My GF has been playing (360, no mods) and is about level 49, and on her only character. Recently, when she kills dragons, their soul does not absorb. I mean at all. It's not a slow animation. She can wait there for ages and nothing happens. The dragon just sits there still with its skin and all. She never gets a dragon soul. Also, it's not like she's maxxed on souls or something. She is still learning shouts and spending souls, and resetting her perk tree at times.

I tease her and tell her that she's not the legendary dragonborn. Although I am a bit jealous since I've had characters that I wish weren't the dragonborn.

However, she's said that she's played and absorbed souls from dragons since, she said it's just when it's a regular "Dragon" that it doesn't work. On ancient dragons etc it works.

Anyone else had this?

it's a bug I hope she kept a back up save from before it happen

That happens if it's a select dragon whose soul she had already got. She should still be able to get random dragon souls, but those that spawn near walls and such only give one soul. I suppose that's to prevent someone from farming one word wall for dragon souls.

The thing is, she's been spending time in Solstheim and it's happened to random dragons there. But maybe she's fought them at that random location before.

And it's been going on so long that I doubt she'd reload that far back

If she went and killed a dragon at a certain place, and then went back there later, there will be another dragon but she will not get the 2nd dragons soul. Only the plunder it carries. Hope that made sense.

It's not consistent, though. I've had playthroughs where I could farm dragon souls (I didn't, imo it's a waste of time considering how easy they are to get, but anyway) from one location. Then I'll have a playthrough where some spawn points don't give me Dragon Souls after the first time. I imagine that's her issue; it's no big deal, normal dragons will stop showing up entirely in a few levels anyway.

It's not those red headed dragons is it? I hear they don't have souls...

It's finicky nature isn't isolated to just playthroughs. I can get a soul from one wall 3 times in a row and then suddenly I find I can't the next two times the dragon respawns.

As an aside, can anyone show me the game mechanics for determining whether or not a dragon is going to spawn? I've heard it's supposed to be three days, but I've also heard it's based on where you are in the MQ, and I can't find anything about the mechanics of it. I'm on the PS3, so I can't look in the CK either.