I keep checking in every alpha to see if things have gotten better. But it is absolutely game breaking for me when I spend two hours to build my first building and then it gets stuck on something like not recognizing beds, which are in stock and ready to be placed… which then stops the buildings progress entirely.
I know it’s alpha, but every time I’ve played the game, I end up in this same place. Scaffolding just doesn’t get taken down somewhere along the way, and my town is unplayable.
The following is not a solution, just possible workarounds to make the game more playable for you, hopefully, despite the problems. It may not be 100% applicable though, just take what you think may work for you and try it out yourself)
Compose buildings out of smaller templates and don’t merge them (e.g. by editing structure touching 2 templates at same time). Keeping them separate usually have less problems (make sure they don’t overlap though!) and allow you to prioritize build a part and also remove it independently if necessary. Chopping up a large building into parts will usually simplify the structure somewhat, hopefully reducing chances of problems.
DON’T put FURNITURE in templates. installation like windows and doors must be in, but anything that you can place afterwards manually, don’t put it in. The auto scaffolding/ladder could be broken by prematurely placed furniture which blocks the access. (sometimes, just sometimes, you can revive the building by removing offending piece of furniture, but you can save a lot of troubles by just not putting it into the template). THIS actually solves most of my building/scaffolding related issues.
Don’t build adjacent templates together. Build one first, then the other. scaffoldings and ladders are delicate. and having overlapping region may cause problems.
Learn to design buildings which have less problems. There are some that always can be built (and scaffolding cleaned up), those that always get stuck, and those that sometimes get stuck (just reload). Unfortunately, this is something that cannot be clearly stated by had to be experimented individually (unless you want to suppress your own creativity and stick to the “proven” designs of others) e.g. In my recent game, I’ve used a “proven” design after many experimentations and has close to 100% no building-stuck or left-over scaffolding problems. (though there are a couple of hearthlings getting stuck somewhere after building has completed, which can be solved by a temporary ladder)
Buildings with natural height access (e.g. staircases. ladders cannot be placed however. But and existing building with path access to higher levels will work too). There is always a chance that hearthlings will get stuck at some place when ladders/scaffoldings are removed prematurely. If building a bunch of templates touching each other, I usually try to build one with stairs first (or install ladder on the first one built). It may help to salvage potential problems when building adjacent buildings by providing more path-access. (e.g. directly to the roof level)
This is all I can recall atm. hope something works for you.
the placing of furniture in templates should have been resolved with the latest major patch. perhaps you have been trying a very ambitious build, in which case i would upload your template to the thread that @Freedom posted so chris can take a look
I experienced the furniture-obstructing-scaffolding bug in release A17.593.
The buildings I was constructing is very simple (squarish, flat roof (floor)), BUT, it could have been one of the other reasons that made the furniture bug surfaced (I THINK that if a building stalled, the Hearthlings will just skip to installing whatever furniture they have? so the reason for stalling may not be the furniture?) Anyway, I’ve gotten to simpler templates without furniture, which at least seems to be co-related with having less stalled building issues on the surface.
Adding one more tip to above:
Keep a save game BEFORE you start to construct a building (remember to only build one thing at a time. try not don’t start building another until the first one finishes.). If you have to save game, save in a different slot in the mean time. Save again after the finished building is verified. Sometimes, the exact template which had problems the first time may not give problem a second time you try to build it. May be worth it to retry from earlier save. Also, if you noticed likely problems in the design, you can always go back to the earlier save to change the design and try again.
might be good to keep more than one “safe” save games earlier. Sometimes, a building that did not seem to have problems may cause other (connected) buildings to have problems later. (the most common is: you find that you cannot place a new template to connect existing buildings due to some bug/unknown reasons: strange that it may seem, but changing the orientation of the axis in the template may help. i.e. re-create the exact design in a different orientation, then rotate it when placing the template)