Title says it all. I created my second character (after playing first one for about 45 levels with no problems), and I am yet to see a random dragon starting to fight me or even circling above (at level 40). I've fought them in quest related places and near dragon shrines (or whatever those places are called). I travel on foot a lot, so I should have encountered at least half a dozen by now if everything was working correctly.
Just throwing that out there, may be someone else had a similar issue.

Thanks in advance for replies.

I'm having this problem as well. How far into the questline are you?

Have you started the main quest? I did up to contacting Delphine in Riverwood the second time (after completing Jurgen Windcaller) and am getting no random dragon encounters. I had assumed this was because the main quest needs to get progressed to where Alduin is first seen.

I have been wanting to start over to have this. THe random encounters kill this game IMO.

I can confirm this, according to Steam, i am 24h in this game and i encountered 2 Dragonfights, one was Quest related (Western Watchtower) , the second one was on my Way up to High Rothgar (dont now if this is also Quest related too).

On my first character I only did up to killing the first dragon outside Whiterun - didn't go to High Hrothgar or anything (character thought it was all a load of Nord rubbish) and had plenty of random dragon encounters despite that. So I don't think it's to do with seeing Alduin (notwithstanding the first meeting in Helgen...).

Yes, I have started the main quest and killed the first dragon, but haven't traveled to High Hrothgar. On both characters. On one I get dragons, on the other - most of my dragon shouts are grayed out because of not enough dragons xD

I would try advancing the main quest through the part where you go to Keynsgrove. If your just looking for souls revisit the dragon sites as they respawn.

Try this bud... searching a bit on the forums might help. It's the text box on the upper right of the page.

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1324459-my-missing-dragons-have-returned

As far as the random missing dragons, I think the way the game is set up now, after 1.3, is that Kynesgrove starts the random dragons. It's not mentioned anywhere and I think I was the first to mention the problem of missing random dragons a while back.

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1317261-random-dragons-gone-or-are-they-developer-input-please

I have found that in my game experiences (many dozens of characters by now) that if you wish to NOT have Dragons, don't complete the first main quest for Bleakfalls Barrow. You can delay that as long as you wish to do other things instead.

For the characters who have done the main quest and got the Dragons rolling; I find they appear when I have the main quest marked as an active quest.

So, if I'm doing Dragons but want to mix in a little guild gaming - I have to keep that main quest marked as active to get my random dragons.

This means I have to mark two quests as active. The one I'm REALLY doing and the main quest one on standby still marked active.

That's where those blue custom markers come in handy because it's confusing to me, to have both active quest markers on the map at once. I custom mark the one I'm REALLY headed for and I still get all the random dragons on my way.

That may work for you, since it seems that Skyrim really has individualized experiences... but, that doesn't matter for me. It doesn't matter if the main quest is marked or not. Generally I don't mark the main quest at all and reduce what is visible as a marker on the map. It wasn't until after I started Kynesgrove that the Randoms came back, where on that same character, before 1.3, I had Randoms coming out of the ears.

You are absolutely correct there - it's a different mix of bugs and solutions for everybody.

My current character hasn't been to Kynesgrove but has more dragon souls than she can shake a stick at.

Previous characters who HAD done to Bleakfalls Barrow, got up to like level 40+ (before I deleted them) and never got a dragon except that first one they "give" you at Whiterun. That's when I found out I needed to make the main story quest active on my machine - to GET dragons.

Also, I forgot to mention earlier, I seem to get one dragon per game startup. So, doing many short game sessions, rather than one long session gets more dragon action for me.

It worked! Thank you very much.

Excellent to find I'm not alone. I shall try the console commands suggested. For the record though, I don't think this is a 1.3 problem. I only patched yesterday. PLayed my first character to lvl 30, encountered alot of dragons before I completed Kynesgrove (they seemed to start appearing after I killed the western watch tower dragon). Didn't take the MQ further than killing the Kyne's Grove quest.

Around Christmas I started with a new character. Kept the game in vanilla - the only update was to my graphics driver - I completed kynesgrove two days ago and so far, zero random dragons. The character is level 23. Killed his first quest dragon at level 8. HAven't changed my playing style at all. Walk everywhere. And despite it being vanilla, he got no random dragons.

I'm going into the console to see if I can fix it...thanks for posting the link to the instructions

That is soooo ODDDDDDDDD.... Bethesda!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously?

My understanding of how this was originally supose to happen.

NO RANDOM DRAGONS

I did Bleak Falls Barrow and killed the dragon at the Western Watchtower in Whiterun fairly early (up to level 10ish), and then decided to ignore the main quest until I'm a god-like ninja-archer-tank thingy of awesomeness.
That's mainly because I'm a scaredy-cat and didn't much enjoy being handed my ass repeatedly by flying scaly things... running away being the better part of valour and all that.
Also, I don't take orders particularly well and my attitude is "Stuff 'em - if those dudes in High Hrothgar want me so badly, let 'em send a cart for me. Damned if I'm climbing 7000 steps to be lectured about duty".

So since then I've been wandering around, picking flowers, dungeon-diving, pimping out my crib in Whiterun, smithing, side-questing, brewing noxious concoctions, ogling Lydia, etc etc.
Basically procrastinating my little heart out, and I'm level 26 at this stage.

I do NOT have the main quest active, usually I just activate whatever 'fetch me 10 rat tails' miscellaneous job or proper side-quest I'm currently in the mood for.

Here's the thing: I get random dragons fairly frequently, one or two every gaming session of about three hours or so.
They frequently happen just after I fast travel, and seem to have a fondness for terrorising the poor people of Riverwood. I've had three random dragons there.

So it looks like everyone's mileage does indeed vary.

It's not random. It's not "your mileage may vary." If you progress to a certain point in one of the main quest lines, random dragon appearances will not occur until you progress past a given stage in the quest line. This is intended. You need to either advance the quest or not start the quest in the first place.

Then that recently changed though. And it happened right after 1.3. When I played two characters before 1.3, randoms were abound. Then on the 2nd character, when the game got patched TO 1.3, randoms disappeared.

Nothing mentioned in the patch notes about them changing that aspect at all.

Well I have 2 comlpetely different experiences...and I can assure you the experiences are not MQ related. First character, vanilla install, random dragons started appearing after killing my first dragon at the western watch tower. Can't remember if they also appeared while Blade in the dark was open...I took a long long time getting round to getting to kynesgrove that first time and I would definitely not be surprised if I encountered dragons while I was taking my sweet time...but I can't swear to it.

OK. second character - still vanilla. Didn't encounter any random dragons after killing the one at western watch tower. Before I began the Kyne's grove quest, I walked from Whiterun to DAwnstar, to solitude and back, with dungeon diving thrown in along the way. Not a sign of a dragon.
Completed Kynesgrove at about level 18/19. After that I wandrered around some more. Still nothing. At level 23 thikning it was all very odd, I patched to 1.3, and came on the forum. I followed the console commands stated in sniperdoc's post...I didni't have dragon's enabled set to 1. It is now set to 1. Since setting it to 1, I have wandered around the Riften area, dungeon diving, for four or five hours - I'm now level 28 - and I STILL HAVE YET TO MEET A RANDOM DRAGON???! I'm pretty pissed to be honest. I have a bunch of shouts I can't use. I've stopped playing and have to get some more enthusiasm before I get back nito it.

MIght try a new character but that'd be too depressing.

Let me just add.

I just went back and tested the console commands that are quoted in sniperdoc's thread on my first character which had no problem getting dragon encounters.
dragons enabled comes back as 0.

So I'm not sure at all that the poster is correct in his advice to turn dragonsenabled to 1...be warned.

Let me just add again...been in the game, changed my current chacrters dragons enabled value back to 0...and low and behold, next time I fast travel to Riverwood, a random dragon attacks.

Be warned the advice about cnosole values is incorrect!

You might be wrong there.
The console solution worked perfectly for me.