Fallout Games Thread - Updated 2024 (2024)

Performance & Stability Issues

There are many examples of Skyrim not running optimally on some systems, producing crashes-to-desktop, freezes, slowdowns, and other behavior that prevents the game from being enjoyed. These are top priority issues for Bethesda. There is a pinned thread dedicated to crashes; if you are experiencing any of the below listed crashes, reply to that thread with your dxdiag information. The following is a general list intended as a reference of known stability issues; only report new ones if they are not similar to any of those listed below. Keep in mind that many of these issues are system-dependent.

* Sometimes the game thinks all your save-games are "corrupt" - but, depending on the cause, this can be fixed by starting a *NEW* game, going through the carriage ride, then loading the old game from within a new-game (if this fails, try restoring the auto-backed-up saves first then going through this new game process).
* Some save-games are randomly disappearing - restoring backups can fix this, appears to be some problem in the save-function that crash that function and cause corrupt/no saves?
* Many random crashes-to-desktop - these cause no error messages, it just throws you instantly back to desktop with no notice. There may be many causes of these, some listed elsewhere here, but the outcome is the same.
* Certain areas seem to have their own CTD issues relating to objects/creatures being spawned half-way into walls and floors or something. (fixes range from playing in windowed mode, to not allowing the camera to "Look" at certain rooms as you walk through backwards or similar).
* The very first tutorial dungeon/cave, many CTD's are experienced at the point just after where a lever is pulled, a bridge drops, and then after the roof collapses onto the bridge - CTD's can be avoided by running ahead quickly before the roof collapse.
* Bonechill passage will cause a CTD almost guaranteed after moving beyond the first chamber and heading to the 2nd/final chamber - however playing in windowed mode appears to fix this?
* The Sanctuary causes many CTD's on the "Death Incarnate" quest - instant CTD's after taking more than a step or two into the room with the two guards.
* Skuldafn can cause similar CTD's the moment the door to it is opened on the main quest.
* Pelagius Wing of the Blue Palace causes CTD's/game freeze just after walking through the cobwebs (not every time, but fairly common).
* Brittleshin Pass may produce frequent CTD's if the game is not run in windowed mode (post patch 1.2?)
* Leaving Jorrvaskr back into Whiterun may suddenly begin producing repeatable CTD's (post patch 1.2?)
* Repeatable CTD's occured on the path to Azura's Shrine, after a Blood Dragon killed the priestess and the game was reloaded. CTD occured more quickly with each reload, possibly connected to the Blood Dragon attack and a landslide on the mountain
* Walking around certain parts of Morthal can cause your character to warp and become stuck above the hall of the vigilant, with no way to continue except to reload a previous save.
* Possibly caused by a conflict with a certain batch of ATI graphics drivers, but there is a "black screen of doom" bug that crops up after various minutes/hours of play for many users (see thread)
* Many Windows XP users are experiencing brief freezes (game hangs for several seconds, then recovers) while moving around the outside game world. This thread discusses the issue in depth and provides fixes.
* There is a huge and disproportionate FPS hit upon entering towns for many users (may be related to/affected by items below).
* Light-sources (eg candles, fireplaces) seem to cause a disproportionate slowdown/FPS hit even on extremely high-end systems, just for 1 or 2 lightsources.
* A combination of more than a few NPC's close together and light-sources causes crazy FPS hits.
* Quad core CPU's don't appear to be being utilised (despite the recommended system specs listing a quad-core CPU).
* .Exe is not flagged as large-memory-address aware (so despite recommended system specs suggesting high RAM, the client will never use that much RAM). A user made LAA .exe was released to fix this, but an official patch rendered it nonfunctional
* Mouse Y-Axis sensitivity appears locked to FPS/performance - this can cause the mouse to require you to use the entire height of your mouse-mat just to look up by a couple of inches at times.
* Some GPU's seem to be being incredibly under-used, despite apparent lag/FPS drops/slowdown issues - is this related to graphics-tasks being offloaded to the CPU because this is beneficial on consoles?
* Having the auto-save feature turned on can cause stability issues for some, particularly as save files become bigger.
* Entire game-engine can for some players, eventually become extremely sluggish and unresponsive - for example opening interface screens taking 30-60 seconds - as if some sort of AI/scripting elements are getting stuck in infinite loops slowing everything down heavily?
* Containers with lots of items in them (house containers, for instance) may cause the retrieval or storage of items to occur slowly.
* When needing to eliminate all Imperials in a Stormcloak assault on a fort, excessive lag can start when a certain percentage of kills is reached. Bodies not disappearing properly or AI scripting overload?
* Field of View seems to randomly drop, sometimes to extremely low levels for a PC user, with no option to change the FOV in game settings, and the .ini changes not always working (using the in-game console should not be forced as this disables achievements). A FOV setting should be added to advanced options (FOV is an important setting for PC users, as it varies widely based on resolution, monitor size, and distance from monitor as to what a user should be playing with), and ensure it doesn't keep resetting or lowering to console-levels from zone loads.
* Entering Yngol Barrow with a follower may cause a blurry screen & freeze. Entering without a follower causes no issues
* After alt-tabbing out of the game, you need to tab back into the game twice for it to load. Alt-Tab into the game once, the window is selected but you are still on your desktop... re-tab to another window (eg your browser), then tab to the game a 2nd time, and the game loads.
* Patch 1.2 may cause new or worse technical issues for some people -- lower framrates, granier textures, increased CPU and GPU load, flickering textures, mouse lag in menus, etc. UI textures may malfunction (Screen) In general, having patches be optional like in the good old days would be nice ...

Quest IssuesSpoilers Follow - Read at your own risk

Because Skyrim is a large, lively world with hundreds of NPC's all interacting with each other and the player, things are bound to break. Quests, unfortunately, are a victim of this, especially seeing as how many of them are randomly generated. There are many broken quests, and one quest breaking can cause chain reactions of problems with other quests and the game in general. When reporting a quest problem, please be as specific as possible -- if you can, name the quest (if it has a log entry), any involved NPC's, any involved locations, and any involved items. The more thorough the information, the better Bethesda can pinpoint the problem. This includes problems with factions, crimes, and bounties.

General Note: Many players have had quests break on them by completing the quest's objective (killing an NPC, clearing a dungeon, picking up an item, etc) before receiving or even being aware of the quest. Many quests are missing vital checks for the objectives having already been completed. It is also very common for quests to break if more than one are pointing to the same location/NPC at the same time. These problems can result in quests being stuck in the log, quest items being stuck in the inventory, and potentially whole questlines being cut short for good. Specific cases will be mentioned below.

Main Quest Issues

* Sometimes when your character first talks to the Greybeards and they are meant to transfer unrelenting force abilities, they actually do not transfer any ability to you at all and the questline is stuck from that point - a reload and trying again can sometimes randomly fix this (seems linked to the function that lets you absorb shouts and souls from dragons/dragon walls - this sometimes doesn't trigger elsewhere in the game, but particularly on this quest from the Greybeards).
* "A Blade in the Dark" - Delphine will sometimes not have any dialog options/responses to complete the quest after killing Sahloknir.
* "Diplomatic Immunity" - sometimes completing this doesn't allow the player to continue on any of the related questlines.
* "A Cornered Rat" - When Esbern "lets you in to talk" - he sometimes doesn't actually let the player in, just closes his hatch and nothing else happens - the quest is permanently stuck then.
* "Alduin's Wall" - Esbern and Delphine will bug out if the player had already previously discovered Sky Haven Temple and solved the puzzles inside themselves.
* "Season Unending" - * The quest for peace between the factions becomes stuck if the player has already started but not completed either quest to join a faction.
* "Season Unending" - making a truce can get stuck - Ulfric won't talk to you - possibly he is getting stuck with the joining the stormcloaks quest instead (even if you don't intent to ever join the stormcloaks).
* "Season Unending" - If the Reach is handed over to the Stormcloaks before the player has received the 'liberate the Reach' task, the "Liberate Skyrim" questline may break. Ulfric sends the PC to liberate Hjaalmarch, but Galmar gives no orders there
* "The Fallen" - Olfina Grey-Mane may attack Odahviing after he is freed, preventing the player from speaking to him.
* Paarthurnox sometimes becomes completely immune to all damage despite a quest to kill him.
* Sometimes Alduin will not spawn at all when looking back in time, though randomly will if you reload the game and try again.
* Sometimes after defeating Alduin, Alduin simply respawns, over and over.
* "Battle for Whiterun" - sometimes it's impossible to accept the Jarl's surrender, the dialog simply loops indefinitely, with Vingar Grey Mane standing at the door unmoving - fast travelling at this point fails the quest.
* "Battle for Whiterun" - game crashes if success is reported to Ulfric while he's in the upstairs rooms
* "Rescue from Fort Neugrad" - During the Storm-Cloak quest to free all the prisoners from the fort near Helgen, one of the Imperial guards that is necessary to kill to complete the quest had ran/teleported over to Whiterun, complete with a quest marker pointing there - but still had to kill him to continue the quest to free the prisoners.
* "Battle for Fort Hraggstad" doesn't always allow you to continue to "Battle for Solitude" - it just ends the questline with no way to continue the quests.
* "Battle for Solitude" - the player can enter the city and find the city in "battle mode" (normal NPC's not present etc.), but the guards do not attack the player by default, and if the player attacks them, they will try to arrest and even send the player to jail - during a siege to make a city change hands?
* "Battle for Solitude" - After entering Castle Dour, the game may lock up in cutscene mode. Ulfric and Galmar are supposed to enter and initiate a conversation, but this is not happening. If the player waits for Ulfric and Galmar to enter the Castle first, they go through their door-opening animation but instead warp up to the wall above the entrance; something is breaking and preventing them from entering the castle. Reloads, even going back multiple quests in the Stormcloak line, produce the same result.
* "Battle for Solitude" - During the same Solitude siege quest, at the stage to force Tullius to surrender, Tullius cannot be talked to and the quest cannot be completed - with the city gates locked making the player completely stuck in Solitude.
* "Battle for Solitude" - If the Dark Brotherhood questline is completed before "Battle for Solitude," Penitus Oculatus agents remain in Solitude and attacking them produces a bounty
* Some cities are staying in "siege mode" even after completing Civil War quests - eg even fast travelling to them you get told you must help the soldiers attack first etc.
* As cities change hands, the new guards may fail to recognize that the player is a stage 4 vampire. Townsfolk will attack the player and the guards will actually defend the player against them. See Video
* Cities, villages, and forts changing hands during the Civil War is not updated consistently on the in-game tactical maps. Some maps are not updated (blue flags and red flags remain in the same place), some update a few locations properly but not others, and some show both flags overlapping on the same spot.

Side Quest Issues

* Skjor reappears in Companion guild hall even after he dies in the quest line, may be related to being on/starting the quest "A Night to Remember" ?
* "Blood's Honor" - Vilkas may not give the "Purity of Revenge" quest when you return to Jorrvaskr and find the fallen Kodlak. All of the Companions will remain stuck in their scripted positions, breaking the guild completely. This occurs if the leader of Driftshade Refuge had already been killed before reaching this point. It also occurs if the 'Find the Helm of Winterhold' radiant quest is active and points to Driftshade Refuge.
* "Glory of the Dead" - After the companions funeral, the game sometimes gets stuck - everybody remains in a state of mourning, no further quests are received, and any NPC at the funeral cannot be interacted with properly any more (eg Warmaiden shopkeeper).
* "A Chance Arrangement" Brynjolf's distraction lasts forever and thus the player can never advance the quest line, as Brynjolf will never go down to the Ragged Flagon for the player to initiate dialogue with. Seems to happen if player leaves town too fast after planting the stolen ring?
* "Taking Care of Business" - sometimes everyone stands around in the market even after the arrest - nothing else happens, some script trigger is breaking.
* If you dealt with Haelga during the Thieves Guild inital quest and then pick up her Dibella statue, it is permanently stuck in your inventory.
* If you kill Lisbett after retrieving a Dibella statue for her, the statue becomes stuck in your inventory
* "Loud and Clear" quest can break if the player had already broke into Honningbrew Meadery before starting any of the related Thief quests, or can cause problems initiating any dialog with the "new owner" after completing the quest.
* "Speaking With Silence" - after meeting Mercer at the catacombs entrance, sometimes the quest gets stuck - you cannot enter without a key, and Mercer does nothing but stand there.
* "Summerset Shadows" and "Kill the leader of Uttering Hills Cave" quests both have the same target - you may have already killed the target on one of those quests, making the other quest impossible to complete.
* Karliah and Brynjolf are not always at the stone during the "Trinity" quest(s).
* "Blindsighted" - In Irkngthand Sanctuary, when going to confront Mercer, the script sometimes gets stuck - the player does not get dropped from the platform and nothing happens.
* "Blindsighted" - Picking up the Left Eye of the Falmer off Mercer's corpse often fails to activate the Misc. quest to sell it to Delvin - for some people, it's still flagged as a quest item regardless. For others, it's a non-quest item and can be sold normally.
* "Blindsighted" - if the player does not talk to Karliah before escaping the flooded room, she and Brynjolf will get stuck underwater permanently, preventing the quest's completion
* "Hard Answers" - in Calcelmo's lab, the Azura's Worshipper as a follower will tell the player they "should not be in here" and cause problems - possibly related to some sort of faction clash despite being a follower.
* "Hard Answers" - Can be received again after completion by entering Calcelmo's museum
* "Darkness Returns" - If the player leaves the Pilgrim's Path, the entrance door is closed and cannot be reopened, preventing completion of the quest
* "Darkness Returns" - There are many bugs with Karliah in this quest. She can be asked about the Agents of Stealth, Sabotage, and Strife before entering the twilight sepulcher. She will sometimes not have any dialog options to continue the quest after putting the skeleton key back and being given a task to talk to her, she will simply repeat "yes fellow nightingale" and nothing else. She may return to the basem*nt of Snow Veil Sanctum instead of Nightingale Hall, and Nightingale Hall remains in disrepair.
* Sapphire sometimes gets stuck on the bridge by the Bee and Barb, and will not respond to anything or take part in any necessary final Thieve's guild questline ceremonies, and cannot be talked to about Shadr's debt for "Under New Management".
* "Silver Lining" - Never starts if the Curious Silver Mold is picked up beforehand
* "J'Zargo's Experiment" - it's possible to kill more than 1 undead with a single scroll... if the player goes from 2/3 kills and kills two or more with the last scroll, the quest remains impossible to complete (and lists you as killing 4/3 or 5/3) - quest should check for player killing >=, not just =.
* The Stones of Barenziah do not stack in the inventory
* If your first contact with Winterhold College is not Nenya, the Visit Winterhold misc quest is perma stuck on incomplete. Sometimes this happens even if Nenya leads you to the college. Oddly enough, Faralda's dialogue may disappear if the quest is active in the quest log.
* Faralda's entrance test quest for the Mage's guild sometimes gets stuck - the player is unable to cast a spell or continue past that point after buying a spell from Faralda.
* Mirabelle's Tour can be interrupted by a random encounter (eg a dragon) - and if Mirabelle is interrupted mid-tour, she will never complete the tour.
* "Hitting the Books" - If you collect all the books before talking to Orthorn, he fails to recognize that you've collected the books
* "Containment" - sometimes, the necessary triggers simply fail to activate, breaking the Winterhold College Quest.
* "First Lessons" - Tolfdir's dialog sometimes glitches and he then fails to cast his destruction spell at the player while they have a Ward spell active, which ends the questline. Going back to a previous save can resolve this.
* "Under Saarthal" - casting a fire based spell at the wall can cause a game freeze for some users (frost based spell apparently works fine, as does Unrelenting Force shout). Other people have reported that no amount of spellcasting affects the wall at all, other that dual-casting is the only way to fix it.
* "Under Saarthal" - when you have to Meet Tolfdir and the trainees outside Saarthal, all of the NPC's may never show up/get lost and confused trying to go where they are meant to.
* "The Eye of Magnus" - After Ancano activates the Eye of Magnus and the magic being attack the town - any attempt at fast travelling to to the college instantly kills the player, until the quest is complete.
* "The Eye of Magnus" - Morokei may have two copies of the Staff of Magnus in his inventory. This can cause a later problem -- the forcefield around Ancano will still be bypassed, but the cutscene in the Hall of Elements can then be interrupted, breaking the quest.
* "The Eye of Magnus" - After retrieving the Staff of Magnus, leaving the area may cause the game to freeze
* "The Eye of Magnus" - the forcefield does not always break with the staff of magnus, and the quest becomes stuck at this point.
* "The Eye of Magnus" - Ancano may really put a beatdown on Tolfdir See Video
* "Brelyna's Practice" - when Brelyna asks to practise on you, the quest can get stuck at the point where you are supposed to wait for the effect to wear off if an obstacle blocked the spell from actually hitting you (the quest continues as if it had hit you, but no effects got applied so no effects can wear off). Spell absorption effects such as the Breton's Dragonskin can also block the spell and break the quest.
* "Shalidor's Insights" - Urag can give you the quest more than once, but subsequent times you cannot find the book and the quest marker does not appear.
* "Onmund's Request" - the quest breaks if the player has found/picked up the staff themselves before being given the quest.
* The "fortify" buffs you get on a particular mage guild quest can sometimes get stuck on your character, giving you the equivalent of permanent, infinite magika. (anyone have a name for this quest?)
* "Arniel's Endeavor" - if the staff retrieval quest (radiant) sends you to Morvunskar after completing "Night to Remember," Sanguine will still be there and will attack respawned enemies. Also, the portal to the Misty Grove will still be open; if it is entered, the player will get stuck in the Grove permanently.
* "Arniel's Endeavor" - The quest reward, Keening, can be found without any charges, and attempts at recharging fail (recharge key does not work); this may be intentional. When the dagger is equipped, the message "Mortal Wound added" is displayed, but there is no associated Active Effect
* The College quest to receive the Master Destruction spells is not treated as a quest (no quest log entry, no markers) and the ritual book is not flagged as a quest item. Likely intended as the quest locations must be found using clues in the book, but a player may lose track of the quest if the book is stored away for later
* "With Friends Like These" - you can pickpocket the captives' hoods, and they will still pretend the hood is on them during conversation.
* "Sentenced to Death" - you can get the dialog for the various "victims" by talking to them, before actually being told by Muiri who the victims are.
* "Mourning Never Comes" - Performing the optional stage of Muiri's Dark Brotherhood quest BEFORE killing the primary target causes the compass quest marker to vanish.
* Dark Brotherhood contract to kill Narfi does not consider that you helped him find his sister before. When you go talk to him he does not recognize you at all.
* "To Kill an Empire" - The quest may get stuck at the point that Gianna is supposed to lead the player to the dining room. After Gianna picks the stew up, she simply spins in place
* During initial conversation with Viarmo at the Bards College, there is no option to just visit, you have to say you are joining (only dialogue option).
* The Bard's Quest can become stuck if you have already picked any of the needed instruments up before receiving the quest (game does not acknowledge that you already have the items).
* The Bard's Quest does not remove the instruments from the player after completing, and you are stuck with quest items (same with many other quests/quest items).
* "Tending the Flames" - The Gift of the Gab reward may not appear on the Active Effects screen, and in fact may not affect Speech growth at all
* "Tending the Flames" - Viarmo may strike the effigy with a hammer rather than burning it. He then gets stuck with the torch in his hand, walking around with it at anytime of the day Hammer VideoTorch Video
* "The Break of Dawn" - quest breaks if a summoned creature kills Malkoran shade - cannot be completed at all, must be the player that gets the kill.
* "A Night To Remember" - the "trash" you clean up in the temple gets marked as quest items once picked up, and so cannot be dropped again (getting stuck with trash items such as bottles of wine is frustrating). Furthermore, if more bottles of Alto wine are picked up while you have a quest-flagged bottle of the wine, the new bottles are also considered quest items, giving you a quest-flagged stack (this happens with any quest item that is stackable)
* "A Night To Remember" - if you are married to Ysolda, the conversation with her is strange (she doesn't mind you trying to marry a 2nd woman!?).
* "A Night to Remember" - During Sanguine's quest, if you speak to Ysolda before going to Rorikstead, it jumps the questline forward prematurely. You'll end up skipping several steps and may accidentally revisit them after completing the entire quest.
* "Waking Nightmare" - If the temple is entered with a follower (in addition to the priest), the follower is left behind (this is supposed to happen) and the priest warps deeper into the temple (this is not). The priest is needed to get deeper into the temple, so the quest becomes unplayable. This can rarely occur even with a follower (a separate companion bug, perhaps? a follower being recognized when there isn't one?) Saving before entering the temple is recommended in any case.
* "Ill Met by Moonlight" -- Sinding the werewolf can sometimes been seen after dying - eg seen at Helgen's Gate (may be a quest that relies on him force respawning him?). He may also be seen walking around in werewolf form after being spared, inexplicably ignored by other NPC's. He may respawn in his prison cell if the player sleeps on a bedroll in the prison
* "The Black Star" - If you complete Azura's Shine quest, a random traveller can still approach you and suggest you travel to Azura's Shrine, putting the quest to visit it in your journal but unable to complete it even if you visit the shrine again.
* "A Daedra's Best Friend" - If you choose not to kill Barbas during the Clavicus Vile quest at Haemar's Shame, the conversation can be interrupted (perhaps by talking to the dog?) and interrupt the script that Barbas will remain in the world.
* "The Mind of Madness" - On the Wabbajack mission, sometimes a random crazy woman can follow you begging you to use the Wabbajack on her - however if you do, Delphine will start attacking you and prevent continuation of the mainquest - is this intentional (you just have to ignore the mad woman and let her follow you?).
* Esbern will offer to make a potion from one dragon scale and one dragon bone. Completing this gets you a potion that will give you the "dragon infusion (last entry)" perk. Drinking the potion does not always give you the perk, and the quest will remain active (only if you do not get the perk) but cannot be completed again.
* "Blood On The Ice" - the graveyard scene sometimes fails to load, causing the quest to get stuck.
* "Blood On The Ice" - if you have the court mage arrested, the quest simply ends prematurely - you are stuck with the amulet, Corlixto's Treasure shop is permanently closed, it feels like a major part of scripting is missing/broken.
* "Blood On The Ice" - from many reports, this quest seems to be able to break in many different ways if the player doesn't do every single event in exactly the right order, or if the player has ever discovered/found anything relating to the quest beforehand.
* "Blood On The Ice" - murder that is supposed to take place "the next evening" may happen immediately (even in broad daylight with the cityfolk all around). Could be a V-Sync issue (see Core/Physics Issues)
* "Blood On The Ice" - the killer may run into The White Phial instead of Hjerim, possibly related to the murder taking place at the wrong time of day as above
* "Blood On The Ice" - NPC's have trouble with the tight corridors of the palace during Wuunferth's arrest
* "Forsworn Conspiracy" - quest can break if you pickpocket the note during the escape - the quest then updates telling you to check the body, but as you already have the note, you cannot trigger the quest to continue.
* "Forsworn Conspiracy" - the player isn't always given their quest items back, only "normal" items, breaking many other quests in the process.
* "Forsworn Conspiracy" - the guards that arrest you never leave the shrine - you can be arrested, sent to the mines, complete that stage of the quest - but re-enter the shrine and the guards are still there and the whole process repeats, over and over.
* "No One Escapes Cidhna Mine" - If you killed the King in Rags when he tasks you to kill the non-Forsworn in Cidhna mine, you get your name cleared when exiting the ruins by the Silver Blood. However, if you then commit any crime and a guard talks to you, you are indicted on the Forsworn Conspiracy charges and can only choose jail or fight. If you choose jail, the conversation keeps looping so really you can only choose to fight.
* "Laid to Rest" - quest can get confused, with the crowd that follows you vanishing, Movarth respawning, and the next quest in line not triggering.
* "Forbidden Legend" - starting this questline/being at a certain stage on this questline can cause a CTD every time you attempt to enter Whiterun, making Whiterun inaccessible.
* "Forbidden Legend" - There are many ways that this quest can be prevented from being completed. Killing Mirkul before reading the quest notes makes his corpse unlootable. The brothers can be disintegrated, also making for unlootable corpses. Retrieving one of the amulent fragments requires the entrance to Saarthal being unlocked, and Saarthal is only unlocked by a completely unrelated Mage College quest.
* "Forbidden Legend" - Gauldur's amulet quest won't update in the journal with new/next objectives after collecting every piece (may relate to the player having already been to Reachwater Rock beforehand).
* "Repairing the Phial" - the Forsworn Briarheart is the same one used for the "Legend of Red Eagle" quest. If the Red Eagle quest has been finished, the Briarheart spawns the Red Eagle's Fury again. If it's picked up, it gets stuck in the inventory as a quest item.
* "Repairing the Phial" - doesn't update after collecting a Briar Heart (even if you collect one AFTER receiving the quest). In fact Briar Hearts become unavailable for alchemy as well. May be related to having Briar Hearts in the inventory when the quest starts. May also be related to previously taking the Briar Heart during the "Legend of Red Eagle" quest. Those two quests seem to be extremely incompatible and should probably target separate Forsworn Briarhearts.
* "Repairing the Phial" - clicking on the empty White Phial duplicates it in the inventory
* "Kill Petra" - this quest gets stuck if you kill Petra before freeing the hargrave in the cage.
* "The man who cried wolf" quest is not possible if the player is on the first bard quest granted there (the quests interfere with eachother?).
* "Missing in Action" - Freeing Thorald Grey-Mane at Northwatch, the guards completely ignore him when you escape with him in tow. You can sneak around while he walks around with weapon drawn right past guards who ignore him completely. Once outside and you talk to him and he says he needs to flee, he just stands around a bit further at a tree and does nothing of the sort.
* "In My Time of Need" - if the player helps the Alik'r capture Saadia, at the end of the quest Saadia is paralysed, falls to the floor, then nothing else happens - Kematu and Saadia just remain there. If the player zones out and comes back a few game days later, Kematu can be found saying he wants to go home, and Saadia can spawn, unparalysed, closer to the gate hostile to the player. Has some scripted event gone missing?
* If you find Leifnarr's body at the bottom of Broken Helm Hollow before receiving the quest to find him from his family, his family can never be told about his death.
* "Boethiah's Calling" and "Kill the leader of Knifepoint Ridge" both point to Knifepoint Ridge. If they are active at the same time, only "Boethiah's Calling" can be completed.
* "Search for Valdr's Hunting Party" - Valdr was not waiting outside the cave or anywhere else, there is no map marker, and 'Show on Map' points to Solitude - perhaps a stage of the quest is missing or is automatically skipping?
* "Speak to Greta about going to the Temple of Divines" can get stuck after convincing Greta.
* Grelka's personal quest will never be granted, meaning the player will never get the opportunity to marry Grelka.
* "The Pale Lady" - quest sometimes cannot be given, as the battle outside the crypt does not always trigger (Eisa will just stand there with no dialog options).
* "The Legend of Red Eagle" seems to be (unintentionally) repeatable, if you read the book again after completing.
* "No News is Good News" - Angeline in Solitude can grant a quest to find her daughter in the Imperial Legion in Whiterun, but Captain Aldis who the player is sent to speak to no longer exists after the Stormcloaks have taken over Whiterun.
* "Steal the Dragon Breath's Mead for Olda" - Dragon Breath's mead sometimes falls through the box it's supposed to be sitting on, making the quest impossible to complete without using the console.
* "Silenced Tongues" may not start after reading the book at the beginning, and the ceremonial weapons do not open the door to the the Cairn. It's speculated that this is related to destroying the Dark Brotherhood.
* "Hag's End" place of power misc quest was marked as completed upon finishing another place of power quest, despite having never been there.
* "Promises to Keep" - if the player follows the hidden objective to tell Maven about the plan, continuing the quest/questline seems to ignore the fact that you told Maven about the plan.
* Disrupt the Skooma trade - quest is not completable if Maven has become Jarl (Joining the Imperials).
* Disrupt the Skooma operation quest breaks if you have already cleared that dungeon before receiving the quest.
* "Heart of Dibella" - Enmon may enter and charge through Broken Tower Redoubt to reach archers on the upper level. He (inexplicably) survives the trip through the Redoubt unscathed, but has a good chance of getting killed by the archers
* "Heart of Dibella" - After completing Markath beggar's quest to steal the Dibella statue, if you then talk to the Silver Blood Innkeep about rumors, you receive a misc quest to talk to the beggar. However no dialogue options are available from the beggar and it is stuck as incomplete.
* Creatures cleared out of a mine as part of a quest may respawn later, killing the miners
* During the blacksmith "tutorial" quest, if the player does anything out of sync the quest gets confused - eg if the player makes an iron dagger and sharpens it themselves (testing out the equipment) before trying to hand the dagger in to the blacksmith.
* Dropping and picking up the Sapphire Dragon claw after it is marked as quest-cleared, sets it as a quest item once again.
* "Return to Your Roots" - Removing all Crimson Nirnroots from your inventory deducts only one from the quest counter, though retrieving them all adds the number of Nirnroots to the counter. In this way, the 'Collect 30 Crimson Nirnroots' phase can be completed with as few as 2 of the Nirnroots collected
* "Return to Your Roots" - Alternatively, moving a number of Crimson Nirnroots to a container may deduct two from the counter, then picking them all back up adds one to the counter. This can result in a negative number in the counter: Screen
* "Return to Your Roots" - Collecting 30 Crimson Nirnroots before investigating their significance immediately points you to Avrusa Sarethi, despite having never read the journal that identifies her
* "Return to Your Roots" - Orc Hunters may chase wildlife into Sarethi farm and cause an abundance of problems, as their faction relations are touchy. In one case, the Hunters killed Avrusa's sister; Avrusa gasped at her sister's body then immediately ran inside her locked house, where she gives only trespassing dialogue, breaking the quest. If the Hunters turn hostile (which may happen if the player gets close) killing them produces a bounty and an immediate arrest attempt by the farm's guard (who may be there specifically to guard against this sort of thing, but the sister's death is proof that he's doing a poor job).
* When tasked to steal the Staff of Arcane Authority by the steward of Winterhold, an "I already have it" option may be available if you've already previously stolen the staff but don't have it in your inventory. This completes the quest without removing it from any storage place you're keeping it or adding it to the steward's inventory. This exchange occured while the "Kill the Dragon at Mount Anthor" quest was beign turned in, but that may be unrelated.
* The Jarl of Winterhold can give the Helm of Winterhold quest repeatedly, even after turning the Helm in
* Allesandra in Riften mentions a reward for her quest, but she does not give one
* The Treasure Map chests may fail to appear in the proper place. Possibly a Patch 1.2 issue
* Post Patch 1.2, Treasure Map VIII disappears when entering Windhelm
* The Greybeards can tell you there is a word of power at "Greywater Gorge", when they mean "Sunderstone Gorge" (wrong quest pointer location).
* When Queen Freydis' Sword is turned in to Oengul War-Anvil, it becomes available for purchase in his stock. It's intended to be a gift for, I believe, Ulfric.
* "Blessings of Nature" - the old tree will remain in place with the new sapling growing inside.
* Various "becoming the thane" quests remain in the quest log even after becoming thane/completing all quests in an area.
* "Unfathomable Depths" - the final scripted dialogue with the adventurers is interrupted if the boss fight is initiated too quickly
* "Lost Expedition" - Staubin is referred to as 'Staub' in the quest log
* "Lost Expedition" - When the quest is turned in, the four journals are duplicated in the inventory
* Gorm of Morthal's letter delivery to Captain Aldis in Solitude does not appear in the journal
* Tolfdir's Alembic mini quest does not appear in Misc. section of the journal.
* Tolfdir also seems to misplace his Alembic constantly. More often than there are instances of it around the College.
* Winterhold Innkeep's quest to help the drunk does not appear in Misc/Side and you cannot inform him of failure/success when you hand the letter to the drunk.
* Riften merchant Madesi's collection quest places no quest marker on him when the wanted items are collected

Radiant Quest & Faction Issues

* Many quests (radiant quests only? Possibly pre-scripted quests too?) are still given relating to buildings, NPC's, locations etc. that are no longer relevant or even possible because a city has changed hands (Imperials/Stormcloaks) from siege quests/civil war quests etc. - the game makes no attempt at checking whether buildings/npc's etc. still exist (and possibly isn't granting the chance of NEW quests relating to the new state of affairs either?).
* Radiant quests can involve children as their targets. This becomes a problem when you need to kill or pickpocket your target as neither of these actions can be performed on children.
* Faction relations can sometimes get confused, possibly affected by having a wife from that faction (eg the companions faction will sometimes all go permanently hostile to the player for no apparent reason)
* Every NPC in Dragonsreach (and several around Whiterun) can become hostile to the player with no apparent cause or reason. May be a random incorrectly faction flagged hostile NPC out in the wilds somewhere, or a quest that is causing faction problems?
* Various NPC's seem to simply not give out necessary sidequests (may be Radiant quests) required to achieve fairly major plotline effects - for example Farkas never giving out "Hired Muscle", thus unable to get the "Purity" quest to cure Farkas/Vilkas of Lycanthropy.
* Factions get confused when cities change hands (eg after liberating Whiterun, killing an Imperial courier still grants bounty in Whiterun even if the city is now in Stormcloak hands).
* The guards in Riften may start attacking townsfolk (but not the player). Possibly related to starting the Thieves Guild questline?
* Quest NPC's at faction-camps remain unkillable even if the player has locked themselves out of that faction's quest-line by joining the opposite faction (or is this intentional because eventually the player can complete both faction's quests? Seems unlikely).
* Aela may never give "Totems of Hircine" after becoming harbinger, she can give nothing but animal extermination quests over and over.
* "Animal Extermination" style quests from the Companions, don't auto-unlock the houses the player is supposed to be entering to complete them, so the player is forced to be a criminal unless they attend the house at certain unspecified times.
* "Animal Extermination" quests can break randomly - the target of the extermination can already be dead when the player arrives (killed by another NPC?) - the quest cannot be completed at this stage.
* "Trouble in Skyrim" - if Farkas sends the player to Valtheim Towers after Amren's sword has been recovered from there, the bandit leader is already dead and the quest cannot be completed
* "Stealing Plans" - plans are not always present in the Silver Hands hideout (may be if the player has already cleared this area before).
* The second wave Companions quests are offered by the Circle in the Underforge after the funeral. If such a quest is not completed before the final piece of Wuuthrad is given to Eorlund, the quest can never be turned in and remains stuck in the journal
* One of the "fishing" quests for the thieves guild, you are supposed to pickpocket a flawless emerald from Cairine in Markarth - Despite never having pickpocketed her before, the player can simply get the message "Cairine has already caught you" making it impossible to finish the quest.
* The evidence in a Thieves Guild Shill Job (radiant quest to plant evidence) may be unplaceable, producing a 'you may not remove quest items' message
* Cancelling the random Thief quests to steal items (eg if you are trying to get a quest to a specific area) doesn't despawn the item that got spawned as a steal target - eventually multiple items can stack up on top of eachother in the target locations.
* Delvin will no longer take larceny items once the player has completed the main thief's guild questline (the dialog options to hand items in no longer appear).
* Riften, Haelga's Bunkhouse - Make changes to ledger quest - An un-activatable box on the first floor is the target instead of the ledger, and the quest cannot be continued/completed.
* Mage College book retrieval quests cannot be completed if the book has already been previously obtained
* A number of bounty quests don't seem to spawn the bandit leaders correctly or at all (sometimes only the leader with no helpers, other times only the helpers with no leader). Having other quests going to the same location as the bounty quest also causes issue (only one set of NPC's for one quest or the other spawns, but clearing them out won't update both quests).
* Even if the mobs in a dungeon you had previously "cleared" (and set the cleared flag on) have respawned, a quest/NPC that requests you to clear that same dungeon will never consider the quest complete if you clear it again.
* The "Collect bounty from Skald" bounty quests sometimes don't update/clear after handing it in, getting stuck in the quest log.
* Random roadside encounters may be getting cleared/replaced too quickly post patch 1.2. There is more than one report of bandit corpses disappearing before they can be looted.
* Many bounty/dragon-location quests can be granted multiple times even after it's been completed, by talking to various tavern keepers, and receiving the same quest multiple times after previously completing tends to confuse the quest engine.
* If a bounty quest points to a dragon at a den you've cleared previously, the dragon's soul cannot be absorbed. (Fixed in Patch 1.2?)
* A dragon may fail to appear at the designated location when a bounty quest targets it. Could be related to either of the above two problems.
* The 'kill the bandit leader' radiant quest can point to the neutral Guard NPCs at Nilheim Screen
* "Return to the Jarl of Riften" doesn't appear to progress - questline just gets stuck at that point.
* The Deep-In-His-Cups random encounter may respawn repeatedly, even after he is killed
* Once you get access to the Arch-Mage quarers in Winterhold College, all of the book fetching quest markers point you to go to the Arch-Mage quarters instead of the Arcaneum where Urag actually is.
* After a city is liberated/changes hands, the player must still locate and visit the old steward to collect any bounties granted (surely the new steward would have everything organised for the city?).

Crime Issues

* Dogs, chickens, horses etc. can report crimes, and count as witnesses to be killed.
* "Bounty Hunter" NPC's that hunt you down if you have a high bounty, the dialog option to pay off your bounty seems broken - they request 0 gold, and don't clear your bounty.
* Bounties don't always seem to clear even after "paying them off" - seems to be random (random locations/times/situations?) whether paying it off actually clears it.
* If a companion is ordered to get all items from a "neutral" (no faction owned, eg chests in dungeons) container in which the player has placed anything, all of the items get flagged as stolen. This also happens with an enemy's weapon dropped on the ground after a fight
* City guards can get stuck in an infinite loop of trying to arrest you if you select "I really don't have time for this, do you?" options (they just constantly try to re-arrest and you can constantly say you don't have time for this, is it meant to clear the bounty?).
* Sometimes small/accidental 5-gold-bounties can make key quest-giver NPC's out in wilderness camps completely hostile to the player until the inconsequential 5 gold bounty is paid off at a city.
* It's possible to Tab out of dialogue with a guard trying to arrest you (as you can Tab out of any dialogue)

Engine Issues

These are issues with the Skyrim game engine that do not impact stability, but can inhibit smooth gameplay. This includes physics issues and the myriad problems with the game's interface.

Core/Physics Issues

* V-Sync (or iPresentInterval) seems to have a huge impact on many other things ingame, such as the time-of-day the "next day" happens at (day and time move out of sync, which can interfere with many quest triggers etc.), mouse Y sensitivity, physics react violently, nearby water flickering crazily as the camera is moved etc. - why/how has vertical sync been tied so heavily into the core engine itself?
* Post Patch 1.2, resistances (physical and magical) seem to be totally malfunctioning on both players and creatures. A Nord with a Frost Resist potion takes the full blast of a Frost Dragon's breath. A Fire Atronach can easily be killed with a Fire spell. It seems that resistances are being totally ignored. Armor rating, poison resistance, and disease resistance may also be ignored (need confirmation on these).
* Quest-items sometimes become invisible in any and all item lists (containers, your own character etc.) - they simply will not show in any lists, which can break many quests where you have to loot a specific quest item etc.
* Interacting with certain items that force you into a particular position to use them (eg blacksmith's forges), if the player was auto-running when they were activated, after use the player is sometimes stuck halfway into the floor and must reload the game.
* Doors that are opened using other interactables (puzzle elements, levers, stuck gears, etc) can get permanently stuck or put in awkward positions when they respawn after previously being opened. The interactable elements are either reset or still in their completed positions, but they cannot be interacted with anymore and the door is suddenly closed. This screen shows a lever-controlled rotating door that was in an awkward position after being returned to. The gears in Raldbthar's Centurion chamber reset to their stuck condition, but the bones that were blocking the gears do not. The elevator door out of Alfland can break (no longer possible to open/interact with) after leaving the dungeon (need to fast travel to exit, and can no longer re-enter?).
* You can place a pot/basket/tub etc. over everybody's head (by dragging it over them), they won't object to this at all - but will no longer be able to see, so you can murder their family or rob them blind of all their possessions without them making a single complaint, they'll just stand their happily with a basket over their head.
* Timers of blessings are displaying incorrectly (or blessings themselves are just getting stuck on for too long?) - eg they may say lasts 7 hours, but several realtime hours later, and a few game days later, the blessing can still be on.
* You cannot poison your weapon if you have only 1 held and it's in your left hand.
* Seems to be no way to attack with any weapon at all while swimming/underwater, even though enemies that happen to be underwater can attack the player... can't even cast water-breathing (even if you surface - must be on dry land to cast it!).
* NPC's cannot drown, which has caused problems when given a quest to kill NPC's and they manage to get themselves stuck in the water - eg during "Rise in the East", the NPC's can get stuck forever under the landing bridge - the player cannot attack them there (can't attack underwater), and they won't come out.
* Changing to "beast form" sometimes gets confused - you visually change, but get no benefits of beast form, and you are automatically equipped with (random?) weapons/spells you have - but are unable to use them properly due to being in beastform.
* If you have your fists out in third person, and go into first person, your fists don't appear on-screen but you are unable to interact with anything (eg forges, enchanters) - you need to unsheathe and sheathe some weapons again to clear it.
* In first person view - If you sheath your weapon (eg a bow) while in the middle a Stealth-Roll, your character will stop mid roll and be unable to move again, but your stamina drains constantly. Switching over to 3rd person view or drawing your weapon again fixes this.
* Using a bow & arrow in third person crouched fires arrow from a point behind and below your character, so it can get stuck in objects or the floor depending what angle you fire at, rather than firing from where your bow actually is.
* Switching between third and 1st person can reset your breath meter, granting you unlimited underwater breathing.
* If you are over-encumbered, you cannot move at all if you are in 3rd person view (but can move slowly in 1st person view).
* If you are over-encumbered, you can move faster with a bow drawn and an arrow readied
* Unsheathing a weapon while sneaking can allow the player to sneak around at normal run-speed.
* You can jump just as high when encumbered, despite not being able to run - surely jump height should be at best half-normal height when encumbered, at worst unable to jump at all?
* Some NPC's will not open their stores at appropriate times (may be related to gametime going out of sync as explained above?) - they will just sit at their counters and never unlock the store or sell items.
* Enemy NPC's getting out of a chair or a bed when you're approaching them looks and plays awkward - They get up very slowly, just like any NPC would get out of a chair or bed, rather than a panic because an enemy is rushing at them with weapons.
* Initiating walking or running is lagging in 3rd person view. When you press "W" for example to go forwards, for about 0.3 seconds your character stands completely still without doing absolutely nothing. This does not happen in 1st person view, where you move immediately when you press "W".
* Player cannot jump while sprinting (possibly down to the default sprint hotkey, alt, or may not be possible with any sprint hotkey?).
* Jumping becomes impossible if the player is running forward while jumping and there is any sort of obstacle so much as ankle-high that the player-model is "Pushing against". Player must stop, stand still, then jump - or back away from the tiny stone then jump forward.
* Saving the game while holding down shift (Sneaking), upon reload you are slowed and unable to run/roll etc. - switching caps-lock on can fix this.
* Your reticle sometimes displays incorrectly if you, for example, are sneaking, and quickload a save where you are not sneaking - the "character state" is merging/confusing the reticle system.
* Max shoot-distance doesn't match the draw-distance settings - user must manually increase "fVisibleNavmeshMoveDist" to be able to use archery on mobs at max (ultra?) visibility distance.
* Arrows have various problems, for example running out of one type of arrow, the game struggles/can "bug out" rather than simply switching between arrow types, and can even try to unequip arrows for you (you get a blank "unequipped" message and then your bow/arrows bug out).
* Some rare-instances of the player's speed being doubled/tripled or more - allowing the player to run and jump around like a large amount of drugs have been consumed. Sometimes fixes itself over time/zone-loads.
* "Always Run" seems to get confused and will turn off when it should be on, or vice-versa - and the player's choice on the setting doesn't seem to stick properly during a playthrough.
* You can do a forward-roll without the Stealth Roll perk if you crouch, then sprint and jump at the same time. You can also do this by sheathing or unsheathing a weapon while crouching and holding the sprint key.
* In melee, dead bodies may disappear and can't be searched - but if you go out of the game and reload a save from after the battle, the bodies are suddenly back, even after several game days have passed.
* Corpses are (rarely) unlootable after death - tends to occur when lots of things hit an enemy at once - some sort of trigger to create a "Lootable corpse" from a living entity not occurring?
* It's possible for non-equippable items to get stuck in your inventory and be listed as equipped (known to happen with a garnet) - you can sell it, but it remains listed in your inventory, so you can sell it over and over for unlimited gold etc.
* Horses have ridiculous physics - you can climb up near vertical cliffs on a horse at crazy angles, though horses can sometimes die just from falling off a three foot high stone.
* Dismounting and then remounting a horse underwater allows you to gallop around in the water.
* Headless horseman ghost sometimes freaks out and flies through the air at crazy speeds - possibly related to the general broken physics of horses?
* Horses, particularly stolen ones, have serious problems upon dismounting - dismount a stolen horse and it can shoot hundreds of feet away instantly.
* An NPC (Stormcloak soldier) shot with an arrow went up about 15 feet in the air (almost a miniature version of the giant attack bug?)
* Player cannot use stagecoaches/carriages when over encumbered - the player can talk to the driver, hop in the back, but then nothing happens.
* While swimming, the engine sometimes gets confused and causes the player to "fall" as if in mid-air, before starting to swim again.
* Running over objects/random clutter on the floor can launch them like a cannon has fired them - you can actually injure and even kill your own character with this at times.
* Walking over bones causes slight damage
* The small wooden handcarts dotted around, that often have items in the back of them (there is one in the tutorial/intro cave just before the bear), seem to be as light as feathers despite being quite large wooden items - nudging them just slightly can send them flinging off into the distance as if you had just shot them with an RPG.
* Sometimes simple acts such as opening a door will launch all objects off of nearby shelves/tables etc. that were within a certain distance of the door - seems to be related to how fast your FPS is?
* Mammoths occasionally shoot 100 feet into the air, and then drop down dead - possibly when two mammoths are following too closely, the one at the back is launching the one in-front of it into the air when they try turning?
* Giants make a habit of flying right through mountains.
* Giants can launch the player or an NPC hundreds of feet into the air like a rocketship in a single-hit (20 feet in the air would be fine, but they can hit characters higher than the throat of the world mountain).
* If you kill a character with any form of knockback effect, you can sometimes "push" their corpse through the gameworld, and cause their corpse to be unretrievable or lootable. Is this down to some "speed" setting of item movement - eg a speed of "10" moves it 10 "measurements" per cycle, without any checks on if they would have encountered a floor after say, 7 "measurements" - so they skip right through the world?
* You can also cause living characters to get stuck in the world if you knock them back close to walls/other objects (eg use relenting force to push an NPC back into a wall, they sometimes go "through" the wall).
* It may be possible for the player to fall through certain meshes and get stuck, particularly in mountains and the corners of buildings
* Some very thin/flat items (East Empire trading map, Map of dragon burial grounds etc.) can "fall through" furniture/floors on zone load - they can sink all the way to the basem*nts.
* Post Patch 1.2, Dragons can sometimes be seen flying backwards (Deer running backwards too?)
* Dragons may (rarely) decay and provide a soul before it's killed. It simply turns into a skeleton that continues flying and fighting and cannot be harmed. Eventually the skeleton turns invisible and can be damaged (by frost spells only?). This occurred specifically (and repeatably) at Bonestrewn Crest.
* A dragon may continue flying around after it's been killed, providing no soul or loot
* If time is slowed when the player kills a dragon (or if slow time was used at all during the fight?), the dragon corpse seems to "break" and doesn't grant the player a dragon soul.
* The player may not be able to absorb dragon souls if the dragon was Disintegrated with shock spell perk (other particular deaths may also cause dragon souls to be unretrievable?).
* Animals may flip out around a dragon's corpse, as if the dragon were still alive
* Dragon bones sometimes "warp" to a player's zone load-in location (eg a doorway, a fast-travel entry point etc.) if the corpse existed anywhere in/near that zone - so you end up with dragon bones outside houses etc. (Fixed in Patch 1.2?)
* Casting spells such as "Raise Zombie" on a dragon's skeleton causes it to shoot into the sky.
* Bones/Skeletons have been seen dropping from a great height - these are either from NPC kills, or pre-placed skeletons, but many players see them up in the air and then drop down as they walk around/zone in.
* A Dragon may simply drop dead after landing. Possibly a Patch 1.2 issue.
* The Honningbrew decanter and Bust of the Grey Fox are "unstable" - even if they're perfectly settled when you leave the house, coming back in will result in physics acting strange on them.
* Items don't always stay where you last moved them in cells (particularly important for your own house) - they tend to stick to where they were when you first dropped them/they first appeared in the cell - they will revert to this position if you leave then re-enter the cell (rather than remembering the position you last moved them to).
* An entire shelf/surface of random items will sometimes turn invisible (the items not the surface) - but hovering the mouse over them still shows the name, and upon picking one up, all items will become visible again.
* Objects can get stuck in other objects and will constantly be trying to "jump out of the object" (sounds like two objects banging together over and over without stopping).
* Corpses can roll with unstoppable force down even fairly slight gradients, and will keep going until they reach an obstacle - they need a little more "weight"?
* The instant anything is off-screen, it seems to forget where it was - try very quickly moving your camera back and forth between two people either side of you, you'll see they keep "jumping" into different positions.
* Sometimes the above feature (where things happen differently when off-camera) actually happen on camera - you can be talking to an NPC and suddenly another NPC will warp in in-front of you, an NPC that was elsewhere in the village/building.
* The game can sometimes start placing the player further and further away from the doors they exited from when entering the world-zone from a dungeon/building-zone (restarting the client resolves it).
* Area transition doors will sometimes remain in the open position after use. If the player interacts with one, it closes and the transition does not occur, then it can be used normally
* Wildlife can (rarely) be seen walking along the bottom of a body of water
* Rabbits can move through the water quicker than they can move across the land.
* Held torches don't get re-equipped like weapons do after harvesting/crafting.

Interface Issues

* Mouse-clicking in menus is very buggy - sometimes mouse-clicking directly on items in the UI fails altogether. Other times is works for some but not all. Yet more times clicking anywhere but exactly on the text itself causes the menu to close instead of selecting the item your mouse was next to. Using the keyboard seems to be fairly reliable - it seems to be the mouse controls that are very broken in the UI.
* If you use WASD to navigate the UI and hit enter, but your mouse is over something else in the UI (an item, a dialog option, etc.), hitting enter can select the item the mouse was over rather than the one you used keys to navigate to (and the reverse is sometimes true).
* As of Patch 1.2, the down arrow key no longer functions in several menus (inventory, dialogue, item recharging)
* Some conversations cannot be backed out of with tab, and other conversations that shouldn't be able to (eg when guards want to arrest you) CAN simply be tabbed out of. Sometimes the exit conversation button disappears and the conversation cannot be tabbed out of either, so you are stuck in a permanent conversation.
* If you middle-mouse-wheel while using the enchanting station, it can zoom your character out instead of just scrolling the on-screen lists - this can cause your character to be permanently stuck after trying to leave the station.
* Key remapping doesn't seem complete - many interface related key presses (eg favourites and hotkeys) screw up if you remap those same keys (eg remapping the F key that changes to third person, interferes with the F being used to favourite things, changing the WASD keys to cursor movement doesn't allow you to use cursor keys for lockpicking, etc. etc.). This is frustrating for left-handed players and European players (who do not use QWERTY keyboards).
* Many menu functions are displayed with the default keys, even if their functions have been mapped to different keys. If "R" is remapped to "Ins", for instance, the inventory screen will still display "R" for "Drop", though "Ins" will work and "R" will not. In a few cases, the displayed key works rather than the remapped key. When Lockpicking, for instance, "A" and "D" still rotate the lockpick even if Left and Right have been remapped to arrow keys. Patch 1.2 altered key remapping and further confused matters -- Lockpicking now uses remapped Left and Right keys, but still displays "A" and "D." Meanwhile, apes evolved from man.
* The "R" key to unlock dragon shouts, even though you have souls, occasionally doesn't work (may just be from key remapping, but even without remapping the R key, this can still happen, spamming the R key sometimes unlocks a shout).
* Dragon shouts often seem to unequip themselves - you can be tapping Z and nothing happens, and find your dragon shout had unequipped itself.
* Sometimes the shout key and RMB-attack button become entirely unresponsive, until the player performs an LMB attack, then the shout/RMB attacks work again.
* Key-bindings seem to "break" for hotkeys if you try to switch from "magic in one hand weapon in the other" (and possibly other dual-wield combos seem problematic with the favourites hotkey system?)
* Not all mice have mouse-wheels, but there are some controls that require a mouse-wheel and there appears (?) to be no keybound alternatives, eg map zooming or zooming in on items.
* Activating/using a gamepad seems to disable mouse/KB support.
* Media keys (eg volume control keys) do not work ingame (other games don't seem to disable keyboard media keys).
* Selling/buying is bugged - if you hover over an item the NPC is selling, and then scroll down the far-left list onto your own items but DON'T move the mouse to the right (so DON'T hover over an item you actually have) - and then tap E - you gain gold for the item the NPC owns, and you can spam it - as if you are selling the NPC's own item back to them. The same bug may also allow item duplication/crashes using the same technique on containers.
* If you read a book and tab out of it, the entire UI starts playing up - moving the mouse over UI elements causes random elements to be ignored altogether as if they didn't exist - the only fix is to exit the UI completely then re-enter.
* Trying to rotate items in the "zoomed in" view is extremely unintuitive and problematic - it can be extremely difficult trying to rotate items to get them a particular way around.
* Why is the global map scrolled with WASD but not mouse-dragging, while the local map must be scrolled with mouse-dragging but not with WASD?
* The local map's "fog of war" sometimes gets reapplied to areas already explored, seemingly at random.
* Both racial powers, and shouts, default to the "Z" key - making it awkward/confusing to use both racial powers, and shouts, together. (and this isn't explained anywhere)
* The inability to navigate the perk trees with any reliable and logical sense with a mouse & keyboard, and many other UI inconsistencies and issues with M&K and large screens.
* Sometimes interface text (on-screen messages) get "stuck" on and never fade - they can be replace by other messages (eg when you cursor over a door) - but revert back to the same message rather than clearing when your cursor moves away from the door.
* In the alchemy screens, ingredients do not deselect correctly if selecting a recipe from the left-hand list.
* Renaming items from enchantments sometimes switches the name to all capitals.
* Caps-lock functionality frequently gets reversed (can cause problems particularly when trying to chat with people in Steam overlay chat).
* The "objective flags/markers" leading you to quests, can get confused with multiple entrances to buildings/locations - if you enter through an alternate door, the objectives try to get you to go back outside and enter the other door first (even if the two doors were right next to eachother, eg in the Monk's Temple).
* It can be difficult/impossible to place a marker at your current location when out in the wilderness (seems to work if you are already at another marker location?).
* The small arrows for tracked quests that appear on-screen over doors/NPC's etc. sometimes fail to show at all - unchecking and rechecking all tracked items in the journal sometimes fixes this.
* Item sorting is awkward and inconsistent in containers. It appears that items are first sorted by type (armor, weapons, crafting materials), then alphabetically. The order of sorting can often fluctuate from use to use (eg equipment floating above crafting materials on one access then sinking below them on another). Sometimes the alphabetical sorting does not work as expected (a number of armors did not sort alphabetically).
* Not all dungeons or map waypoints get flagged as "cleared" even after you have cleared them (eg Movarth's Lair). Sometimes they are flagged as clear long after you've left them.

Gameplay Issues

This catch-all category can include buggy game features, poor scripting (not quest related), items with erroneous stats, NPC issues etc..

Player Ability & Equipment Issues

* Items placed in certain containers/chests of player-bought homes can vanish for good when the furniture gets replaced from house upgrades, with no warning at all.
* Shield/Weapon racks sometimes act like a black void and can make items vanish altogether without appearing on the rack, likewise bookshelves and other similar furniture (weapon rack above the door in Breezehome is notorious for this one). Bookshelves are also notorious for incorrectly recognizing the number of placed books.
* Post Patch 1.2, a shelf of a bookcase may suddenly become unresponsive -- no books can be added or removed and placed books cannot be read
* Skills sometimes drop for no apparent reason, and can (sometimes? always?) show red in the skill & perk UI - is there some disease or affliction affecting the player but not being listed anywhere? Many players have reported them reverting to their stock (level 0) values and having to use console commands to fix them again.
* The sneak skill can break at 100 - causing everything to see you at any distance. You can still register sneak attacks, even while detected though.
* Enchanted and upgraded items cause many various problems when the player has more than one item of the same basic type - it can break favourites, quick-binds, cause item names to get mixed up if the items are dropped and picked back up, etc. - the game has serious problem handing items of the same "basic type" but with different actual names/properties. (eg if you have 2 upgraded steel daggers, one in each hand... enter an enchanting station, enchant one and change it's name, try to enchant the second dagger, and the second dagger quality degrades back to a basic steel dagger).
* Custom named weapons default to their base name if you get disarmed with them... likewise if you custom name three similar items (same base/same enchants) with completely different unique names, and drop them all - their names get "merged" - the game seems incapable of keeping track of unique item names the moment the item is no longer on your character.
* Total charges/prices of enchanted items are sometimes loss when changing cells/loading new cells (possibly related to the above when you have more than one item of a similar base type but different enchant/charge quantities?).
* Finishing moves can interfere with item enchantments - eg if a weapon has a 1s soul trap enchantment on, but a "finishing move animation" plays instead, soul trap will not activate.
* Dropping a soul gem you filled onto the floor can empty the soul gem.
* The value of enchanted items seems to drop the higher the player's enchanting skill is.
* Shield bashing (normal shield bashes) sometimes apply full weapon damage and effects (eg setting targets on fire from your main-hand weapon's enchantment).
* The "Quick Reflexes" perk sometimes gets "stuck" on - slowing time and giving you "super powers" for minutes or even indefinitely.
* There may be issues with "Elemental Protection" not providing proper frost resistance.
* The knock-down effect of the Shield Charge perk sometimes stops working, seemingly at random.
* The "Matching Set" bonus for Ebony armour-sets is broken.
* Thieves Guild guild master armor does not count toward a matching set.
* The heavy armour Conditioning perk ("weightless armour") constantly forgets itself, which causes your character to become overburdened until you flick your inventory on & off again.
* Both "Conditioning" (for heavy armor) and "Unhindered" (for light armor) that makes worn armor not add to carry weight does this for all of the same type the player has; if the player is wearing only one of a stack of many, the whole stack won't add to Carry Weight as if it was all weightless (just a further sign that the entire inventory engine really struggles with being able to differentiate between items of the same base type, be it for perks, enchantments, upgrading, filled soul gems or anything else!).
* The Conditioning perk doesn't affect shields (may be intentional?).
* "Fists of Steel" perk has no effect for Khajit characters (claws interfering with perk?). Some players have mentioned it not working for Nords or possibly any race type at all, either (does wearing gauntlets interfere?).
* The Aspect of Terror perk adds 10 damage to fire spells that cause targets to flee
* If "Paralyzing Shot" (Archery level 100 perk) kills a target, the corpse remains rigid. It can be walked through and looted, but it does not fall over
* The "Quick Shot" perk doesn't seem to influence Ebony or Daedric bows ?
* Quick Shot archery perk makes the bow drawing animation 30% faster, but how far the arrow shoots based on how long the left click is held does not work properly. Without the perk, holding the mouse down 0.5 seconds will make the arrow go farther than releasing the arrow immediately. With the perk, however, holding down the fire button for short amounts of time (like 0.5s) doesn't make the arrow go farther at all. It will go the same distance as an arrow that is immediately shot, which shouldn't be the case.
* Augmented Flames, Augmented Frost, and Augmented Shock perks don't affect all necessary element-based spells, eg runes are not affected.
* The Alchemy perk tree is bugged. At least one rank in "Experimenter" is required to unlock "Purity," even though "Snakeblood" is the only requirement for "Purity" shown on the tree.
* "Soul Siphon" may sometimes fail to draw a soul from a creature that would normally give a Greater/Grand soul (unconfirmed)
* Stormcall shout - is it meant to have such a huge area, and hit everything including neutral NPC's, friendly NPC's, companions and even your own horse? It makes the call unusable in many/most situations.
* Receiving the third word of power for shouts before receiving the second word of power may be causing issues (unable to later absorb the second word?).
* Reanimate and raise dead spells can sometimes break permanently if the player attempts to cast them on an already-previously-raised corpse and then again on a new, same-creature-type corpse.
* Reanimate Thrall effects can become "stuck" on the player even after the thrall has died/disappeared, so people in town constantly shun you for using spells.
* It's possible for spell absorption abilities such as the Breton's Dragonskin and the Atronach stone to absorb beneficial effects. Summon spells and the Shadow Warrior perk can both fail.
* Casting flame cloak while a flame atronach is active despawns the flame atronach. If you have the perk allowing 2 conjured creatures, then flame cloak will only despawn 1 atronach if you have 2 up first.
* Lightning spells seem unable to hit Dwemer Centurions.
* You can have infinite magika by removing and then re-equipping an item that has fortify magika - drain all your mana, then use your favourites/quick bar to remove and re-equip the item that had fortify magika, you'll instantly get however much magika that item fortifies you by given to you. (probably works with health and other similar items if you remove and then re-equip them).
* House Mannequins allow the player to duplicate items - once a mannequin has saved a particular set of apparel (reloading the zone and the mannequin still has the equipment on), the player can remove all of the items and leave the zone, upon re-entering the mannequin can respawn all of the equipment.
* Oghma Infinium can be exploited to get all skills to 100 very quickly and easily by reading the book directly from a player's home bookshelf and putting the book back on the bookshelf before closing the bookshelf menu (other books/effects can probably be achieved with other containers, eg weapon racks?).
* Wabbajack sometimes bugs out and causes new creatures to spawn rather than turning targets into creatures.
* The area-damage effect of Ebony Mail will hurt anyone you've challenged to a brawl. This will count as an assault, producing a bounty and turning NPC's hostile.
* The Ebony Blade seems to be using the One-Handed skill to calculate damage, though it still levels the Two-Handed skill
* The player can still contract diseases when they are a vampire, despite vampirism apparently giving 100% disease immunity (are disease/poison immunity stats simply broken altogether, or just from vampirism?)
* "Bone Break Fever" sometimes sets itself to drain 0 stamina.
* The "Steed" starsign (+100 weight) effect constantly forgets itself, particularly after quickloads.
* The "Steed" sometimes removes the weight of worn armour like the "Conditioning" and "Unhindered" perks; the description indicates that it is only supposed to negate armor's effect on speed
* In the adjoining cave to the East Empire Company Warehouse, for some reason daytime damages a vampire player despite this location not being outdoors. Vampire players are also damaged in the final area of Labryinthian as a vampire if it's daytime.
* At times, the player can no longer get rested/well-rested buffs (despite having no diseases, and not being a werewolf or vampire) - is this impacted by changing stone-signs?
* Sleep may no longer give rested bonuses even after being cured of lycanthropy
* The old "100% chameleon" mechanic seems to be back - Items with the enchantment "you are X% harder to detect" also seem to affect you while not in stealth mode? You can stack a few of the 45% ones and run past bandits completely ignored.
* One-handed perks and fortify one-handed enchants/effects don't seem to always impact on dagger damage, despite daggers being listed as affected by one-handed perks.
* Magicka regeneration enchants/items have no influence at all in combat - is there much point to them because of this?
* Block-related enchants don't seem to have any actual effect.
* Marksman potions increase all damage, not just archery?
* Potions made with "Jarrin Root" and any other ingredients can grant 5,000 damage potions?
* You cant use the sword in your left hand and shield in the right - and a sword in the left hand may be causing killing animations etc. to never display.
* Certain hood/mask combos allow you to wear the equivalent of 2 helmets/2 masks at once (some sort of slotting/slot number issue relating to helmets being considered different to masks on some items but not all?).
* Barrels/containers in your apprentice quarters in Winterhold college are not "safe" for storing items in.
* Weapon racks etc. allow the player to place quest items on them (items you cannot normally drop/remove). You can even then get a companion to pick them up from the racks - if you then take it from the companion, it will be flagged as a stolen item.
* Ebony daggers have a much slower swing speed than any other dagger.
* The Atronach forge sometimes has problems with spawning the crafted items - eg a crafted pair of Daedric Boots that when picked up added nothing to the player inventory.
* Studded Imperial Armor has the same armour rating as Imperial Light Armour (should be higher?), and cannot be upgraded (studded armour can, and imperial armour can, but not Studded Imperial Armor).
* Imperial Helmets cannot be upgraded past Flawless Screen
* "Blade of Woe" can be upgraded (with the necessary Smithing perk) without requiring any materials at all. (possibly true of certain other unique enchanted items too).
* The highest level Nightingale Blade cannot be improved at a grindstone
* Ancient nord bow/nord hero bow cannot be upgraded through smithing (nord melee weapons can).

Companion Issues

* Companions in a fight will continue attacking guards after you sheathe weapons, making it hard/impossible to yield to guards.
* Companions can charge towards any nearby enemies even while you are sneaking and trying to be stealthy.
* Companions will continue fighting with an enemy even after you have "Commanded" it (or calmed it etc.).
* Companions can sometimes do the opposite of the above and stand there letting everything hit them without reacting at all.
* Companions can get fixated on enemies, even ones they cannot easily reach (this includes enemies on the other side of a door). Avanchnzel Boilery contains an inaccessible room with a Spider automaton that is particularly troublesome in this regard. You have to move a far distance away to get them to follow (following should have higher priority than this, especially if the companion is not actually fighting)
* Companions the player accidentally hit can get stuck trying to kill the player, despite constantly interrupting attacks with "Yes my dear?" etc. comments whenever they get close to the player. They love you and hate you simultaneously...
* Companion equipment is self-duplicating - eg Lydia has been witnessed later on with 40 of the stock bow she/companions get. It seems that this equipment is duplicating whenever the companion is re-hired after being told to go home. The issue is discussed further in this thread.
* Companions get confused if given two weapons from the player - eg given a glass bow and a glass sword, they may use the glass sword for melee but revert to their basic default bow for range.
* Are Companion equipment sets getting "merged" - or do all Companions have Faendal's bow? For example if you hire Faendal as a companion, then let him go - every future companion seems to have and almost exclusively use Faendal's bow too.
* Companions get stuck in the "injured" crouched position at times, and will not stand back up or regenerate even after combat until the player fast-travels.
* If you ask a companion to leave, it occasionally doesn't flag your character as having "no companion" - and trying to get a new companion (or even the same one that left you) fails, as you are told you already have a companion.
* After parting ways with "Illia" - she can get stuck and never allow the player to talk to her again.
* "Illia" can get confused if she's a companion during the battle for fort sungard - she takes on the AI of a stormcloak and stand around acting like a victor afterwards with no way to talk to her.
* Companions you tick off may go into a bugged state rather than leaving. They continue following you but will not engage in combat. When you try speaking to them, they inform you that that they are leaving and turn hostile.
* Companion stats (eg health) do not level up correctly when they level alongside the player - they seem stuck at whatever level they got given when the player first got them to join/first met them.
* If your Companion offers training, you can get the training for free -- pay for it, then remove the gold from his/her inventory. Possibly intentional from a realism standpoint, but unintentional from a balance standpoint.
* Companions can be completely stupid with traps sometimes - particularly the gate traps that push them back. They can stand on the trigger, be whacked back, recover, walk over the same spot again, over and over - it's hard to get them to walk across the big wide safe spots either side of the trigger.
* Companions don't always enter through the same door - eg you can enter a large fort that has two entrances, and your companion will zone in through the back door and aggro half the fort for you.
* Companion encumbrance is ignored when they are told to pick items up, potentially allowing for infinite loot storage on your companion
* Companions may fail to unsheathe their weapon after being told to pick an item up off the floor. They then become unable to fight. Trading gear can fix this.
* If you ask a Companion to pick up a stack of items you've dropped, they pick up only one of the item (the stack still disappears?)
* If breaking into the Thalmor building in Solitude, Lydia (only?) will not engage you in conversation and continually says "You shouldn't be in here!"
* Companions sometimes get stuck at certain stages in dungeons, and instead of continuing to follow you, will run back to the start/get stuck in a certain part, as if there are pathing issues (and you'll have to finish the dungeon alone).
* Companions can get a little "lost" when the player uses the time tear.
* Companions (and other NPC's following you) can stand in the doorway of a small room you entered and block you in the room - sometimes you can get the NPC to move if you run around the edges of the room, but not always. You should be able to push your own companions/followers out of the way by sprinting (Alt by default) into them.
* Raised zombies may die when transitioning to near areas. They may also appear invisible (but are still present and engage in combat) after reloading a save.
* Companions who are also guild leaders may not give you jobs unless you dismiss them first
* Companions can often comment on cave discoveries (eg "This might have some treasure in" type lines) when you exit the dungeon, rather than when you first approach it - they were too far from you when you ran towards the entrance and first entered it?
* Companion gear resets if you ask them to "part company" then ask them to rejoin - eg if you kit Lydia out in full Orcish armour, remove all the steel armour from her, ask her to part ways then to rejoin you - she'll suddenly have all her steel armour again and be wearing it (Orcish armour will still be on her, but you'll have to sort all her equipment out again).
* Vigilance (the dog) returns to his owner in Markath and must be purchased by the player again - may be intentional but the player is told the dog will "follow you to oblivion and back" rather than act like a mercenary NPC.
* Buying all furniture for your Whiterun home breaks the ownership of the "guest bed" - eg Lydia will no longer sleep anywhere.

NPC/AI Issues

* The system for essential NPC's (NPC's who can't be killed to avoid breaking critical quests) is widespread and generally broken. If an essential NPC is attacked by the player, he goes down to one knee for a few seconds, then gets back up and proceeds to aggro the player. This can happen over and over indefinitely, with the NPC chasing the player and the player having to repeatedly beat him down. If a player tries, say, to murder an essential NPC in his/her home, this can be a major problem -- the NPC might chase the player into view of the guards or still be hostile when encountered walking around town later, and 'defending against' the NPC would produce a bounty. Unlike in Oblivion, there is no icon to indicate that an NPC is essential, so it can become a random shot in the dark for murderous PC's -- highly detrimental to the 'open' nature of TES gameplay. Also, the Essential flag is, in many cases, not properly removed from NPC's when their associated quests have been completed or failed or if the player has no intention of ever accepting them (common in the case of guilds that the player has no desire to join).
* NPC's/Critters in fights can rarely seemingly "freeze" - not moving or fighting - if the player moves close enough they sometimes unfreeze and continue fighting.
* Dwarven Centurions sometimes stand there doing nothing and allow you to kill them (pathing issue due to them being large characters? Giants sometimes do the same depending on where the player is).
* "Fugitive", "Courier" and similar random encounters can approach and open dialog with the player by surprise, while the player is in the middle of combat with others, often resulting in death. (needs an "is in combat" check before the random encounter tries talking to you).
* Some story-based dialogs get stuck permanently on (they are always having the same specific conversation every time you see them), eg Ulfric talking with his housecarl, until you begin certain questlines.
* "Unbound" tutorial quest - you can quickly & easily level up many skills by attacking Hadvar / Ralof at the point they tell you to sneak-attack the bear. They will not react and you can attack them indefinitely.
* Ralof may stall when you reach Riverwood. He simply stands still, staring at you. Speaking to him gets him moving to the mill. (Patch 1.2 issue?)
* Random dialog lines from NPC's are frequently spoken by any NPC's while you are in the middle of conversations and at an audio level as loud as the NPC you are talking to - they often drown eachother out and make it confusing to listen to anything being said.
* If an NPC is in the middle of a random dialog line (the ones they say as you walk past) when you zone into a new location (particularly a player house), the NPC will actually zone into the house with you to finish what they were saying, then try to leave again.
* Quest NPC's that the player must follow (eg the mage guild tour) will frequently interrupt their tour to greet the player - seems to be issues with not constantly being within a specific range of the NPC?
* Sometimes some NPC's (not followers) get 'stuck' following you around (particularly with Farkas) - they will persistently try to talk to you over and over, which interrupts you attempting to fight/talk to others/do anything at all.
* Bandits asking for gold to let you pass can be persuaded - but successful persuading still removes gold from your character.
* If the player rescues the random-encounter Stormcloak prisoner being escorted around the world by Imperials, when freeing the prisoner, you are given the option of giving him items. You can give him weapons and armor but he won't use/equip any of it and carries on as he was.
* Enemy AI can randomly dodge arrows even if they are not yet in combat and the player is sneak-attacking - psychic?
* Roggvir's execution in Solitude (rarely) malfunctions. The entire execution scene freezes at the point that Roggvir is supposed to speak. All NPC's at the scene become stuck and can never be interacted with.
* Enemy NPC's can respond with lines like "What's the hurry?" when the player is fighting with them and performs a Great Critical Charge (sprinting two-handed power attack) on them - very jarring mid-fight.
* If you stealth kill a standing enemy (you need to have a bladed 1 hander equipped for that) and the animation plays where you cut their throat, the dead enemy will say "what was that" or "huh" as if they just heard you while they fall to the ground.
* Loading a save in the same cell as a merchant causes wonky behavior in the merchant's inventory. Their available gold may reflect transations that occurred before the save or may change for no apparent reason. They may also stock a completely different inventory than was available before the save. Subsequent reloads of the same save cause no further changes, though the initial changes remain until the game is restarted.
* Sometimes hunters encountered in the wilderness do not give gold for bartered goods. Their available gold remains fixed and your item is transferred to their inventory.
* Mjoll the Lioness' gold-handling may completely malfunction after she opens her shop. As the hunters above, she may stop giving gold for goods sold by the player. She may also stop receiving gold for goods the player purchases, even though the player's gold is appropriately reduced. Finally, taking gold from her inventory using normal gear trade may fail to increase the player's gold though the gold is still removed from Mjoll's inventory. Possibly a Patch 1.2 issue (could the above bug be as well?)
* The Riverwood trader may suddenly have 10,000 gold available (possibly after investing)
* If the 'clean up the mess' upgrade is not purchased for Hjerim first, other upgrades may remove it from the steward's dialogue. This makes it impossible to clean the mess, leaving a gory mess all over the house.
* You can buy houses & horses for free if, after selecting the dialog option to purchase a house, you are quick enough to open a container and place all of your gold in it. There is a delay between being given what you purchased, and the gold actually being taken.
* If you complete Markath's Steward's second quest by talking to the Jarl instead of the Steward, you will be unable to buy Vlindrel Hall and unable to get the dialogue option to become a Thane of Markath.
* Casting spells while sneaking seems to alert even distant NPC's, even with Silent Casting perk
* After defeating Ulfric, Ulfric's body remains with the other Jarl's ignoring the body - and some NPC's continue talking as if Ulfric is still alive (eg the dark elf in New Gnisis Corner club).
* When visiting the Thalmor Embassy after completing "Diplomatic Immunity," the guards may ignore assaults on their comrades
* Talking to a fist-fight opponent immediately after the fight (while they are still kneeling) sometimes causes dialog problems.
* Dragons often seem to go out of their way to attack any single critter, creature or mob in range before turning their attention to the player (eg killing every mudcrab around while you pelt it with spells and arrows freely). Is this down to level differences between you and the dragon?
* NPC's may spawn without clothing. Olda in Dragon Bridge was one encountered example.
* Wildlife, eg rabbits, elk, foxes, seem to be able to see the player in sneak mode at all times and run away?
* Marriage sometimes fails to work on characters that should be "marryable" (eg Lydia, Taarie)
* Your partner will sometimes disappear altogether after the wedding and never reappear.
* Wives sometimes lose their ability to do wifey things (eg home-cooked meals) - and never get this ability back (noticed with Ysolda).
* After you're named Thane if Whiterun, if you marry without ever having talked to Lydia, and have your spouse move into Breezehome, said spouse will not appear until you go back to Dragonsreach and talk to Lydia. At which point, they appear in your home and act as if nothing happened.
* Your wedding partner may leave the ceremony before it's complete (but after the vows are finished)
* Vlindrel Hall (Markarth house) - your partner will not sleep there at all, and housecarl will not come to the house.
* Player may return to Whiterun and learn (through his wife) that Eorlund has died. This was after "Glory of the Dead," so Eorlund was no longer needed for the Companions line. Could random deaths of non-essential cityfolk be an intended feature?
* Louis Letrush may get stuck in the ground upon arriving at Whiterun. He can also become duplicated - three copies of him have been seen, all standing close to eachother. See Screen
* Two instances of Halldir's Staff may appear in Halldir's inventory

Cosmetic Issues

These are issues related to the way the game looks and sounds. Texture issues, animation awkwardness, sound problems that do not relate to stability, etc.. These issues can make the playing experience unpleasant when they are encountered, but they do not prevent smooth gameplay.

Visual Issues

* Shadows are extremely low-resolution and pixellated to a ridiculous degree (many people seem to think shadow-rendering is done by the CPU instead of the GPU, others claim this is not the case - there is some strange CPU bottlenecking on powerful machines though?).
* Shadows sometimes look "corrupted" (s ee example screen) - as if NPC faces and bodies are covered with a bunch of lines or similar. Breezehome house seems to cause this more than other areas, so may be an issue with light sources/shader objects duplicating like the nirnroot shaders?
* Number of issues with LOD ("Z-Fighting") with mountain snow - flickering can be observed at certain distances, but not others. Most noticable with mountains west of Whiterun, the mountain snow flickers constantly from the Z-Fighting.
* Water doesn't always load in - sometimes lakes can look like they have been completely drained, and you can walk to the bottom of them and still see clear-as-day from one side to the other. Sometimes this occurs in sections: Screen
* Sometimes the "fog filters" underwater don't load in (even though the surface of the water was visible, unlike the above bug), and it can seem like you are "swimming" around in thin air.
* Some fog/mist/lighting effects can have extremely short pop-in issues (can pop on and off only feet away from the player as you move back & forward).
* With a sensitive enough mouse scroll speed, objects can be seen fading in if the view is rotated quickly enough. Patch 1.2 exacerbated this by increasing mouse sensitivity. Try tweaking 'Look Sensitivity' in your Gameplay settings.
* Some textures will not load at all, showing the normal maps instead (which look like huge blue/purple textures) - eg screen.
* Wolfskull Caves appears to have a large area of missing texture/missing objects (can see through into a "graphical void")
* Riften jail has areas of missing-wall textures where you can see through into a skybox.
* There are many examples of the above bug throughout Skyrim's interiors: Screen
* Sometimes when walking around, ground textures do not load in quickly enough, and you can be stood on a crazily blurred out, almost single-colour texture for a while (anything up to a minute), before the higher-resolution ground textures load in over them.
* Many heavily used textures seem to be extremely low-resolution (this may not be a bug, it may be that no high-res textures ever existed, or that low-res textures are loading in without the higher-res ones loading correctly).
* The "sky-dome" appears to have bad seams - concentric lines are visible in the sky all the way up to the top of the sky-dome, and they move as the lightness level of the sky changes. They are most visible on clear starry nights, particularly as the sun is beginning to rise, where they move across the sky very quickly. (s creen 1,screen 2). Looking completely upwards while swimming makes this effect stand out (perhaps the water refraction shader highlights this problem better).
* Nirnroot glow effects get steadily worse as you play, as if their alpha transparency masks had vanished - it seems as if a shader is being re-applied over and over every time the world-zone loads, rather than the same shader being reloaded, and picking the Nirnroot doesn't remove all of these shader objects.
* Graphical effects can often get stuck on actors, objects, or the camera. Arrows, ice shards, fire & frost etc. get stuck on your character, despite zone-loads, sleeping etc. - you can have giant ice-shards or arrows sticking out of your head forever. (Fixed in Version 1.2?) Ice shards can remain sticking out of the environment, even sitting in a fire indefinitely. Graphical effects can become stuck on the camera forever (eg the dripping water effect and dust mote effects in dungeons such as Cracked Tusk Keep). Enchantment effects on items can get stuck on companions after removal.
* A strange bug can cause objects or even creatures to get stuck to both the player character and NPC's (eg an NPC chopping logs might start getting log-graphics stuck all over it's hands, a player can get animals stuck to parts of their body).
* Anti-aliasing at certain settings causes a strange blue-line glow/outline around your character and any items you are holding. This happens when you're looking at a shadowed area or are shadowed yourself.
* The haze effect of heat and force fields can be seen through obstacles See Screen
* The system that auto adjusts brightness (dims/brightens lights as you look and move around) - any chance of a way to disable this? It seems hyperactive on some systems.
* Bloom levels in the snow can go too high - causing snow to almost blind the player even when there's not much snow (intentional? Emulating real-life "snowblind"? ).
* No HDR options available (need a way to turn off HDR altogether, many players dislike it and can have problems with it).
* NPC body parts may be randomly disappearing post patch 1.2 See Screen
* Rain/Snow effects can appear even under shelter/overhangs etc. (this was fixed by user mods in Oblivion, and most other games can handle this fine, so it should be fixable?).
* It snows constantly in Fallowstone cave (need confirmation on whether this happens even if it's not snowing outside?)
* It can snow in Blackreach
* Wearing a hood and a mask at the same time causes your character's head to turn invisible.
* Wearing Arch Mage Robes and Thalmor Boots causes your character's calves to turn invisible.
* Wearing Nightingale Boots and Forsworn armour makes your character's ankles invisible.
* Wearing Forsworn gloves and boots with Scaled Horned armor makes your (female only?) character's wrists and ankles invisible
* Wearing Daedric armor and Dwarven gauntlets makes your character's elbows and forearms invisible
* Invisibility potions can make the player's eyes disappear indefinitely
* The "Aura whisper" shout seems to give your character unnatural, brightly glowing eyes, with no way to remove them.
* Steel armour helmet sometimes shows eyes below the helmet (looks very strange).
* Dragonscale helmet appears to have holes in for Khajit ears, but no ears are visible - just two big holes.
* Shrouded hoods and Alik'r hoods do not fit on Argonian or Khajiit heads properly -- the ears and much of the heads poke out
* Certain helmets (ebony specifically) may be causing the player's head shadow to disappear See Screen
* Many face-type choices seem to cause weird effects to faces - see screen.
* Vampirism textures and eyes are not properly applying to Breton, Nord, Imperial, or Redguard females.
* If you go re-enter a mine before it resets, it's possible that you'll see what looks like ore ready to be mined, but there is no actual way to mine it. This fixes itself when the ore deposits reset themselves. Are the graphics of ore respawning earlier than the actual ore itself?
* The World Map image sometimes gets stuck in a blurry state, which only restarting the game can fix. See Screen
* Dragons may occasionally appear invisible Screen of invisible corpse
* No footprint graphics whatsoever when walking over snow - can't be intentional?
* Spider-webs (the ones you can break with magic/a weapon) and flame effects (eg from dragon breath), are sometimes completely invisible and never show up.
* In 3rd person view, your character disappears if you turn the camera when they aren't walking. (indoors or close to mountains/walls/etc.)
* NPCs can ride invisible horses (see screen).
* When riding, the horse often disappears when the camera is getting close due to nearby obstacles - it seems to disappear "too easily" - rather than only disappearing when it should actually be "off-camera" from the camera movements.
* Many large rocks/boulders all over the world have been set at angles that allow the player to see "under" them (no textures or anything visible - just a big straight line and a gaping hole). Too many to list every individual instance.
* Visual effects such as fire/frost, when applied to movable objects (eg the handcarts) - if the object is moved the effect remains hovering in place where the item originally was.
* The first person view is too low on tall characters (eg Altmer) - causes problems when looking at known-to-be-shorter NPC's and finding yourself at eye-level, and oddities when in 1st person and sitting on say a barstool.
* Birds can get stuck in trees. (see screen).

Audio Issues

* Sound levels are far too low on certain systems, without any way to increase the volume beyond an extremely low level.
* Some players have problems with various voice files (known to happen with Esbern) - unpacking the sounds from the .bsa file and having the files loose in the data folder works fine. The game is struggling to unpack all data from BSA's?
* Post Patch 1.2, audio may crackle or cut out when a large number of sounds are playing (any mass battle for instance). Possibly related to the audio 'fix' in 1.2?
* Music can get stuck playing (eg battle music starting up and then never stopping), and sometimes will not play at all (possibly after getting stuck in a loop and eventually stopping, no new music starts up).
* Audio effects can become stuck on a character. The Elemental Fury shout often loops the wind audio indefinitely. The crackling sounds of a staff can stick to a companion when it's removed. Mages who cast wards and/or protective spells, if killed (by stealth archery only?), continue to emit the sound of their wards/protective spells (a constant fiery hissing) even when dead. The crackling (and visual effect) of the harmful light in Nocturnal's trials can become stuck on the player.
* Activating certain traps with multiple instances such as the spike trap in Silvredrift cavern (with the trapped helmet on a pedestal) causes the sound to be played for each instance.
* When in the wilderness, the sound of loud footsteps (much louder than those your character makes) follows you, and the walking sound continues even when your character stops/is standing still. Scaling the mountains - it sounds like someone is jumping down behind you, but there is no one/nothing there. Again, the sound continues after your character stops/is standing still.
* While swimming in water, the sounds cut in and out
* "Nirya" at the college has two clearly different voice actors for some of her dialog lines.
* "Heratar" (one of the hunters in Ill Met by Moonlight") has a female voice
* Helium and Nitrous Oxide seem abundant in Skyrim - player character voices can suddenly change from male to female, and vice-versa (noticed when doing power attacks/shouts).
* The tile walkways in Windhelm's residential district have no footstep audio attached to them.

Animation/Clipping Issues

* NPC's frequently do their animations half-way into objects, or many feet away from the objects they are apparently interacting with - eg appear half-way embedded in the floor, or leaning on a post 5 foot away, or animations bugging causing them to spin round-and-around while apparently sleeping on a bed. (Fixed in Version 1.2?) NPC's can also do animations without associated objects appearing - eg drinking from an invisible mug of ale etc. - or with their objects not appearing in the correct place - eg a broom going through the NPC rather than being held correctly when cleaning.
* Some NPC's can get stuck in an animation, even post death (been noticed with the spiders in the tutorial/intro dungeon, being stuck in a venom spitting animation loop despite being killed).
* Any stunned/fallen enemy (from knockback shout or paralyse) may be immune to all damage until they get up.
* The player can be stuck walking around as a headless torso if an enemy that is about to do a killing (decapitate) animation is interrupted (eg from the player quickly drinking a healing potion after the animation started but before it finished).
* Healing an injured Companion may cause the the crouched animation to get stuck. They resume following the player, but never get back up and move at a very slow pace
* Barbos (the dog companion) pushes you around while trying to follow you - probably as it's followpoint distance is the same as other humanoid companions (despite the dog being "longer").
* Many swimming animations are missing from NPC's/monsters, yet they will still enter the water quite freely, looking extremely out of place.
* Walking animations (both for NPC's and the player) sometimes (rarely) struggle to actually work on stairs, and the NPC/player will just walk into the stair as if walking against a solid object. Spiral stairs are particularly troublesome, causing companions to have trouble following.
* Casting a left-handed or dual-wield spell while in sneak mode breaks the movement animation, and the player will now "glide around" - fixed by exiting and re-entering sneak mode.
* Character animations for sprinting while dual-wielding spells or weapons looks ridiculous and broken.
* Sheathing animations for dual-wielded weapons, in third person, appear broken/missing.
* The "finishing move" for maces looks like the player is trying to stab monsters in the face with a bladed weapon, despite it being a blunt/mace-weapon (particularly strange with the dragon finishing move).
* There is even a decapitation animation while using a mace.
* The silent assassination kill view (when killing an enemy from behind and unaware) shows the blade cutting across the enemy's forehead as opposed to his throat. There are 2 such clips, one with frontal view is fine, the one with the view from the back has this issue.
* When in 3rd person and sneaking, character may seem to be having some form of spaz attack, twitching - as if she is continually trying to stand up then going back down into sneak. When in forward motion this eases slightly, but not completely.
* Argonian/Khajit tails can "stretch out" (and the texture is visibly stretched) if corpses die in awkward positions (eg would cause them to sit on their own tails) - possibly caused by the torso "pushing" the tail through the body itself.
* Going into 3rd person view when stealthed will initially cause a Khajit's tail to flick back and forth in a broken manner - moving the camera a bit fixes this.
* Shouting while sneaking and looking up will cause player character to do standing animation - but the first person camera remains low, thus creating a weird view of player's shoulders moving before his eyes.
* If you are sneaking, and you activate any 'ore', you will stand up and start pickaxing it to get your ore. Then, when done, your stuck standing up but you are still moving like you are in sneak mode.
* NPC's may twitch during conversations. Possibly a Patch 1.2 issue
* While engaging in dialogue in 3rd person view, your character does not look directly at the NPC (NPC's look at each other during scripted dialogue, so it seems that the PC should be able to as well)
* Diagonal walking animation is bugged (at least on female Nords) - it's not smooth and skips at the end of each animation cycle.
* Turning while walking or running is not smooth either - your shoulders blink immediately to their new position when you turn. This does not happen when you're standing still before moving.
* Sheathed daggers/other weapons have many clipping issues with many armour sets in third person.
* Certain sets of armour on certain genders/races have clipping issues, as do certain helmets with certain hairstyles, badly jarring when playing in third person (try a heavy male character in Orcish armour for example).
* Proudspire Manor - there is a noticeable model overlap behind one of the mannequins in the enchantment room.
* The chopping-wood animation will show the woodcutter's axe in the player's hand AND hanging off their belt, if the player has equipped the axe (possibly also true for pickaxes?).
* The smithing animation can show the character holding the metal awkwardly. See Video
* Khajit females are so short, their hands vanish through the enchanting table on use.
* Hitting corpses tends to make blood squirt from the "groin" area of the corpse, no matter where abouts you hit the corpse.

Small Issues

These are very small issues such as spelling errors, naming errors, an incorrect line of dialogue, an object being placed upside down, etc.. These are likely to be left to more comprehensive unofficial patches.

* Weapon and armour racks have different problems based on the player home and the item (either random problems for all, or always the same specific problems, unsure) - eg axes in Honeyside racks are in the wrong position when placed; staffs upside down in Markath but not Whiterun; Proudspire basem*nt far edges of the rack cannot be used at all; Nightingale Blade can be seen floating above racks and gradually getting higher and higher up each time the zone loads in; the Vlindrel Hall racks not functioning when the pre-placed weapons are taken from it; Imperial Shields, Red Eagle's Fury, and the Ebony Blade fall off when you return home; mannequins can jump around the house or be seen floating in the air; etc. - racks and mannequins generally need actual testing, there seems to be so many bugs related to them.
* The bookshelf is difficult to fill the bottom/middle shelf with books if you fill the top shelf first (and sometimes leaving the house and coming back later causes the bookshelf to appear empty visually, while still containing the books).
* Books often "fall over" when put on the bookshelf, unless you put larger-sized books inbetween the smaller ones.
* Doors can (rarely) get stuck in the "open" position, preventing the player from using them at all.
* Ironback Hideout has no bedrolls/anything under the tents (it clearly should have - there are no beds anywhere for the NPCs to use, every other similar location has).
* The skeleton that comes to life in the "above ground tomb" near the Sightless Pit (close to Winterhold), spawns an infinite number of "The Doors of Oblivion" books - just loot one, close then re-open the loot window, and another book is there.
* Two Sphere Guardians guarding a chest in Nchuand-Zel Armory cannot be looted after their deaths
* Some torches on walls, that look identical to any other torch-on-a-wall, are not interactable (cannot be taken or turned off) - eg some/all torches in Pinewatch.
* The game gets confused with filled soul gems and doesn't stack them correctly.
* You can have dialogue options that assume knowledge you don't possess. This often happens in response to a scripted conversation that you didn't see, because it failed to trigger or triggered too far away for you to hear/see it.
* You can threaten Whiterun bully Braith with being shipped off to Honorhall Orphanage, even if you haven't been to Riften or otherwise heard of/read about the place. This is more general assumed knowledge about a location that could be notorious throughout Tamriel; but it's probably more appropriate from a role-playing perspective to have it say simply 'an orphanage'
* Even after curing yourself of being a werewolf, NPCs will still make comments about you having "hair growing from your ears",
* Other illnesses have the same "stuck on" problem as above - eg NPC's may comment on you looking sickly even after curing a disease.
* If a guard sees you with your fists raised (no weapon equipped), he/she will say "A guard could get nervous, a man approaching him with his weapon drawn."
* Completing quest-lines for Companions, Thieves Guild, other major areas etc. appears to have no benefits - re-entering the Thieves Guild, Companion Halls etc. you still get passing comments as if you have just been dragged up from the gutters and are a nobody - is this because of further quests not appearing, variables not being flagged, or is there simply no dialog lines/scripted events to occur once you have achieved "great deeds" for these guilds?
* On the Active Effects screen, "Blessing of Talos" states that the time between shouts is reduced by 0% (it's still reduced by 20%).
* "Ring of Minor Wielding" lists its active effects twice.
* Argonians gasp for air when surfacing, despite being able to breathe underwater indefinitely.
* A female PC speaks the words of the Marked for Death shout in the wrong order if multiple words are spoken
* The priestess of Talos in Windhelm dialog lines (blessings be...) refer to Arkay rather than Talos.
* If you marry someone, and they subsequently open a shop selling general goods, it is possible they will not have voice files for saying what they have fore sale (happened with Aela, who had no voice file for saying "oh, various tinkets, odds and ends")
* Some enchanted items on vendors have invalid names/invalid graphics - eg "Orcish Armour of Eminent Stamina" having the graphics of boots.
* The Shield for the Orcish armor set is a Significantly different shade of green to the rest of the set - may be intentional, but looks incredibly mismatched.
* Enemy skeletons sometimes remain solid when killed (intentional?)
* The Amulet of Julianos has a different appearance worn on the body than it does in the inventory
* The Misc item 'Dwemer Scrap Metal' cannot be smelted into Dwarven Metal Ingots, even though 'Bent Scrap Metal' can. They even have the same weight and value.
* It's possible to get inside the wall of Riften by roof-climbing and using Whirlwind Sprint. Doesn't actually cause the player to enter Riften (an empty space inside the wall?)
* In Riften, there is a note in the 2nd floor of Bolli's House concerning his wife. It is missing the second page.
* Proudspire Manor - after purchasing the house you can enter via main door. Exit via side door (towards sea) and try to get back in through that same door. It tells you you need a key. Can still re-enter via main door.
* Repeatedly using the door to Esbern's hideout will cause him to repeat his dialogue for each use
* The back door leading into Fort Snowhawk is a smaller arched door from the outside, but it's a larger gate-type door from the inside.
* There are two chests overlapping each other in the commander's room of Fort Snowhawk.
* "pre-placed" corpses tend to have large pools of blood surrounding them, but NPC's killed by the player don't.
* When you first arrive at Winterhold College the girl tells you the desk is safe for storage - but there is no desk in the room.
* Suvaris Atheron (female Dunmer) has a logbook that refers to her as "him".
* Eorlund refers to female player character as lad.
* Sild the Warlock in Rannveig's Fast refers to his assistant as "him" when it is a female assistant.
* When giving the falmer translation to Enthir, there is a spelling error in his second sentence. "undertstand" (extra t).
* As of Patch 1.2, the European versions of Skyrim have accented letters (é or è) improperly displayed, either being removed or replaced by code: Screen. As another example, "Lanikaï " will be something like "Lanikaó^" On the German version, accented letters were replaced by code even prior to Patch 1.2.
* Alternatively, accented letters may display properly, but the player is unable to enter them when naming a character (and possibly enchanted items)