I heard about the Arniel's Endeavours quest from some folks online and decided that it sounded like a neat quest reward so headed up to the College of Winterhold and tried to get it.

The Prima online guide (and other sources) specify that to get the quest you just need to be after Under Saarthal but before the quest where you look for some staff. I am exactly after Under Saarthal (I have been given the next quest but have not done anything with it yet).

When I ask him about whether there was any College business I could help with he stammers out a response about no nothing official and that is it. There is no option to ask about unoffical tasks and nothing shows up as a task in my quests. I cannot restore to a previous save or restart as I am over 100 hours into the game and that would be a significant waste of time and effort.

Does anyone know how to kick start this?

If it makes any difference I am also experiencing the quest bug where Urag gro-Shub asks me to find a book (in my case the Wild Elves) in a location that I have already cleared (and have the book) but it insists it is still at that location despite being in my inventory with no way of turning it in or making the game realize that the quest marker is pointing at empty space.

Out of curiosity has anyone else had this one? Can anyone verify if they ever hit a point in the college quests where this becomes unavailable? I am thinking about progressing the college quests in the hopes it unlocks later but I don't want to loose the chance to do it after a patch altogether.

I've hit a bug on both quests as well. I've completed a quest for Arniel but I can't get him t talk to me again to tell him.

I have the exact same problem on the PC, no dialogue option to start this quest. Am I missing something? Or do I have to use "setstage MGRArniel01 10" to get things going?

I never got the quest but you can still complete it if you give him the 10 dwemer cogs since he will still accept them even if you never got the quest, allowing you to do part 2

I can't heat the Warped Soul Gem in the Dwemer Convectors. Arniel's stupid spell doesn't even work on them.

Any time a quest giver wont hand out a quest you know you have the requirements for, it means you have a similar quest for someone else. Radiant AI quests cant double up with the same kind of quest. You need to complete the other one first.

For example; Feralda would not give me the book quest for the Master level destruction spell. I already had two book collection quests (1 side quest / 1 miscellaneous quest) that Radiant AI required me to finish first. After doing both book quests, Feralda now gave me the master level quest with the book.

I think you have to dual-cast it.

To add to the existing comments, I also had the problem of him not talking to me and, as Lexandro pointed out, it was probably due to a couple of other quests running at that time. I might have also been that I needed to wait a bit before the next stage, but he eventually coughed up the next part and the only things I had done was finish one or two other side quests and let two or three days pass.