can not start the cornered rat quest.

[Guest max spence]

i have tried all suggestions online to start the quest. but after diplomatic immunity i couldnt continue the storyline. ive talked to the argonian bartender she doesnt mention the quest. same as delphine when i talk to her back in riverwood. ive even talked to bryinoff but he tells me he has important things to attend to we will talk another time. and ive found esbern in the ratway vaults but when i try to speak to him he says a couple words then the blinder on the door closes.

im on the xbox 360 console and im not sure if it matters but ive joined the theives guild and have completed their quests. including the nighting gales.

[Guest Max Spence]

please help. ive tried updating my xbox on xbox live but it didnt help. and i have been playing aimlessley leveling up and i really dont want start over. i have dragon armour and everything.

[David]

Just to be clear, did Delphine explicitly ask you to find Esbern after the Diplomatic Immunity quest? Speaking to her and getting this dialogue is what should trigger the subsequent quest; it doesn't necessarily start automatically after the completion of Diplomatic Immunity.You can reply to this topic using the field near the bottom of the page. You should list the specific fixes you've tried so far when you said you've "tried all online suggestions".

Do you have any recent saves? If we can't work it out with you, that may be your last option if you want to progress through this quest line. There is a 1.4 patch coming out shortly that MAY fix this issue, but glancing over the release notes it doesn't look promising since I don't see it specifically listed.

You should consider creating an account here. It comes with several benefits, and also makes it much easier for you to post questions and answers. It's completely free!

[Guest max spence]

she didnt. but i have taked to her after the quest and her dialogue options are the same. the online suggestions i tried were on sites like yahoo answers. most of the fixes they had were for PC and the only xbox ones i saw were talking to the bartender, talking to brynoff, and getting an update from xbox live. unforunatly none of those helped.

[Guest Guest]

i wasnt expecting a glitch so i saved over my games. and all of my auto saves are much farther along. when i completed diplomatic immunity i was around level 27 i think. now im at 46. so ive been playing all of the side missions i could find.

[David]

she didnt. but i have taked to her after the quest and her dialogue options are the same. the online suggestions i tried were on sites like yahoo answers. most of the fixes they had were for PC and the only xbox ones i saw were talking to the bartender, talking to brynoff, and getting an update from xbox live. unforunatly none of those helped.

Yeah, none of those fixes really make sense for your situation. Honestly, I'd stay far away from Yahoo Answers for Skyrim questions - you're much better off at a more specialized site like this one. Most of the "help" you'll receive there is more or less "I took an arrow to the knee" or "create a new game."

I've looked into things to fix this and this appears to be one of those problems where not much is currently known. Maybe some of our other members can be of more help than I, but I'm afraid you may be stuck waiting for a patch if reloading an older save isn't an option. Even PC users aren't able to fix this with the console; the PC "fix" is essentially to completely skip the quest, so the bug must be a serious one.

These potential solutions I'm going to give you probably won't work, but they're better than nothing and have been known to unglitch other quests.

[*]Make sure any other active quests you currently have don't involve the characters in the glitched quest. If there are any, complete them before trying to continue.

[*]Finish the Thieves Guild quest line. Although unrelated, it may trigger more dialogue options for Byrnjolf/Delphine if there was some sort of conflict.

Keep us updated and let us know if it works out or if you isolate the problem. If you have any other questions we'll be happy to help!

[Guest Guest]

thank you and will do. i just created an account and im waiting for the email so i will post on this question under. uglassboy. i read the release notes also and i hope it comes soon and i hope they have that glitch solved. i emailed bethesda about my problem and maybe theyve heard it before. i can only hope.

[Guest guest]

bestheda need to fix this now.

[Guest devin]

if you killed dirge (like i did) the cornered rat wont start you can use dead thrall bring him back redue diplomatic immunity and cornered rat should start.

[Guest Jeremy]

Having this problem on PC as well.No dead NPC's like Dirge are an issue. Thieves guild quest complete (I did a playthrough like I'm doing now on my xbox before the same way and no issues) playing it on PC now and after talking to Delphine and finishing DIplomatic Immunity she tells me to find Esbern like I did a million times on xbox play throughs and Cornered Rat never appears in my journal for me to do.When I go to his door he just says go away. I've tried to use the console to set stage to certain parts of it and no luck. I tried going back to earlier save and doing the quest earlier (losing several levels and quests in the process) and no luck, it still didn't trigger. I don't understand how the main quest can be broken after five patches? But I have no idea how to fix this.

[David]

Here are some things to try on the PC:

[*] You may have to skip forward to the start of the next quest, Alduin's Wall, by using the console and typing in setstage MQ203 5, which will allow you to continue.

[*] Use console command setstage MQ202 (stage #) to force Esbern to open the door and talk again. Stage 160 makes Esbern open the door, if bugged. Stage 170 makes Esbern talk again, if bugged. Another easier way to avoid bugs is to type in CompleteQuest MQ202, which would work for any quest value.

The UESP bug notes contain some fixes, as does the TES wiki. Note that I have personally not confirmed these, but they're worth a try if the suggestions in the above posts fail.

It's also worth noting that not all patch fixes claim to retroactively being bugged quests. Some of the patches only prevent the issue from popping up again in new games.

[Guest Sam]

Im having the EXACT same problem and its on 360. I really don't want to restart because I am level 81 daedric armor I have ALOT of stuff and I didnt start the MAIN MAIN quest line until now... There might be ALOT of problems...

[Guest yassir560]

ok this is old but i have a problem that sort of fucked up the whole game for me,so please help,i had a glitch in the thalmor embassy,i had no choice and HAD to use commands to finish it,after the quest (note i coudnt get the trap door key,and leave,i coud not even kill the frost troll in the cave,i had to use set stage commands and now i dont even have any info of delphine in my game at all,all other quests work,just this main quest) i had to search online for delphine's location and this is the only post ive seen on this,im sure someone can help am on pc,even if that means skipping the entire quest,please any suggestions!