One with the Shadows achievement – no Solitude quests

the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim

So I've done countless number of quests in 4 (riften, windhelm, whiterun, markath) of the cities and have done the special quests in 3 (windhelm, markath, whiterun) of them as well including the quest from Tonilia.

However, I have yet to receive a quest in Solitude and no matter how many times I drop and retake a different quest there are none in Solitude.
Has anyone experienced this problem?

Best Answer

Go to Vex and Delvin and pick up the radiant quests. If they're not the ones you want, just drop them immediately and pick up new ones.

Rinse and repeat until you get the quest(s) you want.

Vex and Delvin will talk smack, but there is no dis-benefit from dropping these quests. Or (if you're paranoid) just save the game, pick up the quests, then re-load if you don't get what you want. However, I dropped dozens of those quests to get the last radiant quest I needed in Markath and had no problems becoming Master of the Thieve's Guild.

The Eastmarch (Windhelm)

Capture Whiterun and Falkreath (if siding with the Stormcloaks) or capture Windhelm and complete "Kill the Bandit Leader" (if siding with the Imperials) to get into the Jarl's good graces
Complete 5 miscellaneous objectives within the hold
Purchase Hjerim, the house in Windhelm

Falkreath

Complete "Rare Gifts" (if given) and "Kill the Bandit Leader" to get into the Jarl's good graces
Complete 3 miscellaneous objectives within the hold

Haafingar (Solitude)

Complete "The Wolf Queen Awakened" (possibly optional) and "Elisif's Tribute", which gets you into the Jarl's good graces
Complete 5 miscellaneous objectives within the hold
Purchase Proudspire Manor, the house in Solitude

Hjaalmarch (Morthal)

Complete "Laid to Rest" to get into the Jarl's good graces
Complete 5 miscellaneous objectives within the hold

The Pale (Dawnstar)

Complete "Waking Nightmare" to get into the Jarl's good graces
Complete 3 miscellaneous objectives within the hold

The Reach (Markarth)

Complete "Dungeon Delving" (different from the Winterhold quest of the same name) to get into the Jarl's good graces
Complete 5 miscellanous objectives within the hold
Purchase Vlindrel Hall, the house in Markarth

The Rift (Riften)

My complete walkthrough for this is contained in another answer about how to get the house in Riften, but since that's the final requirement for obtaining the title, it's exactly the same. In short:

Handle Riften's drug problem by completing the quest chain that starts with Wujeeta
Complete 5 miscellaneous objectives in the Riften (can overlap with step 1)
Purchase Honeyside, the house in Riften

Whiterun

You've already mentioned how to become thane here, but for the sake of completeness:

Travel to Whiterun as part of the main questline
Complete the main questline up to and including "Dragon Rising"

Winterhold

Complete "Dungeon Delving" (different from the Reach quest of the same name) to get into the Jarl's good graces
Complete 3 miscellaneous objectives within the hold

Becoming Thieves Guild Guildmaster, am I bugged

It seems indeed that there is a bug related to thieves guild leadership:

If the player completes the main story arc before doing the side and improvement quests for Vex and Delvin, Brynjolf may not interact with the player and instead repeat that he is busy and that he will talk to you later. Consequently, becoming the Guildmaster will be rendered impossible. This may be a part of a bug where Karliah disappears and does not appear in either the Nightingale Hall or the Twilight Sepulcher. She does, however, return to the Snow Veil Sanctum where you first encounter her.

Possible Fix:

Run outside when finishing your first interaction with Brynjolf. You need to run outside as quick as possible by going to the ladder and exiting. You should see the quest update pop up reading: "Started Under New Management". Afterward, go back inside and proceed to Brynjolf. To talk to Brynjolf, let him go to the middle of the Cistern first, and wait. He then should start talking to you, finishing the quest. If this does not resolve the issue, it may be worth it to try attacking them, paying the reparations, and trying again.

Another possible fix is to get the quest about fixing debt from the guy at the Riften stables. The player will be told to talk to Sapphire. Instead, Sapphire should be sitting on the bridge just inside Riften and when approached will say "I don't have any business with you." or "We'll talk after the ceremony." Attack her 3 times, and this should cause her to start attacking the player notifying them that "Under New Management" has been completed and that the player should talk to Brynjolf. Upon entering The Ragged Flagon, the player will be required to pay 1000 gold to Vex as reparations for killing a fellow Thieves Guild member. After doing so, speak with Brynjolf and the questline SHOULD be completed.

As a last resort, you can use the console to fix this issue:

setStage TGLeadership 0