I've been to Riverwood and completed everything necessary to advance the quest to Windrun, but once I reach the gate there's no guards waiting for me. Is there anything I've neglected to do or is this a glitch? Is anyone else having similar problems? Please help me out!

Anyone else having this problem?? I don't want to continue playing until I know if this is something that can be fixed.

do waiting for a few hours in the game and see if the guard shows up

I tried but this didn't work, other NPCs came out to the horse stable etc, but not the guard that lets you in.

Thank you for the suggestion though!

Having the same issue. No guards and a locked Whiterun. Such a frustrating game breaking glitch. Fingers crossed for a BIG patch soon.

I had this happen also.

I waited a few hours and they showed up.
Since you said that didn't work, I suggest leaving, sleeping for a day or two and then comming back.

I was having this exact same problem as well as a slew of other issues making the game near unplayable, but now the game plays flawlessly and I believe the solution that I used might work for you as well. What I did was uninstall the data the game installed on my hard drive. Not the 58 mb patch that was downloaded, the 3-5 gb block of data that was installed on my PS3. The game automatically re-installs it when you start it back up, but for me this simple action solved the problem you described in this post as well as fixing an issue that wouldn't allow me to enter the dungeon with the Golden Claw in it. Hope it works out for you.

This worked for me. Guards came out and everything. Thanks so much

HUGE help RocketBeard, I was having the exact problems you describe with whiterun and golden claw dungeon. Thanks for posting your fix!