Rather than waste a perfectly good support thread, decided to ask here. I know that one of the Companions quests forcably removed Lydia as my follower, so i'm assuming there're other quests that do.
This is only an issue due to quests like Purity... as it refused to dismiss this ghost follower, i couldn't even Start the quest really.

Plus, auto-balance seems to be affected by this ghost. be it ghost of Shadowmere or ghost of a follower i sent to the Blades.
So, if someone could name a quest that isn't from the Companions which automatically gets rid of any/all followers, please do.

Edit: 40 minutes and nothing... ok, i'll leave it til tomorrow before i double post, warning others to load saves from before they develop the issue.

Ok, evidently no-one's found another quest of that nature... i left it an extra 5 hours in case, so yeah. For anyone that has no companion but can't get people to follow because "Looks like you've got someone already", re-load a save while you still can.

I'm experiencing a problem where I'm doing the Purity quest for Vilkas. I've finished the quest and I need to talk to Vilkas but he only gives me the option to train in two-handed. Since he started following me for this quest, he has not had the normal options for a follower such as allowing me to give him things. This is horribly obnoxious and I think it could be fixed if I could force him to stop following and then go find him again. So I too am looking to auto-dismiss. I'm on 360 so there are no console commands that will work for this scenario

Lydria will go back to Dragonsreach, the other companions I dont know where they would go. I lost Iona because I told her to wait so I could do things alone and not accidently kill her when spraying my destruction magic all over due to me making those spells cost for free. Iona ran off with my Dragonbone Armor I made for her, she was also my wife for that char.