I have never had this problem, but I have heard of its existence. I haven't played Skyrim in two years and since the remastered version came out I decided to play it again. I thought to myself, well, surely they fixed a ton of real bad bugs they may have learned about over the last five years. I am sure they have, but I guess this one has not been fixed/addressed. I have always been able to work around crashes and other bugs and I have tried everything for this bug, but I am STUCK and I have completed around 80% of the game and I will quit before starting a new game/character mostly because there is no guarantee this will not happen again.

So the problem is as you would expect. I defeat Whiterun's forces and am supposed to report back to Jarl Ulfric. I am unable to. No dialogue option whatsoever. I have tried every fix I could possibly find which consist of:

1. SetStage console commands (maybe I haven't found the right one?)

2. Stop/Start questline console commands

3. Enabling/Disabling Ulfric

4. Going back to Whiterun, talking with random NPC's and then trying dialogue again with Ulfric

5. Continuing on to the next Stormcloak camp to bypass Ulfric interaction

6. Leaving for four days and trying again (I read somewhere the AI may reset every four days)

7. Hitting Ulfric with sword, paying fine and trying dialogue again

I noticed upon returning to Whiterun the Jarl I defeated is back on the throne and yet he is surrounded by Stormcloak soldiers......it's like the quest only halfway completed. I think therein lies the problem. If I could get his ass off the throne and gone Ulfric would talk to me. The fact that he is still there means I didn't defeat him. I was there after the battle and I HEARD HIM SAY he will gather his belongings and leave, but he never did...

I did wait until I was nearly done with everything to continue this main quest and maybe along the way I broke it somehow, but I played Oblivion the same way. I always do everything else before doing the main quest. I have done it this way before in years past and have always completed the game. I only usually have issues with crashing like in all Bethesda games, BUT I will say, the crashing in the remastered Skyrim has CEASED entirely.

If ANYONE has another possible fix I did not mention, please let me know.

Did you have a follower at the time? The reason I ask is because I had the same thing happen to me a few days ago on SSE XB1. I had Lydia as a follower and I left her at the Palace of Kings "guarding" Ulfric until I returned. I thought that was a good role play and at the time I thought Lydia would not fight anyway as this is the first time I have played with any patches or DLC. Anyway the same thing happened to me but I also had left the room while Balgruf and Vignar were having there little spat after the battle and the dialogue was over when I came back, but everyone was gone and I had the quest update to return to Ulric.

I got back and got the same response you did. I always save at the carriage outside Windhelm as I used to get crashes and all kinds of problems trying to do this battle back in the day on PC original version. I reloaded, fought the battle again which is kind of fun really. Lydia came with and kicked the crap outta a lot of Imperials which was cool, and I reported back afterword to advance to next quest.

No, I never use followers. They mess with my ability to sneak and get in the way constantly.

Another addendum - I tried disabling/enabling the Jarl of Whiterun to no avail.

I guess I should mention that I am on a PC.

To quote Hadvar, "You picked a bad time to come home to Skyrim, kinsman".

I haven't seen this particular issue pop up yet but the Special Edition is a mess right now. I'd stick with Skyrim Classic for at least of couple of weeks until Bethesda gets everything into some semblance of normality or someone like Artmoor and the USLEEP team do it for them.

So, what made me really want to stop playing was the constant battle music looping over and over from the Whiterun battle. I found a console command to end it and now I can hear the other music once again. I am going to finish the game doing everything else other than the civil war questline. I have beaten this game at least six times so I know how it turns out from all sides. I can live without completing it. I've beaten all the DLC and just have about 30% more of the map to explore and I'm done.

I'll check back periodically for potential fixes just in case.