I'd rather have an unbroken Skyrim (even werewolf form works again with those saves). Nevertheless I'd be happy to hear about possible fixes for the Katria problem, because I still don't have the achievement for completing Lost to the Ages and need to tackle that quest at some point.

Edited January 4, 2018 by Mi7Sama

[HaloCondor]

so u wanna e-date?

[robatodesu]

I'm having a similar problem with the elevator with no controls inside, but also no Katria. To even get the elevator to come up, I had to fast travel away and then return, but still no controls and no Katria.

 

[Hannibal139]

I'm having a similar problem with the elevator with no controls inside, but also no Katria. To even get the elevator to come up, I had to fast travel away and then return, but still no controls and no Katria.

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I have done it two times without any glitch. Make sure you have usleep installed and dawnguard.esm should be after update.esm in your load order and usleep after dragonborn.esm.