All bugs › Lost to the Ages
Lost to the Ages won't start after visiting Mzulft or Deep Folk Crossing first
What happens
With Dawnguard installed, a corpse carrying The Aetherium Wars lies outside Mzulft and near Deep Folk Crossing. If you visit those places before reading the book and the bodies get cleaned up, the quest (and the Aetherial Crown) may never start.
PS5-safe fix
UESP's fixes are the Unofficial Dawnguard Patch or editing your save on PC, neither of which is a vanilla option on PS5. The only console-free route is reloading a save from before the corpse disappeared. For a related bug where reading the book doesn't add the objective, UESP suggests loading a save from before you started the Dawnguard questline, dropping The Aetherium Wars and any crystal shards, then picking the book back up and reading it; no guarantee it helps once the bodies are gone.
Prevention
Read The Aetherium Wars before you go to Mzulft or Deep Folk Crossing, or take and read the copy from the body there as soon as you find it.
Only known full fix needs a mod. Check which PS5 mods are safe on Is It Bricked?.
Always make a hard save before trying a fix.
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Still broken on my PS5