I have discovered that there is a glitch that prevents progress int the "Repairing the Phial" quest where players are not getting proper credit for the "Briar Heart" item if it is already in your inventory when receiving the quest. There are work arounds for the PC version but not the XBox 360 (or PS3).

I have also posted a topic regarding this glitch so hopefully they see it is legitimate however the glitch still exists even if you didn't have a briar heart in your inventory before taking on the quest. At least for me it did.
The one thing I will say though is I had killed the guy you are supposed to get the heart from on a completely different quest namely Legend of Red Eagle.

Easy fix would, I think, have been to make that heart a named item. Instead of just being a briar heart you have to get from a specific person.
What's also weird about this bug i the fact that Briar Hearts ar relatively common though they are suddenly flagged as essential and that the much harder to get powdered mammoth tusk isn't.

I have the same problem, I was hoping the patch would have fixed it

same issue. massive amount of complaints about this topic on other forums as well... so far i've seen no work arounds for 360 players

Oh man, I thought I was the only one. Glad to see I am not the only one having this problem. I to am having this glitch, I have simply given up on it for now.

Slightly adding to this: Why if it can cause a conflict? Is it a quest area for two major sidequests (red eagle and the white phial)

Theoretically, wouldn't you be able to copy your save file onto a 360 formatted flash drive, convert the save to the pc version, remove the heart with a command (or just progress the quest) and then reverse the process to fix this issue?
Although I for one wouldn't buy a pc copy of Skyrim just to get past a bug lol
Hope this helps

It will probably not help, since the quest will still want you to loot a specific fornsworn briar heart... ie it will point you to a dead, empty body. But normally it would be a good advice..

Is that even possible?


I'm getting the same glitch too.

Had a weird thing with this quest. I had found "Powdered mammoth tusk" before receiving this quest, saved it because it was the one and only ingredient I had ever come across of that nature, got the quest and thought "Hey, I got some of that already!" and tried to turn in the quest. Unfortunately, it wasn't completed and I had to go to the location given for the quest, retrieve "Mammoth tusk powder" (Note: The word difference), and voila.

The fiance has a problem with the Briar-Hearts. He retrieved the "Mammoth tusk powder" from the given location and the Briar-Heart from the given location, Briar-Hearts subsequently became quest-related items and therefore, cannot be dropped. The "Mammoth tusk powder", on the other hand, can be dropped. His quest is still sending him to get the Briar-Heart. Subsequently, any other Briar-Hearts he picks up or had in inventory before the quest-related Briar-Heart still weigh and cannot be dropped.

Same problem here. I'm on XBOX. This is one of the reasons I'm on these forums, to find answers on the broken quests.

I've killed the forsworn briarheart that the quest pointed to, emptied the body, and it still points to the dead empty body. *NOTE* I have the current updates installed.

I should also add that I have already completed the "Red Eagle" quest.

Is there somewhere else on the forums I could go to find answers to this problem?

I got the idea from a combination of places I researched.
1. http://www.reddit.com/r/skyrim/comments/mfgrp/psa_you_can_transfer_skyrim_savegame_files_from/
and
2. http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Repairing_the_Phial

The first link explains how to transfer game saves from pc to 360 (or 360 to pc) as well as format conversions etc.
The second link claims this:
"Bugs
(360,PS3,PC) When you pick up the Briarheart, the quest will not update, and no option to turn them in will appear when talking to Quintus. Unknown cause (some author had 6 already but i was removed it with console it still won't work though). they cannot be dropped as they are now quest items. The way to remove any briar hearts from your inventory is to open console and remove the briar heart with player.removeitem 3ad61 1 code. The solution to complete quest is setstage MS12b 60 code. Make sure you do not have any Briarheart in your inventory when you take this quest."

All in all, I would try this myself but don't have the money to purchase another copy.

EDIT:
I'm thinking you could remove the heart from your inventory using a command. After you could wait a while for the forsworn to respawn (the briarheart with the quest item, etc.).

I have the same problem and now have to roll back three hours because I stupidly picked up a Briar heart I already had at Breezehome. If picking up the heart from that specific Forsworn bastard even with no Briar hearts in the inventory will cause the same problem, I will throw a fit.

And as much as they promised a game with fewer bugs because of the 'new' engine (uh-huh), we all knew that the scripting and RefID bugs would recur.