in riften you have to speak to esberen - for those who know the quest, once convincing him to open the door down in riften - he doesnt do it, it sais you completed that part of the quest and to speak to him but the door will not open - thoughts? its the conrnered rat quest

i follwede the manual on how to get him to open the door but he shuts the eye slit and the game sais tyou complete the quest now talk to him

For me the game didn't pause on me but it seemed like he waited about 5 seconds before talking about how he was working on getting the locks open. Not long at all, just long enough for me to panic that progress was stuck. But he got on with it and then opened the door for me .... You didn't back out or anything at that point, did you?

As above said; Esbern takes about 20-30 seconds to actually open the door because its heavily locked and bolted.