This is what fixed it for me. Running out the doors at the top did bupkis for me, regardless of the amount of time I waited. Ran through the Karthspire door and when I came back in, he walked to the middle and started pontificating like I hadn't been acting like a maniac for days.
Give Delphine a torch by these step 1) click on her 2) type "equiptem 0001D4EC 1"
Quote: To fix it, I attacked Esbern until he drew his weapons, sprinted back through the door that lets you enter the temple, wited 24 hours, came back in and he started talking about the wall. Let me know if this works for anyone else who might be ahving issues with it stil :)
This fixed it for me! Oddly specific but it works!
1) click on her 2) type "equiptem 0001D4EC 1"
2606:A000:6D4D:4D00:35F4:DE87:B95F:35B0 has the best solution. Giving Delphine a torch worked the best. She immediately started walking up the stairs to the wall. It appears that Esbern is waiting for her to light the other crucible at the other end of the wall. Once she lights the crucible with her torch, Esbern proceeds. Just putting the torch in her had with the above command fixes this.
This does seem to be directly related to Delphine having an equipped torch so she can light the braziers. I'm sure someone digging into the Creation Kit can confirm the scripts need that to continue. Sidenote...I'm going to guess that there is setting inside the Temple Cell that triggers her equiping a torch only at night (rather than it just being always dark/underground in that cell) that the Unofficial patch "fixes" but then breaks this quest during certain time of day.
That's it! I'm calling out on Arthmoor.
I was able to fix it by using EFF mod to force recruit Delphine, then using the power leaders teleportation while standing next to the wall.
Oddly enough she didn't take out a torch but the dude started talking again, walked to the other torch, and I was able to continue the quest line.
Player.placeatme 00013358
That is what I did and it worked.
Now i have multiple of him lmao
I just teleported delphine, (cuz she wasn't there) (with pickrefbyid 13485 then movetoplayer), and the quest continued pacifically