First of all, I feel like I need to preface this with a disclaimer: Bethesda has achieved a genuine triumph with this game. For so much to work so well in a game this immense, with so much to do...Well, it's frankly staggering. I've been spending every free moment I have in Skyrim for the last month, and I STILL have things I need to finish up. I'm actually putting off the last few main-storyline quests, because I don't want to put a "button" on this world.

That said, given my play style, there are several issues I'm having that seem impossible to resolve. I'm not OCD in any other aspect of my life...But un-cleared quests on my list just EAT at me. And given a few quest-breaking bugs I've encountered, it doesn't seem as though I'll be able to move them "below the line" anytime soon.

(Note: I'm a console guy - having grown up with a 2600 joystick on my hand, I never could get used to WASD or mouselook - And I'm playing on a 360. Therefore, "PC console commands" will never be an available fix, and I must wait for patches.)

My broken quests so far:

Repairing The Phial: Found the powdered mammoth tusk, and the unmelting snow. Went to the last marker to harvest a briar heart, and found the Forsworn corpse designated by the arrow to be empty. Couldn't clear the marker. Realizing I already had two briar hearts in my inventory, I returned to Windhelm, and the Phial. Sadly, I discovered that there is currently no option to hand over the needed materials to Quintus, despite having them all.

Forbidden Legend: Found Geirmund's Hall before receiving the quest from Winterhold, and prior to heading to Saarthal or Folgunthur. Since then, the next item on the list for "Forbidden Legend" is always to locate the fragment in Gerimund's Hall. But when I head there and re-clear it, the fragment isn't in the last chamber. Nevertheless, the directive arrow is still hovering over one of the far corners of the cave. Not just that, but based on the "perspective" involved when I move around the marker, it almost looks as though it's pointing me to an inaccessible space well outside, and even BENEATH the chamber. There's nothing there to pick up, in any case. I have no idea where it is, whether it's elsewhere in the dungeon, or how to locate it. Currently, I only have the Health and Magicka fragments in my inventory.

Pantea's Flute: Found Finn's Lute and Pantea's Flute prior to having found the Bard's College, or even Solitude in general. Then, after I found them both (and upon meeting Inge Six-Fingers for the first time), I noticed the option to give Inge the lute. So, I did...And enjoyed the reward very much. Then, I immediately turned to go, and almost knocked Pantea right over. "Swell!" I thought. "Now I'll be able to return the flute, too!" Nope. No dialogue option with Pantea. No ability to ever remove the flute from my inventory, either. Hmph.

Miscellaneous: I have a number of items on the "Miscellaneous" list that seem to be unclearable. Among them: "Speak to Degaine" (I did, nothing happened), "Collect Bounty from Skald" (I did, and the quest did not clear), and "Help the people of Hjaalmarch (1/3)" which also seems to camp there no matter what I do.) Also, after having found a few unique artifacts to sell to Devlin at the Thieves' Guild, I hunted down a few more, but didn't immediately return to the Flagon as directed by the quest list. I instead held onto them, thinking I could just sell them all at once when I saw him next. No dice. Now I have all of the rest of them, and he's stuck with empty spots on his curio shelf. Bummer.

Again...No disrespect to Bethesda. This is tantamount to one or two squishy apples in an entire orchard full of perfect fruit. I'm just hoping someone has some insight on how to remedy these things without access to console commands.

Thanks!

I have almost all of these problems as well. It drives me nuts.

I can't finish the quest that directly follows the Forsworn Conspiracy because of its "loop" bug. A lot of others are reporting this as well.

There are others too.

You might try dropping the Briar's hart and then picking it up again, or possibly just go find a spawn point for them (near Sky Haven Temple is one, I think), and kill a Briar.

I must be pretty lucky i guess. I haven't had any quests glitch making them unfinishable. Only issues I have had is that after some quests are done the quest item doesn't leave my inventory, i.e. the flute., and the white phail is glitched after I recieve it.

Sadly, I can't. I tried dropping/storing both Briar Hearts, but neither can be removed from my inventory, since they're now "quest items." Ayup. Quest items for the quest I can't finish. In fact, I'm pretty sure they don't even show up in my available ingredients list at alchemy tables anymore. And when I tried picking up a few more from other Forsworn, it just adds to the unusable pile.

Also, speaking of unique quest items that can't be removed from inventory...I have a unique dagger called "Kahvozein's Fang" that I never seemed to be able to figure out what to do with. Eventually, after nothing turned up within a few weeks, I broke my own personal rule against looking up spoilers. And I figured out it's for a quest I seem unlikely to ever get, since it's dependent upon maxing out a particular skill I don't use much as it's not the path I've chosen to take with my character.

But the same source said that if I was eager to purge it from my inventory, I could put it up on one of the weapons mounts in my house (such as the ones at the right-top of the stairs, and above the door in Breezehome). So, that's what I did. Yay, five pounds down!

The "Speak to Degaine" happened to me. It's part of the steal the statue of Dibella quest chain. You can pick up the speak to Degaine part of the quest after you have already spoken to Degaine, finish that quest chain and it should disappear.

Luckily I read about the Helm of Winterhold quest screwing up the Companion quest chain before I got to far into the Companions chain.