... for about three weeks now and I can find no trace of their bodies either within their shops or outside in Whiterun. Aside from it being a super-major hassle that their shops are no longer open, I miss them (yes, even Belathor strangely enough),

Can anyone tell me how to go about diagnosing what has happened to them and what i might do to get their shops running again?

go to the Whiterun hall of the dead.

Aha, I'll do that when I get back to Breezehome.

I didn't know NPC's bodies went to the Hall of the Dead?

Skyrim never ceases to amaze me.

Neither did I, what a nice feature.

It has to be said Harry that avatar is bound to piss off more than your fair share of Brits.

Just warning you.

I've never really spent any time in any Hall of the Deads. Do dead NPC's that die at the hands of a vampire or dragon attack usually end up there?

they should.

... and in this case they did. Or at least Belathor and Adrianne's shiny white coffins are there but interestingly not Ulgberth - wonder where he is.

As you say, you learn something every day about this game - anyway, is there anything I can do to get these shops back on line?

check the bannered mare. he could be in a room on his own.

belethor's shop is now closed for ever. Ysolda is supposed to take over but she doesn't.

I think I read somewhere that if Belethor dies

I'm not totally sure on that. Maybe someone can confirm that.

She does take over the store, yes.. But it's bugged and she won't sell anything.

Sounds like the vile vampire vermin (vvv) have been at it again.

Is that a farce or are you being serious?

He's serious.

Grrr. I own Honeyside and Vlindrel Hall as well but because I don't fast travel I find Breezehome vastly more convenient as a base, what with more or less unlimited mamoth and bandit locally available in quantity as well as it's central location and (previously) excellent shopping. Any case Whiterun feels like Balmora to me, it's home.

Is there absolutely no way to cheat them all back to life and work using the console? I wouldn't mind waiting for someone to take over, but if they are supposed to and it's bugged, it doesn't really feel like cheating to me.

Did you check the urns as well ?

You can - it's not guaranteed glitch free later in the game, though.

For Adrianne enter the following commands

prid 1a67c

moveto player

resurrect 1

enable

Ulfberth is prid d15b0 and Belethor is prid 1a672.

Don't use the player.placeatme command for named NPCs. That creates copies whose dialogue is broken.

On the 360 I cleared the cache and my dead horses and chickens came back to life...Maybe that would help....

If lidya dies outside of markarth, and i noticed that her body disappeared from the murder scene. is she going to end up in whiterun or markarth hall of the dead?

I killed one of the Battle-Born women (they sent thugs after me), and Adrianne died in a Vampire attack, both were found in the Hall of the Dead.

Nazeem is the only one I killed who never ended up in there. I guess nobody in Whiterun respects him enough to bury him XD

I would think that would only work on generic people or creatures that are set to respawn if they die. Named NPCs aren't set to respawn because they are unique, and once they're dead they're dead forever, barring the odd bug like Zombie Skjor. They can be resurrected on PC with console commands but that's about it.