Battle for Whiterun bug - I killed the Jarl before he surrendered

[sanctidiabolo]

I've entered and re-entered Dragonsreach about a hundred times and I can not get the quest to play through as it's supposed to. My understanding is that the Jarl should surrender once he reaches 25% health. Well, he dies everytime I try to play this quest. The body retains the quest marker. His housecar will drop after taking considerable damage but she attacks again once she's had enough time to heal. I have searched every forum I can find and either I don't know how to search or no one else has ever had this problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[MageThis]

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Battle_for_Whiterun_(Stormcloaks)

"After defeating the Jarl and getting him to surrender, the quest pointer may continue to point to him, but no interaction is possible and the quest does not update.
Striking the Jarl and then paying off the bounty may fix this"

Assume by "striking" is meant killing, hence the bounty. Have you tried paying it if there is one?

[Falro the Great]

You have a mod that makes him killable, most likely.

[sanctidiabolo]

Originally posted by Falro the Great:

You have a mod that makes him killable, most likely.

You're probably right. I just figured I would run it by the community before I start the game of disabling mods one at a time. Guess I'm playing...

[ELF EYES]

need him just ~` then click mouse on him and type this resurrect then hit enter /its alive code lol good for a smithing person or any you not want to die by attacks or friendly fire

[smr1957]

Originally posted by crazeygirl101:

need him just ~` then click mouse on him and type this resurrect then hit enter /its alive code lol good for a smithing person or any you not want to die by attacks or friendly fire

Regarding use of console commands:

Ilja:
Console is a debug tool. It does not pass event and AI scripts, or undo scripts that have been already been ran. I have stressed several times that using resurrect is among those commands that you should never use in Skyrim.

If the character you resurrected was dead, then using the command does not undo death scripts that have already been ran. Game AI gets confused and in 99% of cases you will just have a no-good character wandering around. In worse cases, death scritps will have run other scripts and suddenly "alive" character starts to cause conflicts in the game.

If the character you "resurrected" is alive (and in this case a quest character), then scripts affecting to this character now has double targets, messing up the game AI royally.

Load a save from before using unsafe console command. Do not try to undo it in any other way, because Skyrim stores script data to save files and there is absolutely no way to clean them 100% from them. Even Bethesda didn't manage to do so.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/451848854985133583/

Also:
Re: Resurrecting Named Characters (quoted from post by Ilja)

"You should never resurrect any named characters in Skryim. Game runs death scripts for each of them. Using resurrect command does not undo these scripts and there is no known way to reverse them.

Resurrecting character that has death script records in save file usually ends up badly. In best case scenario you get a useless NPC that is not tied to any quest and is cut out of the progress. In worse case scenario you get NPC that is comes constantly more and more bugged, tangling game scripts even further and ends up making a real mess out of your game.

Resurrect is among commands that has been classed as dangerous and should not be used in a game. It is a developer test command and should be treated as such. If you already made a mistake of using that command, then load a save before that." -Ilja

And:
cfs111
If you don't know what you're doing, using console commands can cause your game to malfunction! Executing the wrong command can cause your game to stop working normally; furthermore, you may not become aware of such malfunctions right away, and you may not be able to trace their cause. They can cause problems like making quests impossible to complete, altering your game's display, all kinds of game behaviors, your ability to play your character, and your ability to play the game at all. Solutions are not always easy, and may involve losing saved games or reinstalling your game.
Create a permanent saved game before using the console. (This mitigates only some kinds of risks.) If you need to use the console to fix a glitch, try to use the least powerful command possible.

[sanctidiabolo]

Fixed--I guess? Thanks for the replies. Turns out he would only die when I hit him. I stayed in the back and let the Stormcloaks take care of him and the surrender scene played out like it's supposed to.

[Indigno]

Sorry for necro, but I had the exact same problem and found no other fix or more recent thread online, but i figured out a solution and wanted to share it for the benefit of others who may have this problem:

When you enter dragonsreach, get balgruuf in visual (make sure he's alive, this won't work on a corpse) and pull up the console. Select Balgruuf and type

isessential

If it's the same problem I had, then you will get

IsEssential >> 0.00

back. Type the following, making sure you don't have anything selected:

setessential 00013BBD 1

Once I did this the Jarl (who was at the last sliver of health when I managed to get him in visual) took one more hit and the surrender script started and the scene played as it's supposed to.

I had the exact same problem you did, and it was after I already had to reload a save from two hours previous because I had ANOTHER glitch on the stormcloak battle for whiterun (the one where the battle music loops and the whiterun map marker vanishes permanently even after surrender) so I was pretty hell-bent on not playing through this one AGAIN. Hope this helps any future people who get this glitch, and remember folks: you only get one quick save slot so full save OFTEN.

EDIT: don't use quick saves, use this mod:
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/12644
It binds F11 to a full save game, so that you can go back at any point and resume playing without having to go to the menu to save frequently. Skyrim SE is a buggy mess, so being able to pinpoint a previous spot to resume play is a life saver (literally will save hours of time in your life), and it saves mine because I saved right before entering Dragonsreach to face the Jarl and was able to test several bug fixes and save my playthrough.