Hi there!

I'm playing the German version of The Witcher 3. Unfortunately, there is a bug in the payday quest at the horse stables since I cannot find any key. After about one hour of desperate searching I allowed myself to watch a video showing the emplacement of the key (inside of the stall, left hand side on the table), but in my case there's just nothing.

Probably, several persons already had this problem but since my search function in the forum is not working I need to ask whether anybody knows what I could do?

Thank you very much.

Best regards,
Apo

Did you fight your way in or get into a fight once inside?

Hi Hickory,

No. The guard is sleeping but no key. I also restarted it several times and knocked the guard out but still no key.

When you say restarted, did you quit the game completely or just reload a save? I've had many bugs since I started a new game a few days ago that I don't remember from before. I mean like a significant bug every hour at least that required quittng the game. Fortunately they were all fixed by restarting but something is definitely different, and worse. Maybe win10 updates? Have you tried verify/repair?

If the guard is still asleep, meaning the area was not disturbed, then you probably have a corrupt installation. Remove any and all mods you have and verify/repair your installation. The key is definitely there in a solid installation. I've played this game umpteen times and have never had an issue with this. Though, as fragonard points out, Win10 updates could be an issue. When the game was first released it came with a user caveat that Windows 10 updates may break compatibility.

Edit: Actually, I've just checked and the game page still has that caveat:

"Please be advised that Windows 10 operating system will receive frequent hardware driver and software updates following its release; this may affect game compatibility "

The key is on a table !!! The guard don't have it !

The OP knows that. The OP stated that. Nobody said the guard has it.