Esbern Bug - How to Fix

Problem: Esbern Door Glitch

During the quest A Cornered Rat to find Esbern in the Riften Warren, an annoying glitch can come up.  The problem is that Esbern is behind a door and it's possible upon encountering him for the dialogue to go by very quickly making it unreadable and following his instructions impossible. Worse the door separating you remains locked shut.   This can leave one frustrated and unsure of what to do.  This is a bug and a fix is required.

Solution: Unpack BSA Sound Files

The usual problem is that certain files have not been installed correctly. There are some fixes and workarounds that involve console commands that can get one around the immediate problem, but these can be quirky and may not address problems that can crop up later on.  More reliable are fixes that make files that were not installed correctly available. One can use a search engine to find a fix by typing in something like "Skyrim Esbern voice fix" and then following the instructions that come with it.  However, the early fixes that came out for this bug seem to use proprietary files from the game and seem to be disappearing, being taken down by those who created them. An alternative is to download the BSA unpacker at http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3117 and then use it to unpack the file "Skyrim - VoicesExtra.bsa" in the game's Data directory.  There should then be a new Sound directory afterward (\Data\sound\voice\skyrim.esm\maleuniqueesbern).  Upon playing, the quest should now proceed without problems.

Pantea's Flute Bug - How to Fix on a PC

If you've found Pantea's Flute before the quest is assigned, it's possible for the quest to get stuck with the game asking for you to find Pantea's Flute even though it's already stuck in your inventory.  To work around the Skyrim Pantea's Flute bug on a personal computer, one will need to use some game console commands from the game console screen.  Call up the game console screen by pressing the tilde key ( ~ ) and then type the following without the quotation marks:  "player.drop 000DABA7 1".  Make sure there is a space after the p and the 7 and that last character is a one (1) not a small L.  This should cause the Pantea's Flute in your inventory to be dropped.  Just pick it up again and the quest should proceed smoothly from there.

Skyrim

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is a great role-playing game.  This site will offer tips and guide gamers through some of the difficulties.