Losing connection to Steam causes companions to disappear

Hello everyone, had a very strange error today, during the game the Steam connection (PC) was lost for about 20 seconds, I had already done two quick trips with a companion before that, everything was ok, after this one (the third) he suddenly disappeared in the inventory and nowhere on the map.
I thought okay, I’d go back to the main menu and restart, and then it would probably work again, unfortunately not until I completely restarted the game did I get the companion back into my inventory.