Quest Status Bug

Galiferno

Thanks for all that testing @tomofhyrule hopefully it's able to help ZOS fix this sooner. I can also confirm that this bug didn't happen to me until after I turned in the kill 20 arcanists Cyrodiil daily.

Poss

tomofhyrule wrote: »

The Kill 20 Arcanists quest from the Cyrodiil bounty board is confirmed as a cause.

I find this interesting. A lot of people I play with have had this quest and turned it in multiple times and haven’t gotten the bug. So I’m wondering if this on its own doesn’t break the game but something we’re doing after.

But whatever it is, thankfully you’ve pinpointed the root and fingers crossed the devs can use this to sort it

tomofhyrule

Poss wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

The Kill 20 Arcanists quest from the Cyrodiil bounty board is confirmed as a cause.

I find this interesting. A lot of people I play with have had this quest and turned it in multiple times and haven’t gotten the bug. So I’m wondering if this on its own doesn’t break the game but something we’re doing after.

But whatever it is, thankfully you’ve pinpointed the root and fingers crossed the devs can use this to sort it

At least on PTS, the only thing I did was get the other 14 kills, turn the quest in, and left Cyrodiil. I didn't have the bug before, but I did after. That means that it was one of those steps that did it. Now I did notice the bug didn't appear right when I turned in the quest, so I think it may have been more of a 'ticking time bomb' scenario where I set it off when I turned in the quest, but the effects didn't show until I left Cyrodiil, but I can't say if it may have been one of the quest states along the way that did it.

I'm not going to discount the fact that there may be other ways to cause the bug. I'm not going to discount the fact that it might not be the quest itself, but how the quest interacts with another quest which I did ages ago, for example by accidentally reusing quest stage ID data (which is likely, since most people affected are affected on their mains, which have done a lot of questing). I'm also not going to discount the fact that there may be multiple versions of the 'Kill 20 Arcanists' quest (in fact, there must be at least one for each alliance) and only some of them will cause the bug. But I know that at least one of those quests is at least one cause of the bug.

If there are multiple versions, ZOS may need to go in and see which is/are bugged. If they have backups, they can just see the old PTS backup from before tonight and see which version my character had because that one specifically is bugged. They can also see the data for what quests my main has done as well. I know someone earlier said they had a DC version of it which bugged them as well, so I know it is more than one version that's affected.

I'd also hope that, since we know that this quest can break the game, ZOS could put out a hotfix to disable that quest so nobody else can get hit by it. I know they did with the one major bug two years ago where deleting characters caused storage chests to lose data; they hotfixed it soon after the cause was found to prevent players from deleting characters until they fixed the root cause, and then with was just waiting for a maintenance to get the storage chests restored. Since I can confirm that (at least one version of) the 'Kill 20 Arcanists' quest is causing the bug, it would be prudent of ZOS to hotfix and disable that quest until they can fix the stages, and then they can work on getting us our zone completion data back.

tomofhyrule

Poss wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

The Kill 20 Arcanists quest from the Cyrodiil bounty board is confirmed as a cause.

I find this interesting. A lot of people I play with have had this quest and turned it in multiple times and haven’t gotten the bug. So I’m wondering if this on its own doesn’t break the game but something we’re doing after.

Double posting since my last post went a little long, and it did make me think of this as a possibility.

Do you know how much questing your friends did before doing the 'Kill 20 Arcanists' quest? If they were alts made specifically for PvP and didn't really do anything in the way of story quests anywhere, that would really pinpoint the cause of this bug.

My current assumption is that the 'Kill Arcanists' quest is reusing and overriding some variable currently set by some other quest somewhere. That should mean that if someone did the 'Kill Arcanists' first and then did the other quest, it would get overwritten again... but in that case redoing the 'Kill Arcanists' may re-override it and bug the quest states.

I doubt we could easily find a list of every quest in the game that every character has or hasn't done, but if your friends pretty well avoided all questing, whereas people who did get bugged did a lot, that's probably exactly the cause.

I'm sure that ZOS should be able to find the offending variable in the 'Kill 20 Arcanists' quest and will be able to change that with a patch to make it so it won't bug future players. At that point, it'll be them needing to find a way to reset that variable for those of us (un)fortunate enough to have found the bug in the first place.

birdmann1230

I had my main toon in cyrodiil and had 100% completed every zone and side quest except Necrom. I did complete that arcanist quest I believe that day I noticed the issue though.

Enodoc

@ZOS_Kevin some of the comments on my Journal Quest Log add-on have suggested there is an issue with the GetNextCompletedQuestId() function in the API. I'm not sure how the back-end of the system works, so I don't know if this function being broken is a symptom or a cause (or entirely unrelated to the current issue), but hopefully some of those comments on the add-on could also be useful for the team!

Morvan

I really hope that gets fixed asap, it's preventing me from enjoying the new chapter since I can't progress with the new quests

MrJustn

Wow, finally found a thread with the same problem I am having. I find it interesting that some people who were affected show 8/9 quests completed in Necrom, because once i got affected, everything was 0/9. Also public dungeons were affected and dungeon quests. But as others said, hopefully there is a fix soon

tomofhyrule

MrJustn wrote: »

Wow, finally found a thread with the same problem I am having. I find it interesting that some people who were affected show 8/9 quests completed in Necrom, because once i got affected, everything was 0/9. Also public dungeons were affected and dungeon quests. But as others said, hopefully there is a fix soon

I think most with 8/9 did no quests in Necrom originally - we're also all ending up with the same quest left unmarked, which is the second-to-last. I guess for players who did do Necrom before getting this bug, they might see a different state.

It does seem to change depending on how much you did in the first place, and it's affecting every zone based on how much you finished. I'm seeing 'missing' quest states in every zone I finished, but the ones I didn't touch are now falsely reporting a bunch of things as completed.

Interestingly, I do have a few zones which seem to be unaffected - that is, everything looks complete if I completed it and everything looks incomplete if I didn't. Those are: Cyrodiil, Galen, and Wrothgar

NotoriousBTK

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I think most with 8/9 did no quests in Necrom originally - we're also all ending up with the same quest left unmarked, which is the second-to-last. I guess for players who did do Necrom before getting this bug, they might see a different state.

It does seem to change depending on how much you did in the first place, and it's affecting every zone based on how much you finished. I'm seeing 'missing' quest states in every zone I finished, but the ones I didn't touch are now falsely reporting a bunch of things as completed.

Interestingly, I do have a few zones which seem to be unaffected - that is, everything looks complete if I completed it and everything looks incomplete if I didn't. Those are: Cyrodiil, Galen, and Wrothgar

Nope, I finished the Necrom questline and mine shows as 8/9, second to last not done.

emilyhyoyeon

in case anyone's wondering, Gina addressed a comment on the stream last night asking about a timeframe for a fix. She just said the team is working on it. No mentioned date for a fix.

I was hoping it'd be in the patch this Monday. Maybe it will, we'll see

tomofhyrule

There's zero chance it'll be in Monday's patch.

I would hope that Monday's patch at least disables the "Kill Arcanists" Bounty quest so people don't get hit with the bug anymore. That'll at least give them time to fix whatever variable it has before they reactivate it in a later patch.

As to when we'll get our progress back though... that's not gonna be until they figure out how to go in and reset all of our quest flags, so I'm not expecting that's gonna happen anytime soon. It would be nice to get it as soon as possible (and especially before we get U39), but I'd hope that someone from ZOS would come in and give us a timeline once they figure out how to fix it.

Twohothardware

NotoriousBTK wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I think most with 8/9 did no quests in Necrom originally - we're also all ending up with the same quest left unmarked, which is the second-to-last. I guess for players who did do Necrom before getting this bug, they might see a different state.

It does seem to change depending on how much you did in the first place, and it's affecting every zone based on how much you finished. I'm seeing 'missing' quest states in every zone I finished, but the ones I didn't touch are now falsely reporting a bunch of things as completed.

Interestingly, I do have a few zones which seem to be unaffected - that is, everything looks complete if I completed it and everything looks incomplete if I didn't. Those are: Cyrodiil, Galen, and Wrothgar

Nope, I finished the Necrom questline and mine shows as 8/9, second to last not done.

I completed all the Zone Story Quests for Necrom on my new Arcanist character and I'm 0/9. I did a few zone quests in Auridon as well and same thing. It sometimes shows one or two quests completed right after doing them and then when I logged off and back on it was 0 again.

Infernal_fisting

Got the same problem today. Lost all my progress in ALL zones except Necrom (Necrom is half lost). Funny moment, the game shows me I've done the last Necrom quest (I didn't) before 2 previous quests have done:

emilyhyoyeon

tomofhyrule wrote: »

There's zero chance it'll be in Monday's patch.

I would hope that Monday's patch at least disables the "Kill Arcanists" Bounty quest so people don't get hit with the bug anymore. That'll at least give them time to fix whatever variable it has before they reactivate it in a later patch.

As to when we'll get our progress back though... that's not gonna be until they figure out how to go in and reset all of our quest flags, so I'm not expecting that's gonna happen anytime soon. It would be nice to get it as soon as possible (and especially before we get U39), but I'd hope that someone from ZOS would come in and give us a timeline once they figure out how to fix it.

It's really discouraging. My ESO plus is due to renew in a few weeks and this might be the first time since I started playing in 2016 that I cancel it and not renew until this bug is fixed. Especially since we're not getting new content in the Q3 patch. I'm just not playing the game enough to justify it with this bug.

The Uninvited

Same has happened to me and my wife, both after doing "20 Arcanists" PVP quest. Can confirm.

Jylly

element0032 wrote: »

Add me to the list of people affected by this bug. Only my main character seems to have the issues talked about like incorrect quest progression, zone progress like public dungeons reset, and unable to play tales of tribute. This is also the only character I spent time pvping on during the event. Whatever the issue is it also affects multiple progress tracking addons like Quest Map and Urich's Skill Point Finder.

I'm from the EU server. I still have the problem, unfortunately I don't get any response from support to my messages.

All uncompleted zone quest, blocked progress, can't play card game etc. It's my main char, 1st char since the beginning of ESO.

Mirumorg

Nothing new in the patch note....

Sikon

nothing fixed for me either... but they already said they do a big bug fixing in Q3.
So we will have it fixed then 100% I am so happy for update 39 with the bug fixes soon

loosej

Sikon wrote: »

nothing fixed for me either... but they already said they do a big bug fixing in Q3.
So we will have it fixed then 100% I am so happy for update 39 with the bug fixes soon

Sorry to disappoint, but atm there's no mention of a fix for this bug in U39.

birdmann1230

I’d hope they can fix it before U39, I am assuming they don’t have a fix yet.

If anyone is curious, the music box led tied to Tales of Tribute can be acquired via the NPC daily quest, so at least that works.

Colue

sorry but im losing hope that they wont fix it [snip] and do nothing till it hurts their bottom line

[edited for bashing]

Colue

sorry ment will fix it*

tomofhyrule

I'm a bit disappointed that 9.0.8 didn't disable the "Kill 20 Arcanists" quest.

We know that that quest is a cause of this bug. It's been tested and documented. So why is ZOS still allowing players to do that quest, and just hoping the word of "hey, don't do this if you don't want your game broken" spreads enough... despite it being only players trying to spread the word.

They could reenable that quest once they fix whatever variable it's setting. I'm sure it'll take time for us to get our games fixed, but I do hope the teams are prioritizing this now. More and more people are being affected by this bug (because they're not stopping it from happening...), and if you completely block quest progress in a game that has as much questing as an Elder Scrolls game...

...this bug should kind of be an 'All Hands on Deck' issue.

TemplarHealz

It's officially been over 30 days since this bug was first reported. Terrible timing as I ran majority of my characters through the PVP event. I'm unable to progress on most of my characters. At this point, I'd like to quit, but I paid for ESO+ up front. What are our options for obtaining a refund? This is game quitting levels of disappointment.

bunnydaisuki

Adding some additional context on how messed up this bug is.

While running a normal random on a character affected by this bug, I noticed Za'ji had the quest starter marker on his head in Shipwright's Regret:


I double checked my map to verify I've already completed the quest:


Upon talking to Za'ji, he had the dialog that was offering me the quest, but there wasn't any option to accept it:


At this point, I think I'll stop picking up any quests including dailies on all my bug affected characters to prevent this bug from further messing up my characters' progressions. My ESO+ subscription is up for renewal soon, and I don't think I'll be renewing as well, until this bug is fixed, since the affects the characters that I'm often playing.

bunnydaisuki

While I appreciate there is some acknowledgement to this bug, I'd like to have some visibility and updates on the progress on the progress and status for the fix. I'm pretty sure anyone who is affected by the bug feels the same as well.

If there are some visibility, at least the affected players weren't stuck in guessing game.

tomofhyrule

bunnydaisuki wrote: »

Adding some additional context on how messed up this bug is.

While running a normal random on a character affected by this bug, I noticed Za'ji had the quest starter marker on his head in Shipwright's Regret:
...
I double checked my map to verify I've already completed the quest:
...

Upon talking to Za'ji, he had the dialog that was offering me the quest, but there wasn't any option to accept it:
...

At this point, I think I'll stop picking up any quests including dailies on all my bug affected characters to prevent this bug from further messing up my characters' progressions. My ESO+ subscription is up for renewal soon, and I don't think I'll be renewing as well, until this bug is fixed, since the affects the characters that I'm often playing.

Yeah, I had that the other day in March as well. I specifically avoided talking to Hanu since I know I did the quest, but the dungeon was recorded as completed with the white icon in overworld, but she still had her quest marker on.

Oddly my world state says that I haven't done Scalecaller (black icon), but the last time I was in there Jorvuld didn't have the quest marker. Obviously a moot point since I've definitely done both of those quests ages ago.

I've already put my main down and decided to not touch a single new quest until this is fixed, but that's incredibly frustrating since there's a lot I want to do (I don't know if ZOS knows about it, but there is a brand new questline we got like a month or two ago in a new Chapter called "Necrom" that can't be completed because of this bug). I'm seeing quest markers I shouldn't, and I'm also not seeing ones I should.

Again, this is a major enough bug that we should be getting weekly updates. Any quests that take you to a quest-locked door (like, oh... all major zone questlines) are blocked off for affected characters. This is literally gamebreaking.
We know one of the major causes of this bug. Because of that, it shouldn't be too bad for ZOS's team to look into the "Kill 20 Arcanists" quest and find out what's bugging it all. But they didn't even block that quest from affecting anyone else.

s8nhimself

coming back after yet another maintenance, sucks to say it's still bugged. what a shame. i just hope they will fix it sometime soon

Tyrobius

tomofhyrule wrote: »

bunnydaisuki wrote: »

Adding some additional context on how messed up this bug is.

While running a normal random on a character affected by this bug, I noticed Za'ji had the quest starter marker on his head in Shipwright's Regret:
...
I double checked my map to verify I've already completed the quest:
...

Upon talking to Za'ji, he had the dialog that was offering me the quest, but there wasn't any option to accept it:
...

At this point, I think I'll stop picking up any quests including dailies on all my bug affected characters to prevent this bug from further messing up my characters' progressions. My ESO+ subscription is up for renewal soon, and I don't think I'll be renewing as well, until this bug is fixed, since the affects the characters that I'm often playing.

Yeah, I had that the other day in March as well. I specifically avoided talking to Hanu since I know I did the quest, but the dungeon was recorded as completed with the white icon in overworld, but she still had her quest marker on.

Oddly my world state says that I haven't done Scalecaller (black icon), but the last time I was in there Jorvuld didn't have the quest marker. Obviously a moot point since I've definitely done both of those quests ages ago.

I've already put my main down and decided to not touch a single new quest until this is fixed, but that's incredibly frustrating since there's a lot I want to do (I don't know if ZOS knows about it, but there is a brand new questline we got like a month or two ago in a new Chapter called "Necrom" that can't be completed because of this bug). I'm seeing quest markers I shouldn't, and I'm also not seeing ones I should.

Again, this is a major enough bug that we should be getting weekly updates. Any quests that take you to a quest-locked door (like, oh... all major zone questlines) are blocked off for affected characters. This is literally gamebreaking.
We know one of the major causes of this bug. Because of that, it shouldn't be too bad for ZOS's team to look into the "Kill 20 Arcanists" quest and find out what's bugging it all. But they didn't even block that quest from affecting anyone else.

While it does seem pretty conclusive that the Kill 20 Arcanists quest is causing this bug, we don't have access to the game's code or the internal tools the devs use. I think the law of unintended consequences is in full effect here and if the devs don't know 100% that this is the reason or if there is something else going on that we aren't aware of, removing or disabling the quest could cause more problems or even make this bug unfixable. It sucks but I'm glad we've gotten official dev response. I hope that we will get more communication if this takes longer to fix.