Dwarf Fortress Bug Tracker - Dwarf Fortress
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0001538Dwarf FortressDwarf Mode -- Jobs, Animal Handlingpublic2010-04-25 20:182014-01-12 09:02
lucasup 
 
normalminorsometimes
newopen 
0.31.03 
 
0001538: Dwarves constantly spam "cancels Release Small Creature: Need empty trap."
This has happened several times with different saves:
The ability to assign "tamed vermin" exists with (b)uilt cages. However, once assigned, I get:
(Dwarf) cancels Release Small Creature: Need empty trap. Hundreds of them. Sometimes they stop, but as soon as I start messing around with cage assignments again, I start getting the messages again. I'm not sure if its because I've accidentally selected vermin again, or just assigning ANYTHING to a cage will re-start the process.

Canceling the assignment seems to do nothing, or perhaps in fact makes it worse. Hard to say.


In addition, I seem to be completely unable to build any sort of animal trap with my carpenter workshop or metalsmith forge. I can add it to the list, but it will never become active, and never will complete. The workshops have access to all materials and can make all other types of objects fine.
1) Build a cage
2) Assign vermin to cage
if no spam:
3) Un-assign vermin to cage
Slightly modded:
Using Phobeus's graphics pack
Using Dwarf Therapist 5.0
Dwarves have [SPEED:100]
No tags attached.
related to 0000415resolved Toady One Merchants' unpurchased small creatures can be placed in cages 
has duplicate 0002126closed Footkerchief <name> cancels Releasing Small Creature: Need Empty Trap. message spammed repeatably. 
has duplicate 0002844resolved Logical2u Cancellation spam on release small creature 
Issue History
2010-04-25 20:18lucasupNew Issue
2010-04-25 20:48lucasupNote Added: 0005072
2010-04-26 00:28MalicusNote Added: 0005098
2010-04-26 07:57DoctorZuberNote Added: 0005119
2010-04-26 09:16FootkerchiefNote Added: 0005132
2010-04-26 09:17FootkerchiefRelationship addedchild of 0000415
2010-04-26 10:42DoctorZuberNote Added: 0005141
2010-04-27 00:23lucasupNote Added: 0005296
2010-04-27 01:33DoctorZuberNote Added: 0005308
2010-05-06 14:34AesculaNote Added: 0006306
2010-05-07 23:07The ArchitectNote Added: 0006398
2010-05-07 23:07The ArchitectTag Attached: AWAITING UPDATE
2010-05-13 19:33Logical2uRelationship replacedrelated to 0000415
2010-05-13 19:34Logical2uTag Detached: AWAITING UPDATE
2010-05-13 19:35Logical2uNote Added: 0006668
2010-05-13 19:35Logical2uNote Edited: 0006668bug_revision_view_page.php?bugnote_id=0006668#r2499
2010-05-23 18:09jgoodwinNote Added: 0007234
2010-06-01 20:28FootkerchiefRelationship addedhas duplicate 0002126
2010-07-26 04:01Logical2uRelationship addedhas duplicate 0002844
2010-07-26 06:27partyaliasNote Added: 0011073
2010-09-24 16:30DawideIssue Monitored: Dawide
2014-01-10 14:59ZzarkLinuxNote Added: 0024265
2014-01-10 15:12ZzarkLinuxNote Edited: 0024265bug_revision_view_page.php?bugnote_id=0024265#r9085
2014-01-12 09:02FootkerchiefNote Added: 0024266

Notes
(0005072)
lucasup   
2010-04-25 20:48   
...Huh. It seems that re-assigning /all/ vermin to a cage stops the job cancel spam. It also looks like the dwarves are actually moving the vermin to the cage as well. I had previously de-constructed all cages with vermin in them, and then reconstructed another cage, and assigned all vermin to it.
Very bizarre.

I still can't make animal traps...
(0005098)
Malicus   
2010-04-26 00:28   
Dwarves need to put vermin in an animal trap if they're not in a cage, hence the spam.

Also, animal traps are made by trappers instead of carpenters, oddly. Make sure you have somebody with the trapping labor enabled.
(0005119)
DoctorZuber   
2010-04-26 07:57   
hauling / animal hauling -- is the labor for moving the critter in or out of a trap. Critters must be tame to be moved.

Vermin must be placed in an animal trap, not a cage.

Those are the rules from 40d anyhow. So that's how it's expected to work. But you're saying it's letting you place vermin in a cage? And that it's spamming like crazy? That sounds like two bugs to me.

Are the vermin you place in the cage staying in the cage?

Do you have other animals in the cages?
(0005132)
Footkerchief   
2010-04-26 09:16   
DoctorZuber -- see 0000415.
(0005141)
DoctorZuber   
2010-04-26 10:42   
ah okay, I see it, that makes it a lot easier to get some vermin to test this behavior with.
(0005296)
lucasup   
2010-04-27 00:23   
Ah okay. I couldn't make traps because nobody had trapper labor.
It seems once I have some animal traps, I no longer get the cancellation message. So really the only bug here is that they spam the message TOO much. They really should just cancel the job once they can't do it the first time. Unless the whole "vermin in cages" thing is just taken out completely.
(0005308)
DoctorZuber   
2010-04-27 01:33   
I'm pretty sure vermin in cages is a bug, which would make a bug of spamming when vermin are removed from a cage somewhat irrelevant.

Since you've verified that animal traps don't have this issue I'm not going to worry about this one any more. It will go away when cages are fixed to not accept vermin.
(0006306)
Aescula   
2010-05-06 14:34   
Yeah, you need an animal trap. I made mine out of silver, which needed a smith... with Trapping enabled.
(0006398)
The Architect   
2010-05-07 23:07   
Having read both pages, I need to make a note here that THIS IS NOT A CHILD OF THE BUG IT IS LISTED UNDER. I'd also like to note that without text formatting, there's no other way to emphasize text and CAPS is not meant to represent anger or "shouting."

This bug is an old one from 40d. I don't know if placing vermin in cages is a bug, but the message spam is unrelated. The same message spam occurs when setting any animals free from built overstuffed cages, large animals as well, and has since 40d.

The game will spam this error message infinitely if no empty traps or cages are available. It doesn't actually want to use them, which is what makes this a legitimate bug and not simply message spam.

It won't set the vermin free from the overstuffed cage until there is an empty trap available. To repeat for the third time: it won't use the trap or place the animal in it; the game will still set the animal free. It just requires that an empty trap be available to do the job. It seems to just be some bugged little check the game is performing out of context, and it happens with vermin and non-vermin, requiring an "empty cage" or an "empty trap" depending on the type of animal.

If I'm right about this simply being a misplaced check (probably recycled code gone bad), this should be very simple for Toady to fix.
(0006668)
Logical2u   
2010-05-13 19:35   
I'm removing the "awaiting update" tag since I've changed the relationship that seems to have you up in arms, Architect.

The tracker uses standard html formatting for text stuff, just for future reference.

Eg: < b > and < /b > for bold (remove spaces) and < i > and < /i > for italics.

(0007234)
jgoodwin   
2010-05-23 18:09   
I'm not sure of where the line is between small creatures and vermin; I'm playing with the May Green graphics pack.

Anyway, I had a tame lizard and a tame two-legged rhino lizard in one cage. I think I bought them and moved them together at some point. I build a second cage adjacent to the first and assigned both lizards to the second cage without exiting the assign-animal "dialog".

I got the spam after one lizard was in the new cage. It continued until I cancelled the assignment of the other. Then when I again assigned the other lizard to the new cage it was moved over fine without spam.

I later repeated this with a whole group of animals at once (I'm building quite a zoo).

In one shot, I moved over:
Hoary Marmot (Tame)
Leopard (Tame)
Mandrill (Tame)
Black-crested Gibbon (Tame)
Stray Black Bear (Tame)
Giant Eagle (Tame) [the zoo's number one attraction]
Giant Tiger (Tame)
Giant Tiger (Tame) [unfortunately both male]
Warthog (Tame)
But these animals were not moved over and I got the spam:
(tame gray squirrel)
(tame red squirrel)
(tame red squirrel)
(tame oriole)

So it's small-creature related, I don't think those are vermin.
(0011073)
partyalias   
2010-07-26 06:27   
I've got the same with caged goblins. When i've installed cages with em in barracks, stripped em and set to be releasen to receive a beating from my dwarves, the next happened:
civ dorf came, but he didn't release the prisoner - he tried to haul him to another empty cage. When i've forbidden all other emty cages the bastard refused to release other prisoners and spammed.

So i had to work around:
assign to release
forbid empty cage
beat goblin to death
unforbid empty cage
...repeat...
(0024265)
ZzarkLinux   
2014-01-10 14:59   
(edited on: 2014-01-10 15:12)
I had this happen in v34.11 when deconstructing a depot.
1) Dwarven Merchants arrive at Depot
2) Deconstruct Depot
3) Several animal cages on the ground
4) Build Cage (b) (j) and place the cages
5) (t) over the cages, (a) to view assignments, un-check the caged animal
6) Urist cancels Release Large Creature: Need empty cage

Besides the obvious workaround (Link Cage to Lever), I found that everything returned back to normal once the Merchants left the map or died to zombies.
Either that, or it all got fixed by building an animal stockpile and one of the cages was hauled there. Not sure

(0024266)
Footkerchief   
2014-01-12 09:02   
It may be helpful to upload a save demonstrating the problem to http://dffd.wimbli.com/ [^] and post the link here.