I have encountered an annoying glitch. Very early in the game, when Hrothgar asks if you're ready to assemble for the expedition, if I say "yes," I get transported to some tiny bridge in cutscene mode and nothing happens. All of my characters just stand there forever, waiting. I've tried reloading everything, reentering Hrothgar's house, and so on, but nothing seems to work. I have even started a completely new game, with different and new characters, but the exact same thing happens anyway.

Is there a way to fix this?

I'm on my first play-through, so I'm no expert, but I haven't had this problem. I can tell you that I said "no" when he asked because I wasn't sure I did all I should, and then I came back later & said "yes"...so maybe try saying no first?

I've had what sounds like the same problem, except it was when Hjollder flew us off to the start of the Heart of Winter section; we just stood around in cutscene mode waiting for him to stop scratching his head. I tried it a few times with no luck at first, then instead of Hjollder, I got the intro movie of the HoW section, then after that Hjollder actually spoke. If I remember right, there's another movie at the point where your game is freezing, so it's probably a problem with the movies not loading properly.

All I can really suggest is 'keep trying it'. The only thing I changed on my game the time it worked was I removed the 'Shimmering Sash', (causes a Blur effect on the wearer). I don't see how this would have caused the problem though, so I'm clutching at straws here

This probably wont help at all but there was a part of IWD2 where you had to be transported by talking to a character and It appeared to me that nothing was happening. What was actually happening is the game was pausing because where I was going had an enemy but my guys weren't transported yet. I pressed space bar to unpause and it worked.

I was able to fix it by reinstalling the game, but thanks, guys.

I came here as a result of Googling for this problem. hopefully if other people do too then this might help.

The mention of movies not loading properly clued me in to what exactly the problem is: when you watch a movie for the first time, the game notes it in icewind.ini so that it will show up in the movies list. By default, at least as of the version I have installed, a normal user can't alter icewind.ini, and since the game's not prepared for that it just sits there forever.

First I tried simply adding full control permissions to that file for my normal user account, but that didn't help, possibly because the Program FIles directory is treated specially by Windows (I'm not sure exactly what the rules are and can't be bothered to investigate TBH). Running the game as administrator however did allow me to progress, and then since the icewind.ini is updated for that movie, the transition will work even as a normal user.

So, you can probably work around this by installing to a different directory, or mucking about with permissions, or even disabling UAC (don't do this!), but for me the simplest workaround was simply to run as administrator, once.

Until the next movie? I consider it a best practice to not install games under Program Files in Vista/7/8. The newer installers no longer default to Program Files.

@Waywocket - I use XP, and I do alter the icewind.ini file for various reasons. Even then I *don't* install to and Program Files or Programs folders. Any Windows later than XP has too many "protections" set for those directories, and it can even screw up trying to install mods. The movie list has no affect on the game, it only lets you view the movies from the start menu once they've run ingame (or you've added them manually to the list). This applies to all IE games.

When a cutscene triggers but fails to complete (after the movie) there's generally a variable that failed to set. If it's a modded game, a posting of the WeiDU.log is always helpful. It's also helpful to know key web sites for the games (Spellhold Studios for PST, BG1 & 2; Gibberlings 3 for IWD1; Pocket Plane Group for IWD1 & 2).

Since this thread started with IWD1, G3's Fixpack might be interested in these reports. Though nearly two years makes these bug reports pretty much useless.