Skyrim won’t do anything

I have this same issue now, to where I can not play almost at all unless I am in a dungon. If I load into a city, fast travel, or have a dragon spawn, it freezes in the same way you describe. I have to turn off my PS3 all the way and when it comes back on it says that my hard disk may be corrupt and does a 15-minute check.

I have over 100 hours play time and this issue has me really down, but here is what I have found suggested around the net:

1. Wait 30 in-game days so that all the dungeons and dead bodies everywhere will ether re-spawn or de-spawn from the game world, which is said to lower the size of the save file. (I can't use this one because if I wait I freeze right after.)

2. Turn off auto save and any other type of save that you have not done your self. (I know it's a life saver, but just make yourself save every 15 minutes or before you think you're about to have a big battle.)

3. Check all of your saves from the PS3 save utility for any saves that say "corrupt" on them and remove them. Also, remove all the really old saves.

4. Hope that there will be a patch for this soon. :)

Let me know if this works for you, and good luck!

I'll save you some time here.

You can't complete it. I did pretty much the same thing -- killed Nilsine, got access to Hjerim with the key from Torva, etc. -- and have never been able to start the quest with that character.

I have reset the Windhelm visit count then returned several times at the right time of day. I have used console commands to start and end the quest, both inside and outside the city. I've tried resetting game days (after 245 days Susanna's body disappears), resurrecting the body, resetting my level and leveling up once, entering Windhelm from every angle and time of day, talked to Viola and Jorleif, and tried it at every stage of the Stormcloaks questline. I've picked up everything, found every journal, tried to investigate every InvestigationTarget. Nothing. It's just bugged.

If someone has found a magical console command, go ahead and share it. But I'll take it from the massive amount of discussion without resolution that no one has.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news. It would be great if someone actually has a solution. But the realistic answer here is "whatever the reasons, you can't overcome them." At least as of version 1.4.