Factorio Forums

tl;dr - very seldom, inserters get stuck forever, even though there would be no issue inserting items.

I have a rather large map, with currently about 14k placed inserters (Got this from the production stats, building tab, built minus deconstructed).
Very very occasionally I notice running past an inserter that is stuck for no reason whatsoever.
Here a screenshot of some inserters I found just now.
Look at the two inserters at the bottom on the right:
1) The inserters aren't connected to a circuit network (so i didn't disable them or something)
2) They are supposed to be inserting into active provider chests
3) The chests are empty!
Yet, the inserters stopped moving forever. Also notice how they are kinda in a weird state, in the middle of grabbing stuff.
Whenever I find inserters in this state, I usually have to deconstruct them and place them again to fix it. What you actually can't see in this pic that not just the two bottom inserters are stuck, but two others as well, but because I'm sharing the active provider chests you can't really see the others on this screenshot. Also sorry that there is so much activity in this pic, this is an extremely active passageway for items in my system, which is probably also why it happened here.

As said, this wasn't the first time, but so far I didn't bother filing a bug report, hoping it was just a one-off. As you can imagine this is a little unsettling, because random parts of my factory just get paused until I happen to notice it. I tried to find a dup of this bug-report, but didn't find any that seemed to match. Note that while I'm filing this bug tagged for version [0.15.37], I believe this bug has been affecting many minor revisions of 0.15, as I've noticed it a few times over many months.

I'd have a savegame I could share if that's necessary, but it's rather .. big: 120MiB. I'd also have to ask a friend if he's ok sharing it, as we're playing this map in cooperative multiplayer.

Please upload a save file showing the problem.

2.27MB png
74% smaller png file thanks to TinyPNG.

Is there an item type limit on inserters?
It seems like in this case, the stack inserters have a lot of different types of items, so if you have that stored somehow with 3 or 4 bits theoretically it would be possible for it to overflow with stack inserter upgrades.
To be honest, I have no idea and I'm just spouting off random nonsense.

impetus maximus wrote:2.27MB png
74% smaller png file thanks to TinyPNG.

Heh. imagemagick turns the 2.27MB png into a 55994-byte jpg for a 97.5% size reduction:
adding a `-unsharp 20` makes it pop real nice at some size cost.

I run into the same a while ago, it looks like it only happened with laser (at my save) and only if the insterter stack size >1 and only if a laser managed to get to close to the inserter (my save)

added my save, and set a mark at the stucked ones, (may join at my (Stonehouse) base ... i think it was a OARC Scenario)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6uv2714qnu5u0jm/bug.zip?dl=0

if u unstuck em by rebuild and remove some stuff at the attached logistic zone (incl laser) it random stuck again...i fixed it by setting the stacksize to 1 at these bp

but i have to say, it worked a long time sometimes, then i notice it by the logistic alert again...looks like the inserter wait for more to grab ... or not able to grab