After trying several different characters through several different paths, I've finally managed to get one to the point in the main quest when you need to defeat and capture a dragon (The Fallen). I've put out the call, get the quest target trigger to defeat the dragon in Whiterun, but can't exit Dragonsreach without running into the infinite loading screen. After encountering this bug literally hundreds of times, I'm to the point where uninstalling this bug ridden mess and never installing again is looking like the most rational course.

I have tried COCing to whiterunorigin and whiterun, but to no avail. When I do COC out of Dragonsreach, I encounter a generic dragon, kill it, but nothing happens. Any suggestions, or it is time to put this mess away and wait for ME3 to release?

BTW, ALL of my characters have encountered the infinite load screen, eventually. The first time I encountered it was during my initial playthrough, prior to having installed any mods. That was on patch 1.3, I believe. Knowing this was a Bethesda title, I waited for the first round of patches. Looks like I did not wait long enough.

Current playthrough has some texture mods, and a few added items, but nothing that should be interfering with these area transitions. Things are particularly buggy in Solitude and Whiterun, neither of which have specific mods applied. Can usually bypass by COC, but it seems the trigger for this particular dragon is keying on the exit of Dragonsreach??

I am old enough to have played through every Elder Scrolls game, and remember dealing with Oblivion, but this is the most frustrating game I have ever played! So much promise squandered, it's aggravating.

I have exactly the same problem, and most notably in Whiterun and Solitude as well. I also barely use mods, none that alter the world. Besides, it seems to be affecting very specific locations.

I'm running the 1.4 beta btw.

I think this has something to do with some important scripts failing. I had this once I edited wrongly the script controlling actors.

Even if I disable all my mods (including resources) it still happens.

Whenever I meet a situation where Skyrim will sit indefinitely in the loading screen its because I've set things up that creates a condition where the game cannot allocate enough memory for it. Wild guess: Pretty sure you're tapping out memory availability between a combination of custom prefs.ini settings or lack of system's abilities. I'll also throw in that typically when I've met people who can't load a save game past a certain point (hangs, not crashes, crashes are another matter) I can typically load it still due to the difference of abilities.

Turn down the settings, oh and if you aren't using the 1.4 beta: it has a smaller memory foot print then the 1.3, enough that it might let you proceed without needing to edit settings.

Running SKSE? I have ZERO lockup issues during transitions until I launch via SKSE...then the random locking at load screens start.

I managed to workaround this issue by entering the dungeon, immediately exiting the dungeon, then exiting to the Dragonsreach balcony. No idea why or how, but this seemed to fix the bug for me on this specific quest. However, the infinite load issue remains. Ran into it again today and almost always in Whiterun and/or Solitude. I save every time I access a transition point, just in case. I've also noticed that some of those saves become inaccessible after an infinite load screen, so I have to revert to one save prior.

Not running SKSE, but there might be something to the memory issue. My video card has 2GB of VRAM, but my system is only running 4GB. Does the active game continually increase memory footprint while running? And why does this happen most often in Whiterun and Solitude?

I started to have the loading bug too, only in Whiterun right now, had it happen 2 times, once at the companions and once in the tavern and both times had the gildergreen tree on the screen. Seeing how it hasn't happened to me before until now, i'm thinking it's related to game save bloating, having already played over 100 hours on this character.

The game wants to throw a dragon at you, and it is probably interfering with the scripted one that is to show up. By the way, you leave Dragonsreach from the door behind the Jarl's Throne to meet this dragon, not the front door. Anyway, I had some issues trying to travel somewhere the other day. What I did to fix it was wait in place for 73 hours and then I could go somewhere else. Try that.

Just started getting this myself, was going to start a new thread but thought I'd look for a related thread. Infinite loading screens, I get the smoke billowing up from the bottom and the hints at the bottom right of the screen, so it's not a freeze in the traditional sense. This is all happening after 1.4 non-beta.


Yeah I am running SKSE. I'll try without it and see if it happens again.

I was trying the porch and the front door, anything to get me outside dragonsreach and potentially trigger the next quest event. Entering another interior area seemed to clear it and got me through the quest. I'm glad I did not have to setstage this particular quest item, as this was actually one of the cooler quest events. I've tried the 73 hour wait as well, and it seems to work sporadically. Still getting this in Whiterun and Solitude. My workaround has been to player.moveto the quest giver, complete the quest stage, then coc to riverwood. If I do this, I seem to be able to fast travel on to the next step, so long as I stay away from Solitude and Whiterun. This gives new meaning to the old phrase, "We are all beta testers." Haha

Ugh, just lost a lengthy reply to this thread. Apparently, the forum code is as buggy as the game code. That said, this one may have been my fault. Long story short, I had a Skyrim.ini with custom world map settings at one point in time. Thought I had removed them, but inadvertantly restored an old version of the ini while moving files around. I'm running WD green HDDs and the combination of custom world map settings and slow HDDs is a bad one. See this item at skyrimnexus for details: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=4219