"Message to Whiterun" quest bug

[bleeargh]

I'm trying to do the Imperial quest line in the civil war. I usually side with the Stormcloaks as it just rankles me that the empire capitulated and signed that damned treaty.......okay I'm a nerd. Anyway, I've encountered the bug where Legate Quentin Cipius will not give the dialogue that will end the "Message to Whiterun" quest and start "Battle for Whiterun" He just stands there and gives the standard generic responses. I'm not the only one who has had this problem as you can see by looking here and here . I've completed the prerequisite quests "The Jagged Crown" and "Dragons Rising"

Most "answers" to the folks who have had this bug is to load an earlier save. Well that's just unacceptable! There has to be a console script that one can type in that will force the good Legate to respond! For example, if Serana's "come with me" option disappears you can do the following as suggested by the UESP website:

 

To bring back the "Come with me" dialogue after dismissing Serana, enter the code sqv DLC1NPCMentalModel in the console. You are given a long list of information. Scroll down the list using the up and down arrows, and make sure that the following codes: CanFollow_var = True / IsFollowing_var = True / IsWaiting_var = True / TurnOffComeWithMe_var = False / LockedIn_var = False are in order by looking at the false/true (i.e., if LockedIn_var was set to true then you need to put it to false). To do this, enter the following command: setpqv DLC1NPCMentalModel LockedIn_var False. Once you do this you should be able to recruit Serana to be your follower again

 

Attempting to advance this questline via "setstage cwo3 255" presents a whole new set of problems. Plus, I hate having to force finish quest lines anyway. Does anyone here have any knowledge of the script for the Legate? If so, please share the needed console command to force Cipius to respond.

[CGi]

Use the CK or TES5Edit and look at the quest id and stage number and advance the quest using the console.

i never encountered this bug, but that's what i would do.

[DocClox]

Do you need to talk to Balgruuf first? I've got a feeling that if you talk to the Jarl the quest will auto-advance when you leave Dragonsreach whether you talk to QC or not.

 

At least I'm fairly sure the first couple of times I did this one I didn't even notice the legate was there, much less talk to him.

[bleeargh]

CGI: Advancing the quest via the setstage console command creates a whole new set of problems later in the following quests. Plus, I really just want to see these events & dialogues as I haven't seen them before. Thanks for the reply, though.

 

DocClox: Yes I did talk to Balgruuf. You have to talk to Balgruuf first in order to get the game to tell you that you need to talk to Legate Cipius.

[rawr22]

Are you using Civil War Overhaul?  That has the potential to mess up that quest apparently.  If so there is a work around in the mod description.

 

I've also had past success in fixing broken dialogue by killing/resurrecting an NPC with the console.

[bleeargh]

I used civil war overhaul in a past save, but uninstalled it. It was pretty buggy, but the fight/siege scenes were AWESOME! Anyhoo, this new current character was started with Civil War Overhaul uninstalled. To be clear, I removed all data files of CWO from the data folder before starting this new character. I thought buggy script data was saved in the save file not in the game itself. As a result, I thought creating a new character without CWO installed wouldn't have any residual problems. Am I wrong? I hope I didn't need to reinstall my entire Skyrim game............