Skyrim Chasing Echoes Bugged Did anyone find the answer?

[GrumpyGnome]

First this is not a cut on the game. I like it. But I am getting the "interloper" bug when starting the quest with the girl vamp at 'Castle Dracula'. Yea I don't know the names of all this stuff. I have searched and found that net-wide there is no specific answer. Is this true?

I find many that say they dismissed their whatch-a-ma-callit guy/girl for being a thane and it did NOT help. Some have killed bandidts somewhere and that was supposed to help. Then there are several console command hacks that suppose to fix the problem and replys that say they do not. Most of what I have seen is ussupported by facts or at least unreliable. It is like me saying that I bought a Big Mac and that solved the problem. Worse I see there are other reported bug(s) in this quest about the mother something or other. WTF?

I left my thane follower in breeze-whatever and killed the traveller that was lurking about little tower nearby and killed some odd bandits and killed some of the guards at the dock entrace to the castle and restared the game, and saved then resarted and bowed three times to the east. Nothing lets me run the quest.

Have the game devs published a solution? This is a major quest line and for it to have multiple bugs is bizzar. Holy crap Bat Man shoud I abandone this quest line?

Happy Trails

EDIT:
I found another clue, I see a message that flashes pretty quick in the upper left when i arrive at whiterun and it says "your follower got tired of waiting and has left...". My thane-cu-bon is in the breezehome waiting. I have no idea what follower the game is referring to but suspect that this is the source of serena's confusion. I have an invisible follower! Next I will need to find a potion for seeing invisible followers.

[GrumpyGnome]

FIX FOUND

I found a respectable fix in a distant forum that is a response from Bethesda Support.

1. I went back to my save after first discovering this bug. To eliminate all the fooling around I had done.

2. Checked my playerfollwercount variable via the console (tilda key upper left) with "help playerfollowercount" ; but NO quotes.

It was 1.

3. I did NOT dismiss my housecarl. Lydia is in my Whiterun Breezehome house.

4. Standing along side of Serena at the castle near the boat I used the 't' time wait key and waited for 24 hrs THREE times in a row.

This posted the message "Your follower tired of waiting and leaves"

5. Talked to Serena and the interloper problem is gone and we went to the back door of the castle.

I checked the playerfollowercount again and it is still 1. But now Serena is following me and I can command her.

6. I took Serena back to Whiterun and into Breezehome to see Lydia was still there waiting.
Lydia would not take orders but said, "looks like you have someone with you". Lydia will wait for me to finish the quest.
My playerfollwercount is 1 even with both Serena following me and Lydia waiting.
Lydia has waited for me when I hired a thug from an Inn so I was suspicious of dismissing her as a requirement.
A hosuecarl is not a typical follower and NOT the reason for the interloper bug. It must be caused by a glitched quest.
Now, what quest in that huge list is unfinishable because the follower did not go back to somewhere?
Oh boy, I can hardly wait to find out the answer.

***************
Here is the text of the message from Bethesda Support I found after about 5 hours of web surfing.

"Hi,
Jon,

To remove followers from your service, use the in game wait function and set it to 24 hours. Do this 3 times to

wait 3 days. If you have any followers, they will leave you.

If you have any quest specific followers, you'll need to complete those quests first (For instance, "A Cornered

Rat" requires Esbern to follow you. This would count as a follower).

Best regards,
Greg A."
***************

Happy Trails,
GrumpyGnome

[MeSo420]

I so dislike you right now -.- WARNING TO EVERYONE!!!! If you wait the 3 days YOUR PREVIOUS FOLLOWER WILL COMPLETELY RESET! INVENTORY AND ALL!

For the love of shiny septims, remove all their stuff before you loose thousands of coins of stuff like I just did. If your gonna post a fix like this you ***NEED*** to include all the relevant information and not just the briefest of skimmed explanations.

(if you were in my game I'd fus you off a cliff right now) -.- so much lost (Lydia BTW, left in same house, disappeared with everything)

I reversed the command to player.moveto a2c94 (found on another post) found out she ends up placed in a very strange room under whiterun. Looks like someone turned the tint way up though =\ (would post pic if i could) Unless i throw away a whole day of work I'm never seeing any of my potions, scrolls, or any of the ebony gear I had given her because she didnt even have it while in that room. And I had to load another game to even get out of there.

Also there's a bunch of dead bodies there, all named (Ancarno among them)