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[Pepijn]

What could be a reason for skilled dwarves to refuse to do their one task? Something as simple as cut a tree / dig a tunnel. Their needs are met, no other dwarves are planning on doing it. They will only stand around and do nothing. Now I can task them to do something else and they'll do that...

[Starver]

Path to the job? No incompatible burrow-restrictions?

Or, specifically for tree-cutting/tunnel-digging, a spare tool of the right kind, with no military uniform set that might also conflict?

...other possibilities may exist, but I'd check these things first.

[Pepijn]

So it turns out that I had my one axe stolen by a jerk I expelled. I just had enough wood to make a just a bit of charcoal to make two more axes before I would have been in real Kea droppings.
 My master miner still doesn't feel like doing his job despite swimming in pick's so that's something else.

[anewaname]

Miners will sometimes not dig because there are 200 logs nearby that need to be hauled (I often disable Wood/Stone/Item Hauling on miners for this reason). Otherwise, what Starver posted are the things you should check. Sometimes I've accidentally removed the stairs leading down and need to build new ones, so the miner can path down to the dig area.

Also, when you are critically short of wood, you can deconstruct workshops, walls, etc, that were built with logs.

[Starver]

Could you try getting your miner retasked to construction and set to (be the only one) building a wall at the site you wish to mine?

Constructing with the nearest material to the building tile would be the first experiment (check if he/she starts to move there on the construction job) but then you could also try specifying one of the (now available) logs that are probably closer to their point of origin and see if they'll take them towards the site.

(Alternative, if it's awkward to strip other Construction tasks from everybody else, is make them your sole Architect and set up a 1x1 Bridge, towards which they'll first drag 'all' the one material they then need to fulfil the design for.)

If they won't (and I assume you already tried setting your miner onto a practibly adjacent bit of spare wall/floor, and ruled that out) try some other individuals who you've seen in the intended mining area, check their ability to pick up picks or build/design with materials (as above) and try to find differences/provoke any "No path to..."-type alerts.


(I also assume you're properly applying Standard mining designations, in muddy-beige, rather than Mark Only ones in dull-cyan, right?)


...though not applicable to this, as a take on anewname's side-suggestion I quite often do far more initial deforestation in the immediate start of a fort (partly make-work to get the woodcutter doing something now, before switching them to their (usually) mason co-profession later, but overwhelmingly to cut'n'clear as much of the planned ditching/undermining surface before the miners might get anywhere near tree-cave-in or surface-holing trouble. This gives me an immediate log surplus that is then put straight into 'picket walling', strategically on or near where I may later replace it with whatever stone (block) I find later in enough quantity. As such it also forms a Strategic Reserve of logs (and, when it mattered, not apparently bothering the elves, vs. log stockpiles) in case I need it. Normally for beds and other particular uses, though, as I tend to skip charcoal and delve for a magma industry.

[Schmaven]

If the mining area is outside the miner's burrow they won't mine there.  That one's got me many times...

[PatrikLundell]

If the mining area is outside the miner's burrow they won't mine there.  That one's got me many times...

AND the "random" location DF selects for the dorf to stand on when mining has to be in the burrow as well. That one's got me many times as well...

[Pepijn]

Well I checked and my grand master miner feels like mining again, despite not having changed a bit on him since his strike.

[Starver]

Nice to know!

The answer is probably something situational, then, which would restrict any miner. Although that doesn't yet rule out a personal trait/psyche thing that 'cleared up' or something you didn't realise was exerting an effect that you toggled in some other screen.

(e.g. Have you been fiddling with burrows? They are easy to get to do exactly what you want when you know how, and put the time into configuring them, but they take a bit to get au fait. Well, I've never actually used the Civilian Alert function of them, because I've never needed more than the non-alert functions (even for 'alert' times), so I suppose I'm as much a newbie on that aspect as anyone, too. )

[Pepijn]

I did fiddle with burrows and I found out that they were limiting my digging range but oddly it was set to inactive with no burrows selected. I've fixed by making everything a burrow then assigning them to inactive.

[Urist Lovestone]

I've had a few issues with this
1.  First wheel barrel stock piles, a lot of the times it's first make priority for me to make sure my stock pile doesn't have wheel barrels enabled. I had one fort collapse because I brought one wheel barrel I made a catch all stock pile, and only 1 dwarf would move anything because they had the wheel barrel. I always make wheelies circumstantially for specific stock piles now, mostly if I want to limit haulers that do those jobs so they can do other things.

2.  Hot key letter "oh" Set orders and options, aka standing orders. I couldn't butcher anything because I turned off auto butcher. I can't assign slaughter tamed animal from the butcher workshop so after a while I figured out you have have to have something set in the standing orders area.

If you want to dump items, especially in mass it's good to have a lot of idler's, they'll prioritize every job over it. If they're not doing something outside standing orders collect inside outside. I like to turn off auto orders when or where I can but sometimes it's a combination of "standing orders" and labours enabled. Always check standing orders if all the labours are on, I always end up doing this after a couple of hours of trying to figure out what I'm doing and then get amnesia about it and do it all over again.

If miners aren't digging you might need to re-asses if you forgot a stairway, or a entrance place they can step to, If you go crazy with ramps they have to connect to something for them to move to I've had miners dig themselves into a pit on accident and it was just bad digging design on my part and not understanding what they can move onto or not. Rule of thumb I go by is just adding a stairway kind of thing by ramps usually because Ramps are kind of a one way direction sort of thing that's either up or down.

OR if miners aren't mining, and wood cutters are wood cutting, check to see if they're in a military squad. If they have a weapon equipped they use that as a weapon. I manually equip them to use that as a weapon axe or pick, if you want them to use it for a job go into equipment weapon and make sure they don't have their job tool equipped as a weapon.