I have the same problem with my laptop at the moment. It was working fine yesterday, but I've since had the connection error message. So far I've done the following steps: restart the computer, ensure firewall exceptions for laucher.exe and swtor.exe, reset/rebooted the router. Your help would be much appreciated. Does anyone use Norton 360 btw? not sure how to safely navigate exceptions for that program, and I don't want to deactivate that firewall either.

Support staff have resolved the problem. As I said, I did try summoning the character at first. Not sure why character summoning did not work beforehand but it is now working, and the companions are back, which is a relief. Thank you for the speedy response support team.

I have the same problem only i visited a guild's flagship and used their disguise module. After removing the disguise my companion and the portrait were both gone. Using the summon companion from the N menu did not work. ( So it's pretty hard to do some missions now. But there is maintenance scheduled tonight. Hopefully there is a solution.