Didn’t notice til the latest patch 2534 (though may have been around before then). When you place a large crate, and then put small crates right next to it, hearthlings may end up climbing over the small crates to get to the large crate–even if there’s a section where the large crate is accessible without having to climb over. This results in the hearthlings bugging out and not doing anything (they simply stand on the crate for eternity). Fortunately, this is fixable as they continue their work once you move or destroy the crate they are standing on. This also happens when you stack small crates next to each other.
For now, I’d recommend to not stack small crates anywhere another crate.
I wonder if this happens because they know there is an adjacent tile at the ground level, so they are activated with the action to get an item from ground level, but their pathing brings them to a point above the crate. They’d know they are adjacent to the crate, but fail to perform the action because the bottom of the crate is below the level of their feet.
While trying to replicate another bug, this one popped up. What I did:
1/ Place a large crate.
2/ Surround the crate on 3 sides with small crates, leaving only the side nearest some items open.
3/ Set the crate to accept some items.
4/ While the hearthlings went to fill the large crate, I ordered two small crates placed where they would be.
5/ One of the small crates was placed. It pushed aside the hearthlings which they were placing items into the stockpile. The error occured.
Bug continued to duplicate itself with nested execution errors until I removed all the small crates that were under hearthlings.
