Hey, same problem with my Carpenter.
I did everything listed so far in this Thread and double Checked Dwarf Therapist if Carpentry is the only Labour the Guy has. Heck i even got a Migrant wo was Carpenter too and still they dont work properly. Its something like this:
I order them to make barrels. First they do nothing, just sleeping, eating and hanging around in my meeting hall. After 10 Minutes or so they go to the Workshop and make about 1 or 2 tasks and then return to doing nothing. So in short, in 1 Hour reallife time my Dwarfs finish only about 10 Barrels, which doesnt suffice for my still to make Alcohol all the time.
Because im relatively new to DF and my english isnt perfect i may have missed something, so i tried a few things:
While i was setting up the first few Buildings i had a few messages like this: "insert Dwar Name here" has cancelled give Water, no empty Bucket. With a few random Dwarfs. I dont know what they try to do with that water, i have no wounded Dwarfs. And it only appears sometimes, had a period of an hour where it not appeared and afterwards it started again. I dont think that thats the Reason, because the Carpenter Dwarf never gave me that message.
I dont believe the Material is forbidden, because they used the wood a few Times allready. Deactivating every Labour Except Carpentry does nothing either.
Destryoing the Carpenters and rebuilding it at different places does nothing, tried it about 3 Times now.
Giving the Carpentry Labour to other different Dwarfs doesnt help too, they get as lazy as the 2 Carpenters.
Its really getting annoying because i need Barrels to make some Beer etc. And because of a lack of Water on the Map im playing my Dwarfs will die of Thirst if not provided with either the Alcohol or some Rain that fills my Water Pool again^^