When I place items into the display cases around the house they do not stay in them.

As soon as I leave the house and re-enter it, the items will lay on the floor below the
case or even a couple of feet away from it. Some of the items might be still (partially) in
the cases (some of them might poke out of the side, though the wood of the case)
but they are often missplaced inside the case and not arranged as how I left them.

It looks like some of the items even fly ot ouf the cases as soon as I enter the house,
since I often hear the sound of blades hitting the floor when I enter.

This is really annoying, since the only purpose of the cases is to hold and nicely display
your weapons/items. Something they clearly don't do right now.

I goggled around a little bit and this is what I've found:

The problem supposedly is, that Skyrim has troubles saving the exakt item-
locations if you just drop them to the floor and drag them into the cases.
Skyrim tend to move these objects back to the place where they rested on
the floor after you dropped them.

At least for the 360-version there is a work-around for this bug. I have the PC
version and wasn't able to test it by now.

The work-around is:

1. Drop the items you want to decorate on the floor near the display case, shelve etc.

2. Leave the current cell (in this case the house), save the game and reload it.

3. Go back into the house and drag/arrange the items as you want.

According to the source this works for most items in the game.

If you didn't just grab an item but accidentaly take it back to your inventory you have
to repeat the entire process.

Link to the source of the work-around:
http://www.gamespot.com/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/forum/house-decorating-guide-how-to-move-and-drag-items-to-customize-your-skyrim-home-61718366/

I just tested this work-around with the PC-version, and it is NOT working, at least
not for the weapons I tried. I used the following weapons and placed them one
at a time in the large display cases of the greenhouse :

Ebony Blade
Blade's Sword
Harkon's Sword
Dragonbane
Dragonbone Sword
Axe of Whiterun
Nightingale Sword
Iron Sword
Steel Sword
Ebony Greatsword

After following the work-around and re-entering the cell/house, the weapons
were not as I have left them. Some of them were laying on the floor, some were
partially sticking out of the case (through the wood or glass).

This is really annoying, expeciallly because it is a pain in the a** to arrange
these weapons in the first place, using the crappy grab/drag controls.

Partially sticking out of the case is a seperate bug, and often the display settings for that weapon are permanently ruined once that happens. Falling through the case even though you did the right thing and it should have stayed in the case is related, and again the display settings on that weapon are probably affected. You can reload a save game to restore your weapon, but that weapon is always going to do that no matter what display case you use, do not put them in a display case.

Harkon's sword fell through for me, on the Xbox 360, but like it's former owner it was a bit sneaky, it stayed in the case for a while before doing it.

You put the ebony sword in on an angle, and put nothing else in the case with it, it should stay, it will move around though trying to get out. When the house resets and the lid opens you will have to place it again most likely.

If your Axe of Whiterun is of orcish design, it might not go in a display case, a rack or on a plaque properly, if not find a table or shelf to put it on.

The Blades sword should have stayed in the case, unless you had previously warped it putting it in with Harkon's sword or the Ebony blade. You could try it on a weapon plaque and see if it displays right, if it does it should stay in a case with Dragonbane or just two or three Blades swords.

Dragonbane should stay put unless you had previously tried it with the Ebony Blade or Harkon's sword.

I also warped the display settings for Bolar's Oathblade putting it in with Harkon's sword, not sure if it would have stayed in the case if I had tried it by itself.

I have the Nightingale weapons on weapon plaques, I would suspect I did originally try them in a display case together and they misbehaved, but that was a long time ago.

I am not sure but probably most greatswords should go in on an angle, so probably not a suitable thing for a display case. I usually fill my display cases, so do not usually put greatswords in.

I had bad luck with displaying just about all the enchanted weapons we got for becoming thane in display cases. None of the orcish ones would go in racks, one small axe from Whiterun went on a weapons plaque one large axe, I think is from Falkreath sits on a table as it would display in nothing.

If you have managed to ruin most of your collection, you might do better to go back to a save game and try again.

Meh, that defenitely svcks, since I've done several quests in between my first decoration attempts
and now.

I think I will first try to remove the items in question from the game and re-adding them using
console commands. Maybe this will help to "reset" the item and if it does it is defenitely faster
than redoing a weeks worth of gaming process.

I will let you guys know if it works.

Thanks for your help, aussie500.

Being an Xbox 360 player I am well used to replaying large chunks of the game, although I did check Harkon's sword and the Oathblade on returning and both were still in the case, three times on entering the house I checked, on about the fourth visit the thing decided to fall through. Six odd hours down the drain. I hope your method works out for the PC players, would be nice to have a better method for at least some to fix the problem.

I also had some other perfectly normal enchanted blades do it to me, yet I have had some ebony enchanted weapons in a case for ages and they are happy. The QA testing of the weapons seems to have been very haphazard.

Auriel's bow and both lots of arrows will sit in a display case and be happy. Although you would do best to arrange the arrows with the fletching facing outward to the side of the case, they seem to take up more space than you can see and can move if they are touching the other arrows. You can put them right up close with the cases end to end, just turn one around so they fit together.

I have had the skyforge dagger, sword, battle axe and war axe in one case and they stayed put, but with four they tended to move slightly. I got tired of straightening them out and ended up taking the war axe out. I did not test the greatsword, would have but I ran out of display cases.

I also have the dragonbone bow, arrows and dagger in a display case without problems, never tested the others out. All the dragonbone weapons stay on a weapon rack just fine.

Even if we find a solution for this, it is still extreme frustrating in some way.

Not being able to display your items using furniture expecially made for that
purpose without creating a lot of problems or having to follow a precise chain
of steps to avoid these problems is really annoying.

Shure, decorating your house and displaying your items is not the main purpose
of the game, but by making an add-on, expecially designed to do exactly that,
you should be able to do it in a more or less easy way.

I mean just compare the grab/drag-system used in Skyrim to other games made
by Bethesda. The system used in Oblivion was good, and even the system used
in Fallout 3 or New Vegas was OK, compared to Skyrim.

They know how to do it, so why didn't they?


I know I may be a little sensitive about this, but little things like this can really annoy
me, expecially in an otherwise really good game, and expecially if the creator showed,
that they can do better.

I think if the players were to make up a list of what did not work with what for both weapons and armor and send it off to technical support probably they could easily fix the problem. It is just the matter of testing everything.

So far using console-commands for removing the questionable items from your
inventory and re-adding them was not succesful. It seems the game does not
"reset" the unique items, since tempered weapons are still tempered when I
re-add them.

For example if I remove "Blades Sword (Legendary)" from the game, and add
it again a little bit later, it stays "Legendary".

I still want to try if saving/reloading or even closing/restarting the entire game
has an influence on this.

Even though, it seems that the glitch I described only occurs to unique weapons
and only if you didn't place them using the workflow above. If you placed them
wrong once, they stay "bugged" even if you place them the correct way later
on in the game. I tried this with three unique weapons (Chillred, Auriels Bow and
Mace of Molag Bal) of which I was shure to never have them used in display-
cases and weapon racks before, and they worked fine.

Dispay cases don't work at all for me. I cannot put anything in them, there is no option, they just open and close. Anyone else have that problem?

That is normal, since they are intended for displaying anything, not only weapons.

To display something you have to drop it on the floor and than drag it into the
case (which is a pain in the a** due to the crappy grab/drag-system)

Not all weapons fit in all cases, some fit in no cases, you can use racks,
plaques or put them on a table, or balancing on a wall

what you listed seems to fit the heavy duty list 8D

At least they improved the physic
I managed to place a jug of milk on a small wall shelf !!
Plenty of wine bottles and beer bottle on cupboard shelves

sometime item can be thrown out if you didn't build a chest that's still there but invisible for collision purpose
(had it happen to a cheese that kept falling in the storage room)
(when I built the chest I went ... OMG ... exactly where the cheese was .. no wonder it kept falling)

hint: move items slowly, go in sneak mode

at least your game don't crash, I was nearly done and then ... crash ...
I'm trying to backtrack to a point that won't crash

Bit disappointed the PC fix for the bugged weapons did not work, because a lot of people would have ruined their collection using the display cases and never realised it. Always save before you try them in the display case seems the only way to restore them.

Use mannicans, racks and plaques for weapons. The only thing that is a weapon I would put in there is daggars. I put books, soul gems or other items in display cases. The Hearthfire house gives you a lot of mannicans, racks and plaques for weaspons. Even in Oblivion I lost weapons in display cases or they would not even stay in the display cases.

At least if we had a list of what weapons we could put in them safely, we could actually use the display cases better, I have had to replay so many things because of ruined weapons do to the glitch, I am almost unwilling to put any enchanted weapon in them now. And one character has a great collection I would like to put on display in groups, assuming he ever gets enough houses. They fix the bugs with the display cases, some extra large ones for greatswords and oversized bows would be nice, so we can attempt to squeeze the entire group in the case.
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j215/aussie500/Skyrim/Brweapons01.jpg

I am not able to use any display case in any of my houses.
I can not even put weapons in there... just by dropping them and manually dumping them in the cases... but then the physics went crazy if I reload.

I never saw the fly out of the display box bug, so pc may be safer for that
the dagger display boxes work perfectly

the large display boxes seem to work best for bows
the shield plaque work best with 2 great swords or 2 warhammer
but the shield plaque on the bedrooms is blocked by the wall and won't work properly
big two handed weapons work best on the single weapon racks in the entrance
normal one handed weapons and bows work well in the multi-racks

some big two handed weapons don't work well in the multi racks because they block the next rack
(battle axes especialy)

*Use mannicans, racks and plaques for weapons*

can you put weapons on maniquins ?
pretty sure I tried that when I got skyrim and it didn't work
is it new for hearthfires ?

*At least if we had a list of what weapons we could put in them safely, we could actually use the display cases better*

most one handed weapons, especially those that don't work well in racks (orcish swords)
and bows

most two handed weapons (including battle aze) don't work well
long weapons (swords) may have trouble

war axes look fine, bows, daggers, maces
I think some one handed swords had problems

I wouldn't try two handed
I spent an hour placing an orcish warhammer (verry buggy weapon)
and I succeeded but it looked verry bad so I removed it

LOL

nice display case with the weapon collection !
how much time did it take ?

by the way I think the bugs are a combo of bad bounding boxes
on both the display cases and the weapons
because trying to prop that orcish warhammer against a wall was ... really weird
it was standing in thin air as if an invisble shaft extended from it for an extra 2 feet
that may explain why it could not go in the display case

Getting the weapons straight in the display case did not take that much time, getting them to stay still on reloading took ages, the arrangement changed around a few times before that one was found to work.

is that weapons flying out of the case only on xbox360 ?
I never had happen on my pc (my pc is about 2 years old now, strong enought for ultra settings)

I was surprised at that weapon collection because that's a steel battleaxe,
and it cause glitches in the weapon rack (hide nearby rack, making them unusable)
so I thought such a large weapon would have issues like my orcish warhammer

how do you manage to place them at exact angle like that
do you use a second weapon to push the first one ?
I did that with iron ingots in the cellar

I don't find the dispay cases easy to use

is this one in the armory or entrance hall ?

I'll have to try doing something like that 8D
The closest I got is a case filled with potions of all sorts, including falmer elixir
and phantom filter (from my first dungeon near irvastead)

Sometime on reload some of my stuff do move, especially large piles of books not properly alligned
but it's odd, seems random, doesn't always do it

biggest anoyance is respawning armors
I wanted to switch my fur armor manikin for nordic steel armor
but the fur gloves keep popping back
that's after I realized that choosing the right armors
would allow me to sort weapons by type in the cupboard under the manikin

If you want to put large weapons in the weapon racks put them on the ends, put something smaller in the rack next to it first, then put the large weapon in the end rack. Some you can put them in a middle one as well after you have your smaller weapons in place. When you take the weapons out, you might need to reload the area to get your weapon rack to work again, but that is a small price to pay for putting your best on display.

It is a bit harder to work with the entryway display case since it is not on an angle, and my characters always seem so short. The skyforge steel weapons are in an armory display case, I took the flowers out last night, decided they were a bit much. Since I do not trust the display cases with my enchanted weapon collections I was playing around with stuffing a collection of Dwarven swords in one last night, definitely got too greedy but I got them in there. Not going to get any points for neatness though. I needed the help of a little gemstone to get them straightened out. These are in the upper mainhall display case.
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j215/aussie500/Skyrim/Dwarvenblades01.jpg
The only Dwarven dagger I had in that house was an enchanted one that had never been in a big display case, I was not willing to go to all the trouble of getting it in there only to have it ruined and have to reload a save game. But I will eventually bring a normal one back and try and get it in the top. I have the matching bow set downstairs in the enchanting tower.
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j215/aussie500/Skyrim/Dwarvenbows.jpg

I do not really recall seeing flying weapons, floating weapons if they were rejected, weapons under the case if they were ruined or weapons back where they started if I forgot to go out the door first after dropping them. The Dwarven swords were flying all over the place last night, but that was me plucking them out of the display case and dropping them all over the floor. Vilkas standing there the entire time annoying me with his comments and getting in the way did not help.

Yes they don't work and here we go again. Does a modder fix the bug or does Beth fix the bug? I put stuff in the case the fall out of case or come back in my inventory! LOL! I am scared to even use them. All other houses except the hearthfire houses the case work but not with hearthfire houses.

They work on exactly the same things you could always get to stay in the display cases, and the same things that fall through all cases, or go floating off somewhere, still do it, the display cases themselves are the same, they just lost the hand holding given with the easy activation option. And if modders have to add an activation option because they cannot be bothered using manual grab, that is their problem not Bethesda's. There are always going to be PC users who cannot play the game without cheats and things to make the game easier for them. Some PC users not being able to put an item in a display case would be no surprise to me.

I am not having any problems with the cases. I dont know what happened earlier but it must have been me! I put weapons in four cases and no problems. It is just hard to put them in sometimes but that is all.

It would be easier to put the weapons in the cases if they all had a fixed grip, same with trying to put staves in a basket, the ones with a fixed grip you cam line up on the wall and pop them in, the ones that hang upside down when you pick them up and wave all over the place as you move, you have no chance of getting them in the basket the right way up.

You cannot just use quick save and quick load. You must dump the items, leave the cell, save using the menu, quit to menu/desktop, then launch the game and reload again. Apparently quick save doesn't work.