I have had my mage pet sit unreactive even though there is no HOLD or GHOLD. Not a merc, but similar issue. I get attacked and pet yawns and says "let me know when yer done with that"... =P
An EQ patch about a month ago caused the last mercenary stance you had set prior to logging out before the patch, to be changed to something else, just one time after you logged in. (Possibly some index into a stances array was renumbered server-side or client-side pre/post patch and not kept in sync?) By chance when you noticed your mercenary being passive unexpectly, was it the first time your character logged in since patch and your mercenary was non-passive before-patch but passive after-patch due to this change?
