In the quest tab, I went under generic and above M'aiq's greeting I made a new greeting. I tried all sorts of conditions so that my NPC that's a new race would say this greeting. But no matter what I do I keep getting the message "I HAVE NO GREETING." when I talk to him.
Are you in SI or Tamriel and did you make the NPC using a character from SI or from Tamriel as a base for creation -- the game has a setting that keeps track of whether the player is in SI and having used an SI character as a base and placing them in Tamriel or vice versa will break their greetings. (same thing happens if you teleport out of SI instead of using the portal and try to talk to someone in Tamriel while the game thinks you are still in SI .)
Neither, I'm in a custom cell (not linked to any worldspace) and made the NPC from scratch. Could it be because the greeting has several separate things? Like one box was too short so I made a second in the box about the conditions box.
Maybe it would help if you list what conditions you're using. The only condition you should really need (providing you're not trying to only have the greeting during a quest stage or whatnot) is: