Hi guys! I'm doing the Saarthal questline for the mage's guild and I'm to the point wherein the pillar stone puzzle starts. I've done this quest before on another character, so I know where the image clues are (being vague for those who don't want to know), but I'm having a problem. I hover the crosshairs over the stones and the dialogue shows up: "E to activate stone". Well...nothing happens. I went into my inventory and used "E" to eat some ingredients, so I know it's not my keyboard. I tried saving and reloading and all that, my game is just bugged. I was wondering since I'm on PC if there is a command I can use to get the gate to open and just skip this part in the dungeon? Any help would be appreciated, thanks for reading!

The pillars are stuck? I think ive read that when the stones stick, you need to backtrack through a door that leads to a new area, then re-enter the area with the stones (if that makes sense). Not sure of the console command to bypass the stones, if there even is one.

This was in wiki - maybe save and give it a go?

"This can also be resolved by entering the console, selecting the lever at the center of the puzzle, and entering 'setpv numPillarsSolved_var 4', followed by 'setpv puzzleSolved_var true'. After exiting the console and activating the lever, the door should open as normal."

Thanks for the replies, I'm off to try these!

I couldn't get the command lines to work, I'm not really smart with those anyway But leaving the area and going through a door that quicksave DID unstick the stones! Just wanted to confirm that in case someone with a similar problem searches and finds this thread. Thanks again for helping!