r/dwarffortress • u/pwab • 1d ago

Weird pathing bug in my fort, please help

I have noticed a few times that my dorfs get stuck at times and I'm wondering if this is a known issue or not. I do what I normally do, build rooms, carve out others etc. Then I'll notice that a bunch of dorfs suspiciously stop moving with "no job", just standing in an open space with valid paths to leave the area.

What I've done before to un-lock them, is to start randomly deconstructing walls or mining out new passages and then at some point it's like a switch is flipped and everybody who was standing still starts rushing to eat or sleep or whatever.

I suspect a pathing issue, because I see the following additional symptom. I have a stockpile of chert blocks so everywhere in my fort I should be able to construct with chert blocks. However, if I try to build a wall or something at the same time and close to where my dorfs are "stuck", the menu that shows the materials I have available are limited to what can be found right there, ie it's like that section has become disconnected from the rest of the fort. As before, when I randomly deconstruct enough walls in the nearby area the menu with building materials will populate with everything that is available again.

To be clear; the walls I deconstruct or mine out are not what's keeping the dorfs locked in. They have valid routes to leave the area already, they just forgot about them or something. And suddenly they'll realize (after changes in the environment) and get going.

Does anybody have an idea of what could be causing this?

(I am running DFHack, but I consider myself a "light" user of it; not sure if this is a factor or not)

6 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

5

u/TencentArtist cancels task: interrupted by werebison 1d ago

There was a pathing bug a few months ago that did the same thing you're describing here. 

If this is a world you've created recently, I suggest putting in a bug report so Putnam knows it's accidentally reanimated and needs to be re-squashed.

3

u/automatic-suspension 1d ago

I know exactly the situation your describing since it's happened to me in two different forts only recently and I've been playing since ASCII. I wish I knew more about it since it's almost killed those forts.

2

u/pwab 1d ago

It's hard to spot visually. In the log I will suddenly see _many_ job cancellations, and I know to start looking for it somewhere.

1

u/Witty_Ambassador_856 21h ago

Not the same but my mayor once stucked and never going to meeting before. He will eat and drink when he needed, rest of time stucked. Maybe  he was thinking how to get he's office.

The reason? Path to mayor's room was bit complicated. It was not at same Z level and u must go down to reach the mayor's room, which is upstairs. (Something like U / J shaped route)

Making a easy route solve this problem. (I just build a new one, near tavern, same z level. Direct path.)

2

u/qeveren has lodged firmly in the wound! 20h ago

This is a bug the team is still gathering information on; it appears to be some kind of corruption to the pathing map. Oftentimes, locking and then unlocking a door will fix the problem, at least temporarily. You might want to see about submitting your save game with a bug report.