Which is why I won't take that route. I already had to reset my hqm once fairly early on because of a glitch that erased my reputation while still leaving the quests completed. This how I know about some of the quests that are no longer appearing for me. And this is in all probability why I seem to be having difficulties now. I can only hope some of these quests do not effect too many of the others. I am in too deep and refuse to start over again if something else goes horribly horribly wrong.
To get back to the original question (or part of it) I checked the requirements for the the Alchemy Catalyst and the only requirements it has are to craft 1 gold ingot and a blaze rod. If it does not show up afterwards it is most likely a hidden quest that becomes visible after crafting the item. If you have one Catalyst already you probably will need to craft it again for hqm to detect it. Which is a thing you might have to do with all quests that are defined as crafting tasks.