Skuldafn Temple first puzzle lever won't move (not central pillar problem)

[RuthlessRich]

Hello, I'll jump straight in:

 

I started setting the pillars to all possible positions and pulling the lever to see if anything happened. Began with snake-snake-snake, then snake-snake-whale or whichever would be next etc. I flipped the switch once for each combo but after about ten tries the lever stopped working. Pressing the use key while looking at it simply has no effect. It's not specific to the later combinations because I tried going back to snake-snake-snake and it won't move for that any more.

 

I thought this may be related to the problem of the central pillar not moving (which several people have reported) so I followed the advice given for that and tried reloading various saves both in and outside the temple but no, the lever won't budge. Also tried restarting the game and my PC but no luck.

 

In my research I have of course come across the actual solution to the puzzle, including the fact that the lever must be facing away from the doors to begin with and pushed towards them to open the doors. May be worth noting that it is stuck pointing towards the doors at the moment.

 

Just in a complete jam at the moment. I can't play anymore Skyrim because I'm stuck in Skuldafn until I defeat Alduin and I have no saves from before I started tampering with the puzzle =(.

 

Any ideas?

Cheers for reading

[David]

Apparently I missed this when it was originally posted. I apologize. 

 

Hopefully you've found a solution by now, but since it may help someone else in the future I'll post my solution. You're fortunate because you're using the PC -- that makes bug fixing much easier!

1. Hit the tilde ( ` ) key (next to the 1) to open up the console.
2. Type tcl into the console and hit enter.
3. Clip through the door.
4. Reopen the console and type tcl again.