So on two occasions this progress-blocking bug occurs, which seems to have no fix atm. Within the Scrimshaw instance in the quest "Bob's Your Uncle" you defeat a group of enemies, then the objective changes to talk to a character within said instance. After the conversation, enemies spawn in as part of the usual quest, but the objective does not change to that of defeating said enemies. What this means is that I talk to the NPC (Scurvy Pete) which spawns enemies. During the fight that follows the NPC still has the question mark over their head. When the enemies are defeated, the quest still says to talk to the NPC. The conversation is identical to the one you just had, spawning the same enemies again with no objective update, meaning there is an infinite loop of talk, fight, goal is is still to talk, fight, talk, and on and on. This completely halts progress within these quests. The other instance is within the dungeon for the quest "Due Unto Others," where the identical issue is presented within the dungeon.

This is incredibly frustrating, halting my promotion quest, and, while the sidequest is somewhat inconsequential, it is a problem nonetheless. I'm really hoping this gets fixed soon, possibly within the next maintenance.

Willowydream on May 8, 2018 wrote:

You need to talk to Scurvy Pete BEFORE collecting the treasure from the battle. This will break the cycle and allow you to continue.

It only repeats the one time. Fight, talk, fight again, done. It's finished when Ricky Ticky Tabby speaks to you, I've never heard of an endless loop for this instance or "Due Unto Others".
I agree that this ought to be fixed, these fights are hard enough without repeating them.