On PC, how do i restore my quest progression in "Picking up the Trail"

Solution 1:

this can be done by using a couple of console commands opened with ~

1. sqs 00014e8c

   sqs is the console command for checking the quest stages while 00014e8c is the quest ID for "Picking up the Trail".

   each quest stage that is listed is one of the objectives of the quest which you can see on the wikia. each stage (objective) completed is set to 1. when the Bug occurred to me stage 200 was set to 1 which, while not listed i assume is the state set for ending a quest

   use this command and remember which stages are set to 1

2. resetquest 00014e8c

   resetquest sets all stages to 0 and again 00014e8c is our quest id

   doing this will reset all quest stages to 0 and also remove the quest from the Pipboy as quest stage 0 needs to be 1 for a quest to be enabled

3. setstage 00014e8c [STAGE]

   setstage will set [STAGE] to 1 for our quest

   using the list we got at the start (it should still be onscreen) repeatedly use this command on each of the stages that were set to 1 EXCEPT for stage 200

for me the bug occurred on stage 40

Search Lamplight Caverns for a way into Vault 87.

so the complete list of commands i had to use was

sqs 00014e8c
resetquest 00014e8c
setstage 00014e8c 0
setstage 00014e8c 5
setstage 00014e8c 10
setstage 00014e8c 20
setstage 00014e8c 30
setstage 00014e8c 40