No Heir on Merchant Republic Despite Multiple Unlanded Dynastic Courtiers

[Jingo]

A patrician of different house died, and all the sudden I got an no heir warning. I checked the patrician screen, expecting to find that the new member would win the upcoming election, but found this instead:

My designated heir did not show up. Switching designated heirs did not help (although got me a lot of opinion penalties), nor did reloading. I even tried having no designated heir and reloading, and nothing worked. As you can see though, there are plenty of eligible, unlanded members of my dynasty to be my heir.

This issue doesn't seem to be new. For example, this thread from almost five years year ago covers it:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/203770/discussions/0/613938693289482752/

As does this one from two years ago:

https://www.reddit.com/r/CrusaderKings/comments/4dfy66/why_do_i_suddenly_have_no_heir/

What is the cause of this game breaking bug? Any work arounds? (Those shown in the forum above don't seem to work. Although I'm candidly not sure which is the "diplomacy" screen is, I've tried designating heirs both from the minor title screen and from the character screen). Would really like to continue playing my game, but very worried that when this character dies it will be game over

 

[erwi8891]

I haven't had this issue, as far as I can recall, but I play a lot of republics and there's often some delay to the game realising there's a new heir. I'm assuming you've tried both these but just in case you haven't, and since it's the only thing I can think of, see if the game catches up to you if you run it a bit and try to add to the campaign fund, that can make the game update the calculations. I'm also assuming there's no problem with your unlanded family members, they haven't found their calling or something like that. Again, you've probably tried this but I'm afraid it's all I can think of.

 

[rbc1989]

Save the game and exit the game. Restart the game. That usually fixes it.

 

[fleetothemoon]

I play republic (and nomads) a crap ton. If restarting and reloading haven't worked for you, I can provide some additional ideas on what you can do (I hope you aren't playing Ironman):

• This may be just a graphical issue: your heir is not being shown but on your death, the succession should still proceed as usual;
• You own a title that is not inheritable - e.g., holy orders, mercenary captains, some religious head titles;
• You are encountering the revolt glitch - the heir situation should be resolved after you crushed the revolt (this is my best guess);
• You can try dumping enough money into the republic race and maybe console kill Aghlabid; this may reveal your heir after the system recognized your heir as the successor to the republic