Can't talk with most npc's

[Excoter]

I just started a new play thru, without any new mods nor doing any major changes.

 

I noticed that I can't talk to some npc's like Trashcan Carla and Piper, but again some like Drumlin's Trudy works perfectly.

 

- I tried to start new play now twice, but problem with speech stays same.

 

- Checked with Steam that game files are ok.

 

- There's no mod conflict, I have used these same mods in same load order multiple times without issues.

 

- This bug happens now no matter I finish "Out of time" quest first or not.

 

- I do not have any unfinished conversations with any npc.

 

 

Anyone have any ideas what could cause this bug?

 

 

[Excoter]

I found this fix suggestion to use console command "Recycleactor player" what has no effect at all, and I tried it in form "player.recycleactor" what was actually right form but made no difference with my bug.

 

Here's link where I found it: https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Talk:Fallout_4_bugs

 

 

This is really frustrading bug, and a fact that it just started with new game without any changes.

[Excoter]

With more testing now I noticed that my character wont trigger any scenes, and basically Im not "visible" for most npc actors.

[MarkusTay]

This game behaves oddly, and having the exact same mods doesn't always do the exact same things in another play-through. My biggest problem is my menus (I have a LOT of settlement -object mods), and I lose menus all the time. I have two different play-throughs going at the same time right now, and my menus are in a different order on both. The only difference is that on one I'm Nate, and the other, Nora, otherwise same exact set of mods.

 

NOW, I did install many of these mods during my Nora play-through, before I started the Nate one, so in the one game they were all there 'from the beginning', and in the other, I added them over time. Thus, that could be the problem here (if you did the same). There are quite a few mods I have learned to add-in after certain quests were done (usually the first parts of the main quest, and anything having to do with the Mechanist, which is already buggy as heck in vanilla).

 

Trashcan Carla is a very specific problem - I think the fact that she WON'T talk to you, but other vendors will is very telling. Even if you haven't done Sanctuary/Minutemen stuff, she'll still trade with you and give you directions. The ONLY time she will refuse to talk to you is if you robbed her, and I think therein lies our first clue: Did you kill something/someone you shouldn't have, or did something you created (like a turret) do so? I notice some mods effect things that you wouldn't think would (In my case, CW rabbits & squirrels tends to 'throw off' many settlement attacks - the bad guys head the wrong way chasing the damn things!) Also, both Piper and Carla are connected to the main storyline, albeit indirectly, so there is something there in the main story that is getting broken and the game can't figure it out. Have you tried using console commands to directly take control of Sanctuary/the Workshop? Thats about the only thing I can think of.

 

Does Dogmeat work correctly? He's another one that gets easily glitched by mods.

[MarkusTay]

I just read your last post, and THAT problem sounds familiar to me... I think I've had that, and it turned out to be something simple. I can't recall what - sorry. You aren't in tcl mode, right?

 

Are you in the correct faction?

[Excoter]

So I just tried another new game start.

 

Everything going well when I come out from vault, Codsworth talking to me normally and quest goes correctly.

 

If I travel to Drumlin Diner, Trudy will talk and trade normally.

 

If I go Concord, Preston and others actors acts normally and I can talk with them.

 

But Trashcan Carla do not notice my presence at all. I tried to reset her AI, reboot the npc with recycle command.. nothing.. she wont talk to me..

 

I console travel to Boston and go meet Piper outside the DC, her scene wont start when I arrive and she wont talk to me.

 

My character wont initiate any cell or npc scenes etc.

 

( Dogmeat acts normal way )

Edited February 9, 2019 by Mikki2016

[Excoter]

I just read your last post, and THAT problem sounds familiar to me... I think I've had that, and it turned out to be something simple. I can't recall what - sorry. You aren't in tcl mode, right?

 

Are you in the correct faction?

 

Not using tcl mode, and I havent toyed with faction settings.

[Excoter]

1. I did totally new clean install with game.

 

2. Tested before any mods etc with bare game, no problem with npc's.

 

3. Installed F4SE, NMM and mods, npc's stopped talking.

 

4. Disabled all mods, npc's wont talk.

 

5. Tested game without F4SE, npc's wont talk.

 

I have been using these same mods ages without any problems... and now Im totally running out of ideas.

[MarkusTay]

Weirdly, i happen to have had a similar problem earlier today - somehow i slipped into 'no AI' mode (as if I used the TAI command on myself). I couldn't use my workbenches, and most NPcs would not interact with me. So I toggled it OFF, and then back ON, and after that, everything worked fine.

 

Not sure what happened - as you can see by the order the game said I already had AI turned on, but for whatever reason turning it off and then back on fixed my problem. I am having another strange problem I haven't seen before elsewhere (Preston and the gang just won't leave the museum), and now i have to wonder if the two problems are somehow related.

 

I did find out something that may be somewhat relevant to your situation - Carla WILL go to Sanctuary after you meet her, regardless if you've met Preston and the survivors in Concord. This is the first time I ignored the MM quest at the beginning and got a lot of other stuff done first, and I encountered quite a bit of dialogue I never heard before (some from unexpected sources, like Abernathy). Of course, when I finally did get around to doing the MM quest, it won't complete. Figures.

 

Anyhow, try the TAI thing (select yourself first). In the same way that sometimes TCL does, you become hard/impossible to 'see' by certain NPCs (and in my case, the workbenches - the WS worked just fine, though).

 

Oh! I almost forgot - here's the part that sounds the most like it is related to your problem. Right around the time my game glitched (without me being aware), I had 'discovered' the Cambridge Crater, and was receiving rads (as per usual). I then moved away from that area... and continued to get rads. LOTS of them... like I was still standing right inside the damn crater. I had to keep taking radaway and stimpaks. Then I noticed Codsworth was ignoring me when I ordered him to do something, and I had a weird problem of a settler I woke-up having her eyes closed while interacting with me (but she wouldn't speak either... it was creepy). I finally figured out what was going on by toggling the AI on my character, and the rads stopped, the woman opened her eyes and started talking, and Codsworth was my buddy again. BUT HERES THE THING - it was as if I was in two places at once; some of me was able to interact with stuff (the part I guess I control directly without input from the game), and the part of me that IS controlled by the game was somehow still back in the crater, getting rads. That might be relevant to what is happening to you now (although why it would happen on a fresh install is beyond me - thats worst-case-scenario stuff right there). As bad as I've borked my games in the past, reinstalling always fixed things.

 

So time for a stupid question - when you reinstalled everything, you also erased the text files on the 'C' drive, right? The ones the ini(s) was in? I guess you can save your Saves, but you should definitely let the game create new ini files in case they got corrupted. And then, of course, you have to add those two lines to the custom ini like always. Good luck.

[Excoter]

I have no idea what did I screw up whith last clean installation, now I did it again very very carefully and I got game working with npc's talking normally.

 

I just run out of any possibilities to figure out cause for issue.

 

But this time I did remake ini and pref files from scratch, last time I did use same ones than before... as I didn't let any changes to files.

 

Instead now Im having weird bugs with enb, messing especially with shadows.

 

With 200 mods what I did, I tested game after installing mods every 10 or so.. Now all mods installed in perfect load order, and game runs without any speech problems with npc's... but this enb issue I have to fix before FINALLY able to start new play thru.