I completed the Thieves Guild main questline today, returning the skeleton key to the Sepulcher and all that. At the end, Karliah says that she'll hang out at Nightingale Hall and that there will be a portal between said Hall and Twilight Sepulcher for easy travel. However, upon arriving back at Nightingale Hall, there is no such portal nor do I see Karliah around. I also fast traveled back to Twilight Sepulcher and there's no portal to Nightingale Hall there either (only the one into the Sepulcher sanctum).

Is this a known glitch or did I misunderstand something?

There isn't one. I think Nocturnal says if in need, so I doubt it will ever be there unless there is a dlc to cover TG or Nightingale story further. One thing I can't work out is why Karliah doesn't settle in the Nightingale Hall. This is the bug.

It's one in a long list of things that Bethesda messed up on in Skyrim.

It's redeemed by the fact that it is one of the only good faction questlines.

She does settle there after you do all the radient quests to become guildmaster. Or at least did for me, also I can pick my nightingale buff from the hideout.

Ah, right then, guess it was an oversight on Bethesda's part (I just looked it up to be sure I wasn't remembering it wrong - Karliah does state that there is going to be a portal between nightingale hall and sepulcher).


Agreed, this questline was infinitely better than the Companions and College of Winterhold which I did on my other char. It actually felt rewarding to get to the point where you receive nightingale armor


Apparently the whole guildmaster/karliah/nightingale thing is quite glitchy. The uesp site says that it's advised to do the Devlin/Vex quests before finishing the main Thieves Guild arc or it can cause problems such as this one. So I'm going to do those radiant quests now and see where that gets me - hopefully if it does mess up the stage can be fixed by a console command.

I've done between 35-45 Small Jobs and all Special Jobs but when I complete Darkness Returns and Under New Management... I get the same thing. Karliah travels back to the last room of Snow Veil Sanctum and talks to you as if she's in Nightingale Hall. The Hall itself is never upgraded to include a portal, or in any other way. Brynjolf goes back to wearing Thieves Guild Armour and is always busy, although that might be intentional (if so, it's a pity).

I don't think it's related, but Delvin refuses to talk the Eyes of the Falmer too.

I would suggest doing the Thieves Guild things before doing the Civil War line. Those two tend to clash.

I haven't started the Civil War line either. I'm really not sure what the cause is...

That's messed up. I just talked to Brynjolf and I'm actually getting the same thing ("I'm too busy..")

Is there any fix for this?

false, worst questline i've played so far and im a stealth character sadly :/ but the companions, boy did they cheer me up!

If there is, I don't know it. I'd really like to see what the upgraded Nightingale Hall looks like.


No accounting for taste, I suppose. The Thieves Guild is my favourite storyline in the game and nets you some really nice rewards too. I wish they weren't leveled though, since that put me off joining until I'd put over 100 hours in and was a high enough level to get the best shinies. I really wish the questline wasn't so buggy too...

A "setStage TGLeadership 0" in console supposedly can fix it. I'm currently doing the Delvin/Vex quests to get to the part where I'm supposed to become Guild Master, I'll see then what happens and if needed try the fix.

Unfortunately, I'm playing the 360 version. If anyone can come up with some kind of fix for non-PC users, I'd be much obliged. I'm rather close to just buying a 360 controller adapter for Windows and getting the game on PC.

That would be your best bet. Not only to use the console to work around glitches, but also for the Unofficial Patches that take care of bugs Bethesda doesn't get around to fixing (and for their last few games, that's a lot).

Has anyone thought that maybe it's because of the Unofficial Patches that Bethesda doesn't fix its games?

No. I don't know where this idea comes from. They do fix their games. Some issues are just resolved sooner than others.

And hundreds of other issues are never resolved by Bethesda and fixed by unofficial patches. I would say that it's safe to assume that Bethesda never gets around to fixing them because they know that others will.

Or they don't have time to fix them because they're working on DLC, other games and living their own lives. They fix the big issues. They'll fix Delvin's Litany of Larceny, Nightingale Hall and Karliah's fondness for Snow Veil Sanctum. The idea that they deliberately hold off on fixing a number of smaller irritants because they know others will step up and fix them is laughable, especially considering the large console following they have now.

Update: I went back to Twilight Sepulcher to swap for a new power today, and was confronted with an inactive inner sanctum. What I mean by this is that the state of the place is like how it is prior to turning the skeleton key in, except you the script functions are still in place - i can receive the buffs and use the portals, but the fountain-like thingy isn't raised and there's no portal effects. I googled this and it's related to the Karliah/Nightingale Hall bug - The hall never gets upgraded, Karliah goes back to Snow Veil Sanctum, Brynjolf always tells you he's busy and the Twilight Sepulcher inner sanctum is reverted to its prior state.

Still need to finish the "restoring the thieves guild" side-quest so I can see if the console command resolves this.

Alright, I did all the special quests and successfully became Guild Master of the Thieves Guild, thus the bug where Brynjolf does not talk to you didn't occur for me luckily. Karliah attended the ceremony and stood around the cistern after it was completed.

After receiving my guild master armor, however, Karliah disappeared from the cistern again. I went to Nightingale Hall and nope: the place is still in its usual shoddy state and Karliah is nowhere to be found. I teleported to her and indeed, I was back in Snow Veil Sanctum. Brynjolf also went back to his "I'm too busy to talk right now" cycle.

I tried the console command setStage TGLeadership 0 and now I could talk to Brynjolf again - however this time pretty much all other TG npc's were bugged, always talking to me as if I had just been promoted and not offering any dialogue options. This remained that way even after a wait and fast-traveling to Markarth and back, so I had to revert.

Looks like there is truly no solid fix for this, even on PC Patch 1.4 doesn't state anything about this either which kind of svcks. But luckily it already has an entry in the Unofficial Patch buglist.

Don't suppose anyone has worked out a fix for this on the 360 version?

This is exactly what I have right now. What a bummer.

Out of curiosity do you have to complete the "No Stone Unturned" quest before becoming guildmaster?

I've only read OP so this is what I know cause I've been there: there won't be a portal between Nightingale hall and the Sepulcher or whatever, Karliah won't move there and Byrnjolf will wear the old TG armor if you don't complete all the side missions from Delvin and Vex before returning the Skeleton Key to Ebonmere thus ending the quest.

My chance at fixing this was finding a quick save just before I returned the key into that slot, and exiting with the "tcl" command from there and starting the TG side missions. I reloaded to that save just after finishing the quest and going to check NH and TG and saw these broken feats. I'm not done with the side missions yet, but I hope this will fix the quest , and when they end I'll go to the TS and reset the quest from where you need to talk to Galus's ghost...

The same thing happens no matter when you do the Civil War quest line. I myself completed the TG quests and even found all of Stones of Barenziah before starting the Civil War questline. I think it is just a bug period. Just another thing to be ignored while playing the game and trying to stay immersed in the game.