Fresh Skyrim install, no mods whatsoever, no SKSE, no changes to any config files.

Whenever I start a new game the horse carriage stops at the correct location in Helgen but no one gets off the damn thing and nothing happens. I tried downloading a "Quickstart" save, which puts you straight into the character creation, which works just fine but when I finish creating my character the ugly Imperial in front of me scribbles something on his pad and then proceeds to stare at me until I exit the game.

It's not a script delay problem, I left the game running and went to get some tea and that Imperial was still staring at me when I got back.

Ideas?

Were you using mods in the past?

Yes but I hardly think that's relevant when I'm trying to start a new game. It's a completely fresh install, I don't have any older saves.

Well it is relevant if you didnt properly follow the clean reinstall procedure. That is if you didnt entirely clean out all the mod files.

Maybe you did and if so disregard.

https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/906390-cleaning-skyrim-for-fresh-install/

2nd post down. It's important to manually delete the SKyrim folder after you remove local content. You also must unsubscribe from all steam workshop mods.

I thought I did, but I can try reinstalling again. Steam workshop shows no subscriptions to Skyrim. I tried "verifying the integrity of game cache" on steam earlier and the problem persists.

I'll try a complete reinstall again and see if that works.

Make sure to follow those instructions to the letter.

Deleting the %appdata% skyrim folder did the job, thanks!

Glad you got it working.

Cheers, bit weird that it was the %appdata% folder that was causing the problems, considering that I had recently formatted my PC and there was literally nothing there when I installed Skyrim.