Weird problem with Solitude

[Aerr]

So I was doing the last quest for Stormcloaks and was about to storm into Solitude to give Tulius his just deserts but I had I bounty and got stopped by Solitude guard at the tower just before Ulfric's speech outside the gate. I went to jail and ended up outside Dour castle and the there was fighting in the city so I was like cool, I bypassed all that fighting so I went back inside and Ulfric and Galmar were there, had Ulfric kill Tulius, went outside and listened to his speech which ended the civil war questline,

I left Solitude and there's fire and Ulfric was giving the speech to his men like he does right before the battle for Solitude. I thought weird but it will clear up later. So I did some quests and came back to Solitude and he's still there and Solitude is locked. So I stole a horse and got caught to get into Solitude and inside the city it is normal, people are walking around, stores are opened, the bard at the tavern is singing the Stormcloak version of the song The Age of Oppression ... like the civil war has ended.

But if I leave Solitude, I can't get back in cause Ulfric is still outside. So I went to Windhelm thinking if Ulfric spawned there he would disappear outside of Solitude. I went to Windhelm and Ulfric was there, and he made me a thane. So I went back to Solitude but he's still there outside the gate and the city is still locked.

Now whenever I need to get into Solitude I have to steal a horse and get caught by the guard to do so.

Does anyone know how to fix this? It's a very strange Skyrim problem. And no, I can't reload a past save, I don't have it.

[hawley.kevin]

running any mods?

[Aerr]

Originally posted by hawley.kevin:

running any mods?

Yes. Will disabling them solve this problem?

[hawley.kevin]

id start by disabling any mods that change quests or solitude.....

[alexander_dougherty]

Originally posted by Aerr:

Originally posted by hawley.kevin:

running any mods?

Yes. Will disabling them solve this problem?

You can't disable or remove mods on a save and continue, it causes bugs.
What you need to do is sort the load order, install patches if necessary, and remove any that can't be fixed, then start a new game.

[hawley.kevin]

ive did it more times then i can count but Mkay

[Alex]

Try resetting the game world.

1. Dismiss all followers. Make sure there are no timed quests, or the DB initiation. Travel far away from Solitude. Enter a small isolated location without any NPCs. Like your house's cellar, for example, and preferably with a bed.
2. Make a full save. Quit the game. Restart it. Load that save.
3. Open the console, and check the timescale with

get timescale

It should return the default value of 20
4. Now, bring us to warp speed, Mr. Sulu.

set timescale to 2000

5. Sleep for a week, this will force anything which can respawn to do so. Afterwards, drop out of warp with:

set timescale to 20

6. Save again, quit to desktop, restart and reload.

If that doesn't work, then there's no easy way out of this mess. Honestly, you've caused it all by yourself, getting arrested before the final battle is a major and well-known (but entirely avoidable) source of problems.

[Ilja]

Originally posted by hawley.kevin:

ive did it more times then i can count but Mkay

Game bakes script source data to save files. Papyrus does not make any difference if the source is coming from official file or a mod: it treats all of them as same.

If you pull a scripted mod from the game, it's data remains in the save file. Papyrus will check after it when conditions hit and of course error out, if it does not find the script. Time does not clear these errors away. Effect might be immediate, or appear after dozens of hours later.

Eventually these errors will mess up Papyrus. Effects can vary from broken features to large stack dumps and persistent CTDs.

[Alex]

It doesn't have to be related to mod residue. It could be, but it's not the only possible culprit. Getting arrested right before a Civil War battle often causes such issues, and the last battle is particularly bad in this regard. I think that the unofficial patch does mitigate the problem somewhat, but it can't fully fix the convoluted mess which is the Civil War questline.