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[Faces of Mu]

I have been making bags for nearly as long as I've had my glass workshops set up, and if I stop making them, it later cancels sand collection jobs due to lack of bags. But my workshops are absolutely CLUTTERED with empty bags! I even have stockpiles of empty bags nearby. Can bags only be used once for sand collection??

[Aqizzar]

Probably some crappy tasking has them scheduled for other uses first.

Try pausing the game, then forbidding/unforbidding all the bags, then ordering glass protection.  When you unpause, they should schedule the bags for being used, but I have no idea.  Glass making is always a pain in the ass for some reason.

[snelg]

I remember the dwarves used to take all bags and store seeds in them (then storing the bags in barrels) but if they're all empty and in a stockpile I don't think that's what's happening here.

[Areyar]

that seed storage problem is supposed to be fixed.
try setting up a furniture stckpile near your kiln and allow only bags.
also maybe the bags are seen as containers and immediately reserved for use in food stockpiles.
 

[Faces of Mu]

This is rather annoying as every now and then all my glass production stops because all the orders have been cleared. Half my glass furnaces have collect sand ordered to them, so there should be a constant supply of sand happening.

But thinking about it, it's the glass production that is cancelled and not the sand collection. Maybe the cancel message is confusing because it says "No sand bearing item available" rather than to "No item currently bearing sand is available"?

[forsaken1111]

This is rather annoying as every now and then all my glass production stops because all the orders have been cleared. Half my glass furnaces have collect sand ordered to them, so there should be a constant supply of sand happening.

But thinking about it, it's the glass production that is cancelled and not the sand collection. Maybe the cancel message is confusing because it says "No sand bearing item available" rather than to "No item currently bearing sand is available"?

Perhaps you should use the job manager. It will keep re-queuing the items.

[Faces of Mu]

I -think- I solved it. I figured out how to set a stockpile that only took bags of sand (use a furniture stockpile and forbid all furniture types. The only thing that should be 'highlighted' is u: Sand Bag in the bottom right. Don't make "Boxes and bags" be highlighted because then you'll get the empty bags). So I created a large one and what do you know, it filled up with all the bags of sand lying about. So thinking this was the source of my problems (ie, sand collectors could only gather and then store one bag at a time, so the glass makers only had a handful of bags at any one time) I stopped bag production.
Now my sand bag stockpile is empty and I'm getting the cancellation messages again. Since I've just been sieged twice in a row (the first was really long and drawn out) I may get some haulers together to restock the sand bags and hypothetically the problem should disappear.
(Yet I also just found out that just under half my fortress is children! Yikes!)

[Wolfius]

This is rather annoying as every now and then all my glass production stops because all the orders have been cleared. Half my glass furnaces have collect sand ordered to them, so there should be a constant supply of sand happening.

But thinking about it, it's the glass production that is cancelled and not the sand collection. Maybe the cancel message is confusing because it says "No sand bearing item available" rather than to "No item currently bearing sand is available"?

Sounds like the furnaces are being used irregularly; even set to repeat, you'd probably have Sand Collection done too often, being canceled because there aren't any free bags, or glass production canceled, because there aren't any sand bags available yet.

I always alternate Make Glass with Collect Sand in any individual active Glass Furnaces, so the number of available sand-filled bags in immediately replenished befor any more is used.

I also have a 3x3 Sand Bag stockpile next to the furnaces to buffer any irregularities. It's not the most efficient setup, but it seems to run indefinitely without correction - my current map lacks magma, however, so I have to periodically interrupt it anyway(tho I have been blessed with large coal reserves, I want those for metalworking)

[LegacyCWAL]

Collecting sand is a much longer job than making it into glass.  Even with a fully-stocked sand bag stockpile, it's going to run out, and run out fairly quickly.  As I see it, you basically have three options:

1) Alternate like Wolfius mentioned.  This is the least micro-intensive way.  However, it's fairly inefficient because each job for making glass is a longer trip (it's a lot quicker to go between the furnace and the sandbags than it is to sit around the meeting hall and travel halfway across the fort to the furnace area when the job comes up).

2) Set a BIG portion of your glass furnaces to constant sand collection.  This is also fairly non-intensive micro-wise, but you're liable to wind up with one outstripping the other, leading either to stuffed stockpiles and used-up bags, or else a bunch of cancelled orders due to running out of sand.

3) Queue up an assload of alternating Collect Sand (30) and Make Glass Stuff (30) jobs in the job manager.  This is my favorite, as you can order what you want without worrying about over/under-collection of sand, and leaves you free to micro if you want.  However, if you have magma, it practically forces you to have all your furnaces be magma, as the job manager doesn't care whether a furnace is magma or regular.