Hi folks,

I've recently encountered a bug in the "Under Saarthal" quest that's become very frustrating...if anybody has ideas on how to proceed, please let me know.

The quest began normally - I located Arniel Gane, the three enchanted rings, and then moved on to the Saarthal Amulet trap.

When I pick up the amulet, it did NOT add to my inventory, so I was forced to add it with the console (player.additem 000233D0 1). When I put it on, Tolfdir prompts me to use a spell on the wall that I took it from - which is glowing at this point - but nothing has any effect. The door is supposed to explode inwards, but doesn't.

I tried a few console solutions that didn't result in much success.

1) Toggling collision, moving through the wall and into the passage, then teleporting Tolfdir to me (prid 0001c1a1 , moveto player)

Teleportation was successful, but because the quest stage was still set to "Use the Saarthal Amulet to escape the trap," Tolfdir simply ran back to the unbroken wall and tried to walk through it continuously.

2) Set the objective to be completed (SetObjectiveCompleted MG02 35) and manually attempted to start the next objective (SetStage MG02 40)

The objective is set to completion successfully, but the next objective cannot be started. The console doesn't throw any errors, it just accepts the SetStage command and does nothing.

Mods currently active: SkyUI, Static Mesh Improvements 1 & 3, Pure Waters, and a handful of Soul Gem / Ring improvement tools.

The "scenario B" solution is that I could just toggle collision and leave Saarthal altogether, but that would prevent me from ever moving further in the Mage Guild questline. I'd really prefer to find a fix. Any ideas?

Thanks

I'm guessing that you don't have a save prior to this problem happening. If you do, I would strongly suggest re-loading and trying the quest again. You have to be careful with console commands, because they can sometimes cause unintended consequences such as bugging out further stages of a quest (as you seem to have experienced). The "SetObjectiveCompleted" command is supposedly not as clean (in terms of potential problems) as the "setstage" command might be.

I don't know if any of the ring improvement tools (mods) that you mentioned may be conflicting with the Saarthal Amulet's function if they change that script in any way, but it may be something to check.

I'm sorry, I should have mentioned - I do have a save before entering Saarthal and just before entering the amulet trap, respectively. Restarting both were unsuccessful.

Do you have a save prior to picking up the amulet? If so then load that save and try again. If not then instead of adding the amulet to your inventory do a...

player.placeatme 233d0 1

...and see if it lets you pick it up off the ground and adds it to your inventory that way.

Update:

Unfortunately, placing the item didn't work out.

I have a separate save quarantined so that I can troubleshoot more later, but for the time being (if anyone else stumbles on this and has the same problem), this is what I ended up going with:

> Disable collision through the corridor and closed coffin door, which requires Tolfdir to open.

> Complete the Draugr dungeon normally

> As you reach the final room with the Jyrik Gauldurson boss, Tolfdir will spawn and "catch up with you." When you defeat the boss, Tolfdir will look at the orb but not take any further action.

> SetStage MG02 70 to set objective to "Talk to the Arch Mage"

> SetObjectiveCompleted MG02 35 1 to complete the trap objective and close out the journal objectives

> Turn off collision and move through the orb's forcefield to reach the exit. Talking to the Arch Mage will end the quest.

Sorry I wasn't able to find anything more final.

Thank you very much. This will help out innumerable people that will or have encountered the same or similar glitches.