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SPOILER INFO
I will describe a main quest bug and a fix for it. In order to do so, I will have to reveal some surprising information about something you might be greatly intrigued by in the early stage of your game. I am sure you don't want it spoiled for you. This means you shouldn't read this article unless the main quest in your game is actually broken.
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WHAT'S THE BUG?
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The bug I am talking about here can occur when the quest "A Cornered Rat" tells you to talk to a man behind a closed door, but he keeps telling you to go away, thus making it impossible for you to proceed with the main quest.
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BACKGROUND (just in case you are interested)
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Unsurprisingly, Esbern is uncommunivative when you just happen to find his room without doing that Delphine job first. That is only to be expected. However, even after I had done the prerequisite quests and was actually told to go to that location and talk to Esbern, he was still defensive and unfriendly. I just couldn't discuss what I was supposed to discuss with him. I even tried to move the quest forward stage by stage with the console. It didn't help.
I searched for information and found out that this bug occurs when you kill a certain person in the Ratway inn before talking to Esbern. There was no way of knowing that that person mustn't get killed, and indeed I still have no idea what the connection between him and the main quest could possibly be (even though I am sure it's been written about somewhere). What's important at this point is that forum articles suggested that the death of that person would render the main quest irreparably broken.
Of course I tried to resurrect that person. It didn't change anything. As I had killed him dozens of hours ago, returning to an earlier save was out of the question. So I just accepted that the main quest would be impossible for me to complete, and continued to find other things to do.
Much later did I accidentally read another article about that very bug, and there were a number of console commands suggested, that might help one get around the bug after all. So I went to that door in my game once again and tried those suggestions one after another.
It worked. I was indeed able to repair the main quest. The death of that thief had not broken the main quest beyond repair after all.
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HOW TO FIX THE BUG
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There are two solutions between which you can choose:
A. Enter the console command
setstage MQ203 5
This teleported me to a large cave. Also there were Esbern (still telling me off in no uncertain terms) and Delphine who had become my temporary follower. Apparently the game had jumped into the quest "Alduin's Wall" (that'll be the human-language name of MQ203), skipping the Riverwood part.
B. Enter the console command
CompleteQuest MQ202
You will be told that the quest “A Cornered Rat” has been completed, but there is no next quest and Esbern still won't communicate with you. Don't be discouraged. Just go to the Riverwood inn. Stand near Delphine and enter the commands
prid 19dfd
moveto player
When I did that, Esbern was teleported to us, he and Delphine began a conversation and soon the quest “Alduin's Wall” started as normal. Even Esbern talked to me without hostility.
I prefer the second solution, but they both seem to result in essentially the same.
[originally published 2018-04-01]
