I've never received any XP for hacking...is that normal in Fallout 4? Or am I experiencing a bug?

It flashes by so fast, it's easy to miss. Keep your eye on the upper left of the HUD just as you hit Enter with the correct password selected.

It should make the "cha-ching" sound as well.

Yeah, I'm familiar with the notification...seasoned Fallout vet here. It's just not there. However, I do get random XP sometimes just walking around. I wonder if there is some kind of bug where I receive credit much later? I mean like many minutes later. Otherwise I'm just not getting the award.

I've had the same problem and I think it's to do with the same UI notifications issue that results in players not receiving the pop-ups for when Settlements are attacked.

I believe we are getting the XP, it just isn't appearing on the screen, even though the game thinks that it is.

I hope more people notice this issue tbh, so that Bethesda can collate enough information to fix the problem.

I have the same problem occasionally. I play on Xbox and noticed that it remedies if I quit the game and reboot my console. It must be a bug.

I believe that the program is of the opinion that if any usual opponent to the character dies in the same graphic cell where the character currently is, the character gets credit (XP) the same as if he/she did the killing themselves. (I've experienced this A LOT, in quite a few locations.)

"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth."

I don't know.... I have sat back and watched multi-faction fights, (sometimes, as many as five) and I don't get any experience for anyones kills but my own.

I may be wrong on this but...

That just walking around doing nothing and getting experience messages may be something along the lines of you getting credit for something that an NPC that is allied with you is doing.

A few days ago, I fast traveled to Taffington Boathouse. As soon as I got there, most of the settlers drew their weapons and charged off down the road. I did not follow and just stood there wondering about it. About a minute later I started getting experience messages. A few minutes later, they all came strolling back without a care in the world and were followed by one of my provisioners.

My guess as to what happened, that the provisioner was at the edge of the cell when I arrived and activated the cell, and then immediately came under attack. The settlers responded by going to the provisioners aid, and I wound up getting partial credit for each skill.

As I said, I could be wrong in this, but that is what appeared to be happening.