Glitch that I have had twice starting recently on two different characters.

First, on one character's first visit to Winterhold the shopkeeper and her brother were standing where they argue but never acted out the scene and wouldn't move and go about their business.

Second, new character on the first visit to Whiterun, the preacher (Heimskr?) wasn't preaching which has never happened before.

Both characters were started through New Game option with all DLC installed and all patches obviously.

Just curious if this is a known bug and any known causes or fixes. I couldn't find anything. Thank you!

I had this happen months and months ago, and I had stopped playing Skyrim for a long time. When I logged back in recently and the game patched and updated, it all sorted itself out. But I definitely had the Winterhold issue you experienced, and then the scene in Windhelm with the nords harrassing the dark elf woman. Afterwards, they all just stood there forever.

It has cleared up.