So I ran into a situation on Nar Shadaa where I couldn't advance the plot even after completing every available quest (spoilers follow):

 

 

I visited Nar Shadaa first after Telos, and I managed to pick up Visas Marr immediately by returning to my ship after landing. I then went and did every quest around to get the Exchange to notice me, to no avail. Paying off the chirping alien to put in a word did nothing, either. The slavers never boarded my ship, and the Exchange never contacted me.

 

Fortunately, I had a save from before I landed on Nar Shadaa, so I reloaded and this time avoided picking up Visas. I instead went and dealt with the Serocco and Exchange sections in the refugee area, and the slavers went and boarded the Ebon Hawk immediately after. I picked up Visas immediately after defeating the slavers, and after doing a few more quests the Exchange contacted me.

 

So, I'm not going to go through the pain of double checking, but it would seem that the game is bugged so that picking up Visas Marr before the slavers board the ship prevents both that and the Exchange events from ever occurring, thus breaking the game...

 

 

That isn't true. After I got the bug on my 3rd play through I went in a different order for my fourth play through and it still happened.

 

I erased all the sith lords files from my memory and re-trying the game to see if that clears it up. I'll respond if it does

Yeah, you're right, I was able to go back to a previous save with

Visas Marr recruited

and still advance the story, so what I said before isn't the problem.

 

Unfortunately, it looks like the problem is a deep-rooted issue with perhaps global settings and variables. Somehow the game just doesn't keep track of events properly and screws up, and it's incredibly annoying because it's not consistent. Besides the story grinding to a halt, I've had temporary characters in cutscenes stay around after the scenes, issues with the wrong costume being worn in cutscenes, and other issues that come and go. It's frustrating from a testing standpoint to not only have bugs, but not be able to reproduce them later (not that I mind so much as a player, given how serious some of these are)...

 

Maybe doing the memory wipe procedure using three other games did the trick?

Yeah, the memory wipe worked like a charm. The funny thing is that now I've seen bugs in it that weren't there before the wipe... nothing major, just small things like Disciple not gaining experience while the other 9 guys in the party did.

One thing that seems to cause this: if you use the airspeeder to travel around Nar Shaddaa before the Red Eclipse shows up, it cancels the cutscene and they don't. I tested this in my most recent game, and it was definitely the cause.

One thing that seems to cause this:  if you use the airspeeder to travel around Nar Shaddaa before the Red Eclipse shows up, it cancels the cutscene and they don't.  I tested this in my most recent game, and it was definitely the cause.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I don't think this is true......I travelled everywhere with the fixed-up airspeeder, and did most of the sidequests, and the Red Eclipse showed up. I already had Visas (did Onderon/Dxun before Nar Shaddaa), but I haven't triggered the invite from the Exchange -- unfortunately, I didn't stick around after dispatching the Red Eclipse, so I have to go back and see if I get the invite......

Well... if I left the refugee sector through the door that leads back to the landing pad, the Red Eclipse showed up right away. If I left using the airspeeder, though, they would never show up, and I couldn't advance any further. It seemed to be the direct cause of them not showing up, at least in that game.