Okay, so I've only noticed this with two NPCs so far, but I've seen other people online talking about it with various NPCs.

Recently, I've noticed that Carlotta Valentia and her daughter never move from the stall Carlotta works at in Whiterun. All day and all night, they stand there. This is not the case on the PS3 or 360 versions of the game, not yet anyway. I've only come across it on the PC. They no longer comment when I get near them, but Carlotta will still sale items to me if I interact with here. Her daughter won't speak to me at all.

Is there any way to fix this in the console, maybe?

I had this happening after a certain quest...don't want to give out spoiler though, since I don't know if you've done that.
However, I saw this reported on the Unofficial Skyrim patch buglist, and one of the users there mentioned that if you...well...hurt them they will start moving.

I tried with resetAI, disable/enable, bumping into them, moveto...everything...sadly only assaulting poor Mila did the trick. They immediately returned to their normal routines.

I've just discovered that too, lorelai, and was coming back to report it. I used Unrelenting Force on them, and it broke their land lock. I had to pay a 40 bounty, but at least it got their AI going again. It also triggered another quest, it seems. Got a letter from a courier as a result of assaulting Carlotta.

Out of interest, is the quest you're referring to part of the main storyline? If not, what quest is it?

I've got the Unofficial Skyrim Patch installed, but I've been considering removing it until it's been updated to reflect the 1.6 path. I'm afraid they'll conflict when it comes out.

This started happening to me as well within the last few days. NPCs like the female Orc in the prison during the markarth conspiracy quest wouldn't budge at all. I disabled all mods, tried ealier saves and everything. I made a new character and tried the quest again with the same mods loaded and it worked. So i stayed with that character, but then when you meet Mercer Frey for the first time to join the thieves guild, he wouldn't talk to me to progress the quest.

So I have no idea whats going on. The game is pretty much unplayable in this state.

I'm currently playing without the beta updates.

@Timedye, yeah, 40 bounty was what I got too, and I had that quest triggered.
I noticed their routine braking after a certain quest in the Civil War. It's pretty spoiler-ish,


I'm running with the USkP and the Beta and I haven't seen any conflicts as of yet.

@ Jinxxed0, your issue seems a bit more complex. I never had trouble with NPC's that had triggered dialogue. Maybe try a clean new game without any mods to see if you still get that? But be careful that for some mods that are more complex, it's not enough to have them disabled in the launcher. For example, I have a mod that I have to do a StopQuest and remove all files in order to get a clean save. Check the mods' readme/description and see what they say about unistalling/disabling.

I didn't read your spoilers, because I haven't started the Civil War yet, so I guess it's not a quest-specific bug. I wonder what's causing it? This is the first time I've noticed it, and I haven't installed the 1.6 beta, so that's not what's doing it.

Still, at least it only appears to take a light (albeit damaging) nudge to get them going again.

I've already done this. I've spent literally over 15 hours uninstalling and reinstalling the game (deleting everything like mods and even all my saves just to start completely fresh). The only mods I've been using in the first place were armor and body replacing mods. The problem still comes up.


I haven't done anything with the civil war or the main quest in any of the playthroughs with these bugs I'm experiencing. And hitting the NPCs doesn't seem to help when ever I encounter it. although, I never started the quest you refer to. It's looking like I should just quit skyrim for another 6 months to wait for bugs to be fixed again. Because now theres this game breaking bug on top of the others they still wont fix. I'm thinking people haven't come across these bugs yet because not that many people who go to these forums (or the nexus) are playing these specific quests. At one point I even have a bug where the NPC stormcloak says "For the Love of Talos I haven't got all morning" would say that and then just stand there and so would all the other NPCs. And the game stayed that way until I had to start the game over.

Also during the markarth conspiracy quest when you walk into the old guy's house and his maid is standing at the door, she's suppose to walk up to you and start the conversation I beleive, but she doesn't. there are about 3 other cases like this through out the game, but I'm not sure of the NPC names or quest names. I was only able to do them because I could talk to the NPC when they failed to start the dialog.

All these bugs happened while I was using nothing but the body and clothing/armor replacers. And the Markarth conspiracy and thieves guild quest bugs seemed to happen 50% of the time when I did them without mods at all (with a completely new game).

But yeah, I think I'll just wait for Beth to finish this or maybe someone will make a mod to fix it once more people start running into it. And reporting it.

I see. Have you tried running the game on a pure Vanilla install? You said you made a new character, and tried the quest again but with mods loaded. Maybe try a pure Vanilla character.

Yep, thats what I meant when I said "I've already done this. I've spent literally over 15 hours uninstalling and reinstalling the game (deleting everything like mods and even all my saves just to start completely fresh)."
I deleted everything, every mod, every folder, even the My Games skyrim folder etc. Played the game vanilla without anything added and the NPCs still act the same way.

Are you currently playing? If so, I assume you aren't noticing this issue?
One thing I noticed is that while playing for about 3 hours and then doing the Markarth quest, I got the bug. But then starting over fresh (zero mods, fresh install of the game, new character) I went straight to markarth to do the quest, and it all works. I continue play with that save with no mods still and end up getting this bug on the thieves guild again. In between that NPCs that were suppose to start dialong without me starting it didn't do what they were suppose to. They'd just stand there. But since I could talk to them I didn't pay it much attention and kind of annoyingly ignored it. But now with being stuck on the thieves guild quest, it's like blah.

I'm thinking if I start yet another character, play the game for a bit and then eventually play the markarth quest, it'll bug out again.
Right now I've tried the unoffical patch which didnt work although maybe I have to start yet another character. I've gone ahead and switched to the beta but that didn't work with my current save either. I'll probably start a new character with the current beta update but if I keep running into the problem I'm just going to give up because this is way too much trouble and needlessly stressful x_x

Yes, I'm playing. No, I don't have the bugs you mentioned.
I'm sorry, I really don't know what else to suggest that might help you, if you said you already tried a clean Vanilla install with a new game.
Maybe ask the more knowledgeable people on the forums.