Ok, evidently this is a known issue now. Directly from the mod page: We are aware of the issue with experience bar not immediately updating upon crafting an item, which is a consequence of the way CCOR calculates experience via script. We hope to be able to address it in a future update, but it may or may not be something that can be fixed. While it may appear that you are not receiving experience, please note that our testing has confirmed that the experience is being added correctly. In order for the experience bar to update, however, you may need to move the cursor or click on another item. I think the issue is deeper as I will craft a bunch of armor and the exp bar will not progress, which is the known issues as stated above, but it will still not level my smithing skill line. I would expect that if it was purely a scripting issue that the skill would still trigger a level up with the appropriate amount of exp was gained.