Hello,

Went to do a quest where the quest-giver would be my follower for the quest, so it automatically dismissed my old companion. However, something messed up and the game still thinks I have a follower, so the quest guy won't follow me (leading the quest to auto fail after ~5 minutes) and I can't recruit ANY new followers.

I desperately need a fix for this or I'm doomed to go it alone forever. Any console commands that would fix this?

Thanks.

If you know the old follower ID

open consle
Prid (follower Id)
Kill
Resurrect
Disable
Enable


Then try again.

Doesn't work.

Looks like it's all part of a known bug (involved with the Companions' quest "Purity") where you complete Vilkas' quests before Farkas'. Hopefully there's a fix...

Or you can just type moveto player (after the prid (id) command) and ask the follower politelly to go home.

EDIT: if this approach fails, you could advance the quest via console.

are you sure your not doing a quest where someone is waiting for you?

i know in the thieves guild or the companions you get some quests that the person will tell you to meet them at a dungeon. once they are waiting for you, they will be a considered a follower. maybe look through your quest log and check if there are any quests that say "meet so-and-so here"

The problem is the quest starts in Jovassker, the companion doesn't follow me, and the moment I leave Whiterun, it automatically fails. To make matters worse, the companion issue remains afterwards and I can't recruit anyone.

Just posting for others who might have the same problem; advancing the quest fixes it.

Open your quest list, open the console command, click the quest (not sure if this step is neccesary but it doesn't hurt), type "setstage CR13 100" and it'll complete, giving you the reward and fixing the follower issue.
I'm lucky I at least saved before leaving Jorvassker though, otherwise this fix might not be possible. Not sure what you're supposed to do if the quest fails.