I don't know if (all of) this is common knowledge but I'll just lave it here. Also, I'll say from start that uninstalling mods is not something you should do in Skyrim.

Most people probably know already that startquest console command won't properly fill quest aliases at quest startup.

What I just found out is:

I suppose another way in addition to yours is to add an empty stage that'll never be needed in a traditional sense, with its only purpose being to hold the Stop() function. So when you want to inform users on how to stop your quest, just have them type(console command) setstage questID queststage that is holding Stop().

My suggestion is about what one can do if the original mod didn't provide any help with this. Also, I don't know if using what you proposed will let the quest autostart after a clean save update...most likely a similar thing would be needed for start.

This also effect OnInit? Because I've been using startquest for my mod, but it's unreleased and still in testing phase, with no *real* way of starting it yet. I noticed my OnInit doesn't work unless I use startquest, which doesn't make any sense.

the thing I said about stop, well, hmm.. got me there on the Start() issue.

..I also didn't know startquest can cause that issue. LOL is there ANYTHING that is safe to do in this game? Doesn't seem like it.

I never knew about this bug, but with one of my mods I used to have users use StartQuest to start an Uninstall Quest that would Uninstall the mod. This worked without any problems - users would uninstall using this method and then make a clean save and install the update with no hitches.

Since the uninstall Quest didn't have any aliases to fill, it worked good for that purpose - the Uninstall quest had a script instead that stopped all the other quests via papyrus. So that might be another alternative to use to get around this issue.

More needs to be tested but I guess now you know what to be careful at, even combinations of auto start and allow restart may behave differently...

Using a helper quest to manage this would be ok, the same way my getFormFromFile().start() seems not affected by any issue. But are you saying that after you stop the quest like that it will autostart the same quest on update...this looks strange compared to what I sayd at #1 but who knows with this game, or you don't expect any quest to autostart after clean save and update?

I think you're still probably right about what you said originally. In my case, all the other main quests were stopped through the script (which I'm guessing is the safe way to do things), the only console command entered was to StartQuest the uninstalling quest, which then stopped all the rest. But I know some users did this successively over several versions (using StartQuest on the same uninstall quest each time) and it always worked fine for updating.

Please do double check this, I was testing my mod for compatibility with another one and that other one I was messing with with the console to check its current release and the available beta so my focus was on multiple things...also all this after midnight

Also you may find issue reports in your mods comments that seemed impossible but now in a new light...

Good point - I'll have to keep that in mind

Right. Because the majority of people love to rely on the console commands to come save the day, forgetting that they are basically debug schemes not designed to be used in a consistent way.

I'm reminded of this mod that somehow allows console commands to be used in papyrus. Uh oh.