I understand the frustration there.I downloaded it at the weekend V0.19, played it from the start. (No old saves) They have no excuses, a bug that was reported over a year ago should be fixed by now.
I'm now actually sick of that quest, I played every option even following the marker to 1m even though I had all their possessions in my inventory. Anyway I think that was my last quest so I'll come back next March and start from scratch again
I didn't play it a year ago, just the 0.18 version and this one, so I can't speak for earlier.
I do believe that the skill on the bottom of that list lets you investigate and discover them at a closer range (I know 1m and all), but it may be required to advance it 1 point or so to discover that.
I've had times where I found it right away, even in the middle of wolf fight, and others it never showed up at all. Even when it never did the discovery scene, I went straight to the camp, and it continued fine after that.
If it's still happening and they know about it, I'm sure they will get to it in time. They're pretty active here, so hopefully when you come back to it, it will be solved for you.