Just started the Diplomatic Immunity quest and the journal says to meet to "Malborn" in the Winking Skeever. When I get there there is no Malborn. Not in sight. Just the usual slack-jawed gawkers who walk about in their aimless patterns.

I open up the console and type "player.placeatme 00085300" and I get a naked Malborn who only says "Hmm?" when I try to initiate dialog. Furthermore there is no quest marker on the map or on my compass. I'm just told to go the Winking Skeever by Delphine and the journal. Even Clairvoyance doesn't work. What does it say when I use Clairvoyance? No Quest Active.

No Quest Active. But that's wrong you ******* ******. The quest is in my journal but as far as the game is concerned there is no quest and there is no Malborn. He does not exist in my game. He is a non-entity. There is nothing.

To matters even worse nobody else seems to be having this problem. I've loaded up previous saves and started new characters to see if this was just a corrupted save but guess what the outcome of that was? Malborn still wasn't there.

For the love of Christ what is going on here Bethesda? Why would you sell me this?


Anyway would anyone have any idea as to how I could remedy this? It seems like this is a problem specifically with my copy though I have no idea how that could be.

If all else fails you can just complete the quest the easy way . . .

"On the PC, it is possible to use the console to advance through the quest by entering setstage MQ201 stage, where stage is the number of the stage you wish to complete. It is not possible to un-complete (i.e. go back) quest stages."

Here's the address to the unofficial elder scrolls page where I found that info . . .

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Diplomatic_Immunity

This is what you would enter after pressing the tilde key . . .

player.setstage MQ201 250

Then press Enter, then press the tilde key again, done.

That should complete the quest. No, not as fun as actually doing the quest, but it will clear it. Like I said, if all else fails.

Yeah I was hoping it wouldn't come to that but that's what I'll have to do for the time being.

I'm still wondering what is the cause of this problem. Nobody else seems to have this issue.

Bumping for a proper solution or at least some indication of what is wrong with this game.

Deleted my preferences, uninstalled Skyrim and then reinstalled it. He's still not there. Not only did Bethesda sell me a bugged game but they sold me a game that I could not complete. I've yet to hear from anybody about this.

bump

Interesting, seems to be similar to my problem with the winterhold quest line: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1311530-good-intentions-quaranir-does-not-show-up/page__view__findpost__p__19723115

I can't see why he'd be bugged in your game because I didn't notice a glitch there, he was waiting for me in the bar. Do you have any mods installed?

If Malborn is gone in your save file, then he is gone. A patch won't bring him back. Quit looking for him.

Now, 1.3 was supposed to fix the radiant part of the game where a new NPC picks up the task of moving you along the quest. So, try talking to other involved parties and see what they say.

Question: Does Malborn spawn into the game when "Diplomatic Immunity" starts or is he always present in the game from the beginning? Either way he's not there when I begin the quest and he's not there when I generate him via console command.

Not at the moment but I did have True Darker Dungeons installed at the time.

player.placeatme almost never works for quest NPCs as they have scripts attached to them which are not properly attached if you use this command. Furthermore if he DID exist in your game, just not at the right spot or in "limbo", having 2 of him could cause additional problems.

The correct way to find out if a NPC exists anywhere in your game is:

prid referenceidmoveto player

Or alternatively, just use "player.moveto referenceid" to move to the NPC (in this case, 00033f46). Either command should error if the NPC doesn't exist for some weird reason.
Quests with no quest marker cannot be used with Clairvoyance; it gives this rather ambiguous error. I'd say more of a design oversight that the error is so unhelpful.

Edit: Some people are saying quest NPCs that aren't appearing properly or aren't moving / reacting seem to get "reset" into the right mode if you wait long enough, as it just let the game idle in realtime. Shouldn't take longer than 30 minutes in the real world. This is in case the above method fails.

Well thanks. I'll try that the next opportunity that I get.

I finally found him using player.moveto "00033f46". He's in the Thalmor Embassy instead of the Skeever. What he's doing there I haven't the foggiest idea. Perhaps I need to wait some time like generalnmx had said?

I do owe Bethesda an apology for the content of my initial post. I thought they had fudged this over big time but it seems the AI is just a little sketchy in this case.

Anyway I appreciate the help. Will wait and see if he is triggered as intended.

Sorry to bump but I have the same bug, Malborn is in the embassy. I reached him by using the tcl code. His ref number doesn't work outside of the embassy, its weird. I get an error if i try to move him to the skeever. Its like he only exists inside the embassy. Any ideas?

I remember doing this quest, aren't you suppose to meet him at a certain time? Did you listen to the convo you have with Delphine? I only remember this because I did another quest while waiing for him to arrive. He is at work, so he isnt just going to be there. If you listen to what he's doing for you guys as related to the quest when your told to meet up with him it's kind of obvious he won't just be sitting around waiting. It is kind of messed the journal is t more specific though.

Actually, that's exactly what he does. He'll be sitting at a table drinking out of an empty cup(like everyone else).

All I had to do was walk in and...oh look...there he is. I sit down and he starts explaining the plan.

I've done the quest, but could have sworn I had to meet him at a specific time, or between a specific time. I could be wrong, but the fact that people have npc "missing" but find "waiting" a while brings "missing" npc back seems like they just got their earlyand that the "missing" npc was doing what they are suppose to do. They player just wasn't listening. But maybe two people just have a bugged guy who is where he should be most of the time, but just not teleported to the skeever at the needed time.

Maybe you walked in between x-y, and x-y was the appointed time? Then again, I could be way off and am confusing another quest with this one. Though I know what one this is and have done it(you give him your stuff for later etc etc).

According to the http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Diplomatic_Immunity (spoilers), there is no specific time. All you have to do is meet him.

Too bad for them then huh? If I was right they just needed to wait. Since I'm not these two are very unlucky.

All we can do if hope they find a solution. I have yet to run to any game-breaking bug, however, I did experience a tiny bug...

I am unlucky. I used a tool skyrim npc editor and find out there are 2 Malborns. One is called mq210 fake. Can someone find out the ref number of the Malborn sitting at the skeever? Use the ~ key and click on him. If its 00033f46 then I'm beat. I think it may be the quest and not him that is bugged. The game may think I did this quest already even though its active in my journal. Last night I saw Vuljonaak being resurrected and that is not supposed to happen until after DM. Shoot me.

Bump, help?