Recovery mission not completing

[mavric1298]

I brought back a kerbal and their craft, recovered them both, and now the kerbal is showing as part of the space program, but for some reason the contract won't complete - still says to recover the vessel (I didn't EVA the kerbal, I returned everything as one).  Is there anything to be done other than the dreaded red X? 

 

Edit; found in my persistent file that it appears the game thinks the ship I recovered is still in orbit - however it's not showing as such on the track station - any ideas of what do to do/edit?

Edited January 4, 2017 by mavric1298

[Snark]

No clue what happened here (bug, maybe?) ... but given that you did what you were supposed to, I'd say you're well within your rights to just use the Alt+F12 debug cheat menu to force successful completion of the contract.

[FullMetalMachinist]

Since you obviously completed the contract, I would just force it to complete. Hit mod-F12 ('mod' being whichever key is the modification key for your system, Alt on Windows) to open the debug menu, go to the contracts tab, and hit the "Com" button on the correct contract to complete it. 

Edited January 4, 2017 by FullMetalMachinist

[bewing]

Hmmm. OK two points: What is your current KSP version? Was this contract begun in ver 1.2.2? Do you have a savegame from before you grabbed the vessel to recover it? This is clearly a bug, and I'd like to report it if I can duplicate it from a savegame.

Point 2: You did the work, so you deserve the credit. So go into the Debug menu, under contracts, and mark this one complete. That'll get you full credit.

 

[Squishybrick]

This isn't completely related, but I couldn't find much other information on this, and this forum topic was the closest things I got, so I'm gonna drop this info here, in case anyone else who's having the same issue comes across it.

On "Retrieve Part" missions, a similar problem will occur, and I think I figured out why/how.

If, at ANY point, you try to use construction mode to attach the part to your ship (As a perfectly sensible person would do, in order to guarantee it's aligned with your craft and doesn't make you fly every which way the second you tap the thrusters), this Re-ID's the part as a regular, identified part, instead of the mystery part in question. And you can't ID it back, because it's
not a cockpit/capsule/probe core, and because you can't change the ID Icon to a question mark.

You are FORCED to ONLY use a/the claw part to grab the part in question, and return it to kerbin. Besides using some sort've complicated cargo bay system, this is the ONLY way to
return these "mystery parts" back to kerbin without physically attaching them to your ship in a way that changes the part's ID.

This is further reinforced by the fact that these part retrieval missions are only available once you have unlocked the claw parts in the science tech tree.

Not only this, but recovering your vessel after landing isn't enough, because your vessel's ID still overrides the part, so after landing, you MUST DETACH the part in question,
and recover it separately, for the mission to finally trigger as completed.

This "could" be cheated possibly, depending on how strict the game is on identifying parts.. Because if you detach a single part, a singular part, into orbit, it will take up the mark of a question icon (unidentified part).. If you'd named the vessel specifically before-hand, you could theoretically ID the part as the same as one in a mission, and then just take "that" one home with you.
I have not tested this, but just a theory.

[Superfluous J]

For things like this I unashamedly go into the cheat menu and complete the contract there, giving me full rep/science/money.

[Linkageless]

I recall trying attaching a docking port and docking it, which I imagine would be roughly equivalent to a klaw.

Can't remember how that went and I may not have even checked if it satisfied the contract.  My career play-throughs end up having so many lose ends to tie up that it's inevitable a few things slip under the radar while I'm making sure someone gives Val a lift home from Dres.

Agreed that if I noticed it didn't actually qualify for whatever reason, there would be no shame in cheating it complete since I'd complied with the spirit of the contract.