I've run into the particularly nasty issue of the "A Cornered Rat" main quest not starting. I go to Delphine to wrap up "Diplomatic Immunity," I get all of her dialogue about Esbern and tracking him down, "Diplomatic Immunity" completes, and then that's it. "A Cornered Rat" quest just never starts. Brynjolf gives no dialogue. Going straight to Esbern just gets me a "Go away! I'm not opening this door!"

This is not the Esbern missing dialogue bug! I unpacked the .BSA to prevent that long before this quest started.

I've tried setstage MQ202 (the "Cornered Rat" quest ID) with just about every possible value, but the quest doesn't get added and Esbern's reaction does not change. The only solution I've seen that works is using setstage MQ203 5, which starts "Alduin's Wall" (the next quest) and warps everyone (including me) to the blood seal at the Blades' temple. There are a couple of problems with this solution, though:

1. It skips everything from the end of Diplomatic Immunity to that point in the temple. I can watch youtube videos to get all the relevant dialogue, though the encounters with the Thalmor in the Ratway are skipped.

2. Esbern is stuck in his "Go away!" mode. Even after we find Alduin's Wall and Delphine and Esbern both go start going about their business in the temple, I cannot speak to Esbern. He keeps reacting as if he's on the other side of the door in the Ratway refusing me entry. This bars me from his radiant quests (slaying dragons, recovering scales and bones for the Infusion). I'm not sure what kinds of problems it's going to cause down the line, but I imagine I'm also locked out of the optional Parthurnaax quest because of this. If there's dialogue that's essential to continuing the Main Quest, I may end up stuck or having to skip content again ...

Skipping "A Cornered Rat" I can live with. I'd really like a way to fix Esbern's dialogue, though, so I can finally put this problem behind me. There's probably a check for the stage of MQ202 in his dialogue, but no matter what I do, I cannot get that quest past stage 0. If I enter, say, setstage MQ202 180, then getstage MQ202, it still says 0. It's as if there's a script stuck in a loop that keeps rolling the quest back to 0.

Without the Construction Kit, there's probably not much hope of an answer to this, but does anyone who knows the console commands well have any ideas?

Try selecting him end typing "disable" and then "enable".

Only thing left that could work :/

I have the esbern voice fix, I downloaded it from Nexus, it should still be on there that fixed is dialogue for me.

If not I can rapid share it to your email..

Ah I read your post again sorry, I used this voice fix I've got and the quest worked fine as well as all of his dialouge? I had no other problems like that either after using it it, sorry if it isn't what you need just from my experience.

I have the exact problem and using the command promt also does nothing to fix it. I haven't wanted to use setstage mq203... Like you, I anticipate problems down the road. I'm hoping for a patch. Obviously this quest is broken for some of us. Not everyone has this problem. Why? Who knows. I even wrote to Bethesda about it. They said that I should wait for the patch and, in the meantime, check the forum for possible solutions.

Cornered Rat is essential for the main quest. Oh well. Bummers R Us.

Good luck Kosh. If I find a solution, I'll post here.

bump. dang it!

I have the XBOX 360 version. This is the exact problem I am also experiencing.