I was doing all the city influence quests to become leader of the thieves guild. When Delvin gave me the information for the quest Summerset Shadows, the first thing you had to do was speak to Torsten Cruel-Sea in Windhelm. I look on my map and there are two objective points on the map...this was where I became confused. One point was in Windhelm while the other was just to the west of Windhelm. Both objective points led to nowhere and now I can't find Torsten anywhere, which means I can't become the guild leader. Has anyone enccountered this problem? And is this quest permanently broke for me?

I just did this last night. Torsten is in his farm east of Windhelm. He can be found there, at the Cruel-Sea house in Windhelm and at the local tavern at different times of the day during the quest.

If you have two active objectives, perhaps you also have a normal Thieves Guild job active at Windhelm at the same time and you didn't realize.

I've check these three locations and still no sign of Torsten. And Summerset Shadows is the only active quest. I've checked Candlehearth Hall, Hollyfrost Farm, around his house. and even broke into his house! I'm just really frustrated at this point.

That's so bizarre. Where does the quest arrow lead you to? Is there any arrow at all?

The quest arrow leads me inside Windhelm...then when i follow the quest arrow in the city it does nothing, because the quest arrow is still located west of windhelm. I gave up...im just about to start a new character and just lose 80 hours of gameplay

What do you mean is still located west of Windhelm? So you follow the arrow inside the city, and once inside, it points at somewhere else? Have you tried just going to Summerset Shadows' lair directly and see what happens? It's a cave west of Riften Windhelm and possibly where the arrow is pointing at.

Do you know if Torsten is alive in your game? Because in mine he literally just died as I write this killed by a dragon, and maybe that's causing the confusion.

EDIT: It's a cave west of Windhelm, sorry. That was a typo. So many weird things happen around Riften in my game that it's all I think about lately...

he might have died in my game. but the arrow leads to no cave though. ill look into it

Yet another Thieves Guild bug.
The team at Bethesda responsible for testing this part of the game really needs to be fired. Do a search in the Hardware/Software Issues section for “Thieves Guild” as see how many results you get.
When is Bethesda going to fix this mess of a quest line?
Their solution so far has been to put some extra Thieves armor lying around the Cistern in 1.4.
Fix This Already!

this was the first bug i encountered in the game. if torsten did die by a dragon, the Bethesda teams needs to fix it so that quest-giving characters can't be killed. there are so many dragons that fly around that im suprised more people don't complain about it.

I think I found the problem you have. From the Elder Scrolls wikia:

On map, Torsten Cruel-Sea's location can sometimes be marked somewhere other than where he actually is located.

• One such location is just to the west of Windhelm, around the base of the mountain. At the same time, the quest arrow at the top of the screen will tell you to enter Windhelm. After entering, arrow shows that Torsten is inside Windhelm but past the city walls to the west.
  
• 360 He can also be marked south of Hlaalu Farm yet when arriving there, it will then switch to within Windhelm city walls.
  
• This is not a bug, he wanders around the areas of Windhelm. So during the time that has passed by during fast travel he might have just wandered elsewhere.

If this is right, he might still be walking around in one of the locations I mentioned. If he was killed by a dragon, you should've noticed. Dragon attacks near a city are not events one can easily ignore.

i saw this a few days ago. Once i read this i kept looking and still couldnt find him....and yes this is the exact problem im having. thanks for the help though...i really appreciate it. i started a new game and i am actually kind of glad i did. i get to do it all over again

im having the same problem he just disappeared ..!