So I posted about this problem/bug a long time ago and various suggestions were related to me but now, two months later, I'm still encountering the same problems.

It all has to do with the quest 'Blood on the Ice''.

No matter what I do, where I go, or how I do it, the quest will not start.

I discovered the Butcher's journal in Calixo's chest, I went to the graveyard at night after visiting Windhelm a hundred bloody times and I constantly speak to Jorlief everytime I'm there.

This is all so I can purchase the only house I haven't bought in the game, Hjeirim.

Everytime I ask Jorlief about a house in the city he says ''There is a house in the city, but there was some...unpleasantness recently, it's not available just yet''.

No matter what, he still says this. And no matter how many times I go the graveyard, the quest won't start.

Please help. Or at least tell me this is a common bug that Bethesda intends to fix, I can't buy an entire house because of it and I'm level 47 now.

First, I think this should be moved to "Bugs and Issues".

About the topic, there is (or was, don't know if it's patched) a bug with this quest not triggering properly at some points. I can't give much details to not give spoilers, but in my case I had to Google for it and found a workaround in the UESP Wiki, and typing a command in the console that triggered the quest, fixed it for me.

Anyway use this commands with caution. In my case the problem was that the second phase of the quest didn't start, so it was fairly safe. But you can break a quest (or the game) if you trigger the innapropiate phase. So make sure to read carefully about the different phases, comparing it with your game, to know what your problem is, and how to fix it.

Good luck.

The main problem there, being that I'm playing on Xbox, so that doesn't help me at all.

In the "What we're working on" thread it says the 1.4 patch for Xbox should be ready some time today.
The patch fixed a lot of issues with the quest not triggering.

I had the same problem on the xbox, but it almost cleared up after progressing though the civil war campaign - I could aquire the house but one particular room stayed the same. I haven't updated the 1.4 yet so that may have cleared the full problem.

I'm wondering due to the dialogue in the game, try going there on a Middas of Hearthfire. I noticed whats his face the mage mention Middas of Hearthfire, while I was doing this quest and I checked the date in-game and sure enough it was a Middas in Hearthfire, so maybe that's how you get it to trigger.

This is in the wrong forum, though.

I tried it on Middass, it still didn't work.

Are we sure that the new path will fix all the bugs for this quest?

No, it doesn't. I just got the quest today and it's bugged the same as yours. So is the damned companion quest . And since using the console cuts off Steam achievements and I'm already level 30, I am NOT starting a new damn game AGAIN.

Maybe Bethesda would like to start fixing ALL the bugs rather than screwing around with "game jams" in the future.

Where did you get that from?

I have used the console in nearly all my games at one point or another, sometimes to trigger journal entries remove quest items, fly through locked items whatever. I've gotten plenty of achievements as well, I'm only missing one at the moment, which I really don't care about anyway.

More to the point if the 1.4 patch doesn't fix this, and it should fix a lot of issues relating to this quest then there isn't a lot you can do. The UESP is your best bet for solutions, look for blood on ice and then the bugs section.

the quest worked on another character
just did not start on my first one

If you got the journal it means you've already killed the Butcher as you can't open the chest without a key. Which means the quest can't be done.