Skyrim talk:Mining

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Dragonborn Archive
Archive 1: Nov 2011 - Jul 2013

ruby, sapphire, emerald, diamond, amethyst geode refill?

Do the dragon born gepdes respawn like other mining points? — Unsigned comment by 76.181.205.218 (talk) at 10:34 on 1 August 2013

I checked a handful of each type in the CK and all the ones I checked DO respawn. I would assume that all of them do, given that I was randomly checking among all types. — ABCface^◥ 05:06, 15 August 2013 (GMT)

As far as I remember the geodes are also subject to the same respawning bug as the ore veins, where you have to leave and re-enter the cell for it to be properly mineable after respawning. —MortenOSlash (talk) 15:18, 15 August 2013 (GMT)

Xbox360 player tries to mine and is immediately interrupted or wont mine at all

I was very frustrated by this glitch as i had mined a lot and suddenly it seemed no matter where i stood i could not activate the vein.

I found that this is fixed easily with patience. If i hit a to start mining and wait 3-5 seconds he will then start mining just fine. It was easy to interrupt the character during this time as he was fully responsive during the 3-5 second period (there is no animation and no breif hang) and any touch of the controls during this period halts the mining process. If frustrated and you click a again you may see him pull the pickaxe and then put it away immediately.

Solution is to just hit a once and wait. Dont know the cause of this bug just the fix. — Unsigned comment by 205.250.43.13 (talk) at 15:44 on 1 August 2013‎

PS3 mining bug

Here's what happened to me.

I was playing a Dunmer with intention to make him a Heavy Armor wearing Vampire. After completing A Blade In The Dark, a few (in game) hours later, I was mining Malachite Ore at the nearby Steamscorch Mine. Between ore veins, my Sanguine Vampiris progressed to full vampirism. After which point, I could not mine ore from any veins in the entire game world. Activating an ore vein would begin the mining animation, but would not yield results, instead resulting in the character infinitely mining in futility and receiving nothing. Leaving by trying to move, and then later re-activating the ore vein would not begin mining at all. Zoning away and back again does not yield results either, only bringing me back to square one. Any fixes? — Unsigned comment by 216.186.185.107 (talk) at 17:38 on 9 September 2013 (GMT)

Firewood bug

I can confirm the bug where you obtain two pieces of firewood each time you mine up an ore - I have no mods (and never have) and it occurred early in the game. I didn't have a woodcutting axe on me, and the bug persisted even after clearing my inventory via console commands. Neither reloading nor restarting the game stopped it. The only 'unusual' thing I did prior to this bug occurring was that I chopped a rather large quantity of wood to money-grind, but I've done that before without any negative consequences. You can get around the bug by mining manually instead of activating the vein and watching the animation, but that can have its own annoyances. As far as I can tell, the only way to actually undo the bug is to delete the offending save and start the game from scratch. 99.114.177.205 10:40, 4 December 2013 (GMT)

Since you make a point of not having any mods and using console commands, I gather you are playing on PC. That is interesting, as the bug is marked with the icon for only occurring on Xbox. I will add the icon for PC too. —MortenOSlash (talk) 18:23, 4 December 2013 (GMT)

I've reverted the icon back to XBox 360 only. I have been unable to find any sort of corroborating evidence that this could even be remotely possible. Every single ore vein listed in the CK uses the same set of leveled lists for the secondary rewards and not one of those lists on PC has firewood in it. That would be the only means by which it could happen. There has also never been an official patch that fixed something to do with this either. A bug like this would be widely reported and very loudly trumpeted by many people if it was valid. Arthmoor (talk) 07:51, 11 June 2014 (GMT)

I'm on PC and currently have this bug. I get two firewood for every ore. 111.64.77.146 14:35, 24 September 2014 (GMT)

Bug confirmed on PC. TrigHorsey (talk) 15:54, 1 November 2019 (GMT)

Arthmoor's response has astounded me! Why would people want to make this up? This bug has affected all of my saves on PC, and is still present today in 2022. I've just been looking it up to search for solutions... only to discover the person we most have to thank for fixing Skyrim's many bugs thinks we are delusional!

Mining at the Stalhrim Source

I was redirected from the Stalhrim page. I encountered that at the stalhrim source, the deposits will appear again a time after mining them but there i no option to mine them. Do I have to wait longer? Telrav (talk) 12:21, 1 January 2015 (GMT)

It is only know bug with all mining. The second on the bug list. You have to leave and re-enter the area or zone to be able to mine it again. —MortenOSlash (talk) 12:43, 1 January 2015 (GMT)

Attacking Ore Sometimes Doesn't Work

On several occasions, I tried mining by wielding a pickaxe and attacking the ore, only for the pickaxe to fail to hit anything. This forces me to mine by activating the ore vein, which I prefer not to do because it takes longer and leaves me vulnerable. I have tried several workarounds, like making sure I'm not wielding anything else in my other hand, but there is no clear cause for this glitch. Has this happened to anyone else? I'm using all the unofficial patches. FrozenWolf150 (talk) 01:57, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, that seems to be a bug/feature of ore veins that are set well into the ground or wall. Very annoying. — Lid-Mop (talk) 12:34, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

I observe it was recently added to the bug list by you, Frozen, but I am not sure it really counts as a bug. I am not even sure that mining method, mining by attacking, was even supposed to be there in the final game. —MortenOSlash (talk) 05:41, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

Tried to activate mine, rested instead

Just like that. When I tried to mine ore, the game popped up "Rest for how long?" I could either tab out or choose to rest, but I couldn't mine, whether I manually activated the vein or attacked it with a pickaxe. This only happened in Cidhna, after completing the Forsworn quest; saving and reloading didn't fix it, nor did leaving the area and returning, but I was able to leave the area, go to a different mine, and mine silver there just fine. The Cidhna page mentions that one particular vein will act as a bed after completing the quest, but this happened with every vein in Cidhna I tried. I'm on PC, playing Special Edition, and haven't used any mods with this save file. — Unsigned comment by 72.209.0.113 (talk) at 15:58 on 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Can confirm, Cidhnaand Right-Hand mines are broken like that on second visit in Special Edition.--81.195.17.250 11:25, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Rare ore locations that cannot be mined.

I added a note in the bugged section but apparently it was not considered a large enough problem to warrant an entry. My thoughts are: a Wiki is an information source for those who encounter problems or have questions they would like answers to, no matter how large, or how small. So I'm putting it here in the discussion section instead.

There are a few rare ore locations, inside and outside, that cannot be interacted with in any way. This should not be confused with the ore bug that requires you to leave an area and return before the ore is enabled once it has been mined once.

Two known bugged ore locations are; (a) on top of a mountain surrounded by water west of Yngvild and north of Winterhold Imperial Camp, and (b) in the mountains climbing south then west of the burning house east of Lost Tongue Overlook and south of (Stendarr's Beacon)/(Broken Helm Hollow)/(Forelhost). Although I think there are a few more, these are the only ones that immediately come to mind. Feel free to add more if encountered. Indoor bugged ore's are noted within the wiki page for those locations. (Philbert) 72.131.11.225 05:39, 25 September 2018 (UTC)