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Stolen items gets un-flagged as stolen at random intervals, usually after I've been playing for a few hours and items that are legal gets flagged as stolen when placed in containers, randomly. The stolen flag is then cleared once I take the item OUT of the container... Stolen items placed on followers don't show as stolen until I take them back OR the flag is gone... i.e. a stolen item has changed status to legal.

I am going to start by saying that I'm unsure if this is caused by a mod or not; it seems to be a vanilla bug BUT that it was fixed by the 1.2 patch...apparently this fix isn't working for my game and I am wondering if anyone has an idea as to why? The only thing that I can think of is that I have some mod that overwrites the vanilla patch changes, but I'm no modder. Is that even possible? If yes, then what kind of mod(s) may be causing this and if "no" then do you have any idea why this is happening?

I've tried making a brand new clean install and creating a brand new character but the problem persists. Stolen items randomly gets unflagged, usually after some time. I've also discoevered another major bug: taking back confiscated items does not count as stealing - i.e. I can walk right up to the evidence chest and take back my items while the guards are staring at me WITHOUT incurring a bounty... I have been trying to resolve this issue for weeks now but noone seems to have encountered this problem and or is able to provide any assistance. I've tripple-checked that all my mods are the correct version and that I have no known conflicts. I am at a total loss.

Please help!

I don't remember if it was in Skyrim or Oblivion, but I used to run into the "now it's stolen, now it's not" situation whenever similar items got stacked together. Basically, if I had a stolen item that was showing up as stolen in my inventory, then found another item of the same type that wasn't stolen, the not-stolen item would be stacked with the stolen item and would mess up the way the stolen item was displayed-- or vice versa, I think. Dropping or stowing the items would either fix the display issue or (I'm guessing here) potentially reverse it. I don't know if it depends on which item was added to the stack first, or last, but my guess would be last. I'm thinking I noticed this issue in Skyrim, not Oblivion, because I don't think Oblivion will stack stolen items with not-stolen items.

It's not a display bug. I can have 2 stolen soulgems and the next time I log in they're suddenly legitimate, and sellable.

I remember this getting patched and I haven't seen it occur since. Are you playing Special Edition?