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[JPolito]

Whenever I tell a kitchen to render fat, the farmer gives the message 'job item lost or destroyed', which cancels the job and makes it so that unrendered fat builds up in my food supply. Does anyone else have this problem?

[ktrey]

Is your fat outdoors by any chance? I think fat is sensitive to rain/snow, just like seeds.

[Mzbundifund]

I usually chasm or customize my refuse pile to accept fat and my food stockpile to not accept fat.  It's just too much work for not enough benefit.

[Gaulgath]

The same thing happens to me, but the fat is not outdoors.

[JPolito]

The fat is in the food stockpile, indoors.

[prklts]

I've had that happen too. I have had it where it will render fat for awhile (free food, why not do it?), but then when it gets down to the end it always leaves some left over. Certain hunted animals, like alligator, seem to have unusuable fat. Maybe the game thought that their fat is unpalatable. That could be true, but then we shouldn't have them drop renderable fat when butchered.

Tim

[Frugal]

It seems to hit randomly in my game, but putting the kitchen back on Repeat for Render Fat lets production continue.  I think the stuff might be rotting in the worker's hands or something.

[Toady One]

Not sure what's going on.  Everything I could think of has been mentioned (rain and rotting in the worker's hands).

[Exasperation]

When I have this problem, a quick check using t shows that the fat I wanted to be rendered is in the kitchen.  It seems that the job is somehow losing track of the fat when it gets transferred from the dwarf to the kitchen.  Most of the time, reissuing the render fat command after the fat gets returned to the stockpile works.

[Hyndis]

Sorry for the necrothread, just thought I'd point out this is still happening.


I keep the fat indoors with the food and near the kitchen, so the fat and tallow can be used quickly for cooking. I've tried storing the fat in barrels with the rest of the food stockpile, or making a fat-only stockpile with no barrels allowed, so the fat is simply set down on the floor.

Randomly the job is interrupted, requiring that I go and requeue the task. Since its not really a task that can be done via the work orders screen, its one of those tasks that needs constant babysitting and not for lack of resources, but rather because the task is randomly canceled for no apparent reason.

The fat is just sitting there, either stored in barrels or directly on the stockpile floor in a food zone that accepts fat and only fat, and yet the task is randomly canceled due to a destroyed or missing item.

One thing I have noticed, though it may just be coincidence, is that fat laying on the floor without barrels is interrupted less often than when its in barrels. It could be something barrel related, but then it still gets interrupted when barrels aren't in the picture at all.


One suggestion I'd have would be to make render fat be an automatic task, like collecting webs. While the job could still be interrupted, at least it would restart on its own without the kitchen having to be babysat.

[numerobis]

I see this too fairly frequently.  The fat is not destroyed when this message occurs: I have checked the stocks to verify I had no fat at all, counted out 10 cattle to slaughter, then ordered 10 render fat jobs.  Occasionally the message pops up, but in the end, the 10 render fat jobs happen and I'm left with 60 tallow as expected.  I am not confusing the 'job item lost or destroyed' message with the 'need (unrotten) animal fat' message -- I get both, the latter when the cows haven't been slaughtered and their fat moved to stockpiles yet.

This has stopped happening in my current fortress, presumably because it's related to something (what?) occurring while the dwarf is carrying the fat, but my dwarves are multiply legendary now.

[Veroule]

Render fat does have a bug.  If the cook starts the job then goes off for a drink/eat/sleep it cancels the job.  So far that is the only circumstance in which I have noticed it fail.