Does that mean we will have to start more new characters for the fixes to work?

Unfortunately it seems so. I could never get "blood on the ice" to trigger myself. The victim that is supposed to be found dead at the crime scene is Suzanne the wicked. She is alive and well in my game and lording it up in candlehearth hall. After 215 hours of gameplay and numerous visits to windhelm, the quest has failed to trigger. I was made thane of windhelm after completing the Storm Cloak civil war quest line and was told to speak to Jorlief about buying a house but he tells me that the house is unavailable due to recent unpleasant events. I cant pick the lock to Hjerm and Tova shatter-shield (whom your supposed to claim the key from once the quest starts) has committed suicide due to me killing her daughter during a dark brotherhood quest. Must add here that I killed her daughter very late on in my game and had been to windhelm numerous times before hand. The quest has never worked for me. Tried all theories suggested on the web but none have worked.
I did start a new game just to see if that was the only way to get the quest to trigger and after my 3rd visit to windhelm the quest did trigger. So it does seem that the only way to get the updates to work properly is to start a new game, which kinda blows. I do hope that bethesda manage a work-around at some point though.

I have the exact same problem...200+ hours of play, everything else is completed (with some minor exceptions). After a fresh start, the quest triggered no problems. However, I do have a life outside gaming so, I'll be darned if I am going to use another 200+ hours on a "new save". I want that house on my main character. Not happy! sort it out!

After the new patch I started a new game and got the blood on ice to start now I can not get jorlief to assist me in the investigation.

If only they could make a patch that would fix the quest if you were some one that already did the dark brotherhood. I would like to be able to start the quest without starting from scratch with a new character. Windhelm was the last place I got around to doing quests for with my 3 characters. I've already done all of the main story, each guild, the dark brotherhood (of course), a majority of the deadric, and the civil war (with each). I decided to buy all of the houses with my main when I discovered this unfortunate event. Now It'll just sit there forever mocking me no matter which character I load.

that'd be great looking forward to it, still have my guy that the quest wont fire off on for nothing set aside just for testing it in later patches he's got multiple bits in it that stopped the quest from going so its a good test guy for it

I did the Civil War Quest and found that the first part of Blood On The Ice was already done and the suspect was in jail, I talked to him and triggered part 2.

I've had no such luck. Susanna the wicked is the victim supposed to be found at the crime scene. She is still alive in my game and Wuunferth the Unliving - whom your supposed to accuse first I think- is wandering about the palace of the kings. Bizarrely enough, I cant buy anything from from Wuunferth. When I try speaking to him the only dialogue option I get is to train in destruction. Are we not supposed to be able to buy and sell items to court Mages? I also checked the jail on the off-chance but there's no-one being held in the barracks. This quest is having none of it.....