Bloodlines quest broken? PS3

[Enchanted Ruffles]

All the Dawnguard quests appeared to have been working fine until I got to Bloodlines.

*slight spoilers*


Serana became my follower, asked me to take her home. We went to Castle Volkhair, the old watchman told me to eff myself. Origionally, I thought there was something more to do but I wasn't sure what. Figuring I'd leave it for later, I went and cleared out Broken Oar Grotto. Silly girl wouldn't leave the grotto when all was over, though, and I ended up having to FUS RO DAH her a couple times to incite her to attack me, and after some fast traveling around, she finally unglitched and followed me again.

But now I'm reading the castle gates should open as soon as we arrive, but no matter what I do I cannot get the gate to open. I've swam there, used the ice water jetty, fast traveled, I've talked to her, but no options to start the quest.

What gives? I can't even tell her bye, she just says can't get rid of me that easy. Dawnguard seems really glitchy, so even if there's no way to save it, is there any way I can ditch Serena? She is so useless at this point, won't even carry my stuff, and she seems to be an essential character as I can't seem to kill her.

I'm on PS3 so no console commands.

Please help me

 

[Enchanted Ruffles]

Is this a totally unknown problem or something?

I've since deleted the game files and redownloaded all 3 DLCs, sved the game w/o dawnguard installed, installed DG, and started up the last save. All DG related things are gone, like Serena, my crossbow etc but when I go to take a new follower he says there's someone already with me.

Can anybody give me any kind of advice on this? I'm about to chuck Skyrim out the window.....

 

[Daelon DuLac]

Never had that happen @ the Castle, although, as a werewolf it was a different experience. Wasn't allowed to enter the castle w/out Serana the first time or at all until they were defeated (although you might want to try the back door - I could still use that).

As to the follower thing - it's happened to me too when the Companions glitched. Had to start over (or at least go back to a really old save).

Sorry about the issue, but, usually, when the follower thing happens, if you go back through your Journal list, you can determine which follower may still be sitting somewhere. One time I just waited 30 game days (in game, of course) and the world reset and the problem was solved (I left Marcurio someplace once and was going crazy until I checked my Journal and unstuck him).

Don't know if any of that helped, but they were my solutions. For goodness sake! Don't chuck Skyrim - send it to me! I could use an extra copy.