How to deal with bioflux spoiling mid-swing?

[Orum]

I'm having issues with inserters picking up bioflux, it spoiling mid-swing, and then the inserter can't stick the spoilage into the destination. This causes the inserter to hang trying to insert spoilage.

At first I thought I could just use another inserter with a spoilage filter to access the spoilage in the hand of the other inserter, but you can't! It seems inserters inventory can only be accessed manually by players, and not other inserters. I'm aware of the "fresh first" filter, but it doesn't help when all the bioflux on the belt is nearly spoiled.

[Nemoricus]

Can you share a picture of your set up?

[jdrexler75]

The only way to really deal with it is to make sure bioflux is used quickly enough. Avoid long pile up of bioflux anywhere. Limit production to meet demand with some circuitry.

I have a circular belt for it, where after one go around it is routed to the outer lane so inserters preferentially use up the slightly older bioflux first.

[EustaceCS]

Cicrular belt is not a 100% failsafe measure against this specific problem.
Actually, I don't think that any in-game mechanism can be utilized to pull things off stuck inserters.

There's one exception though. You can try to flip crafting machine's recipe into something that accepts spoilage as component. Through smart wiring. For few ticks, just enough to make inserter stick its thing and free itself up.
My two-digit IQ is not enough to add any specifics to it though, that's kinda very advanced stuff.

Second best option (and much more accessible) is to make sure that the only cloggable places are places where products with best shelf life being stored.
I. e.:
1. Fresh unprocessed produce.
2. Gleba Science Packs.
But it's more of a global Gleba's crafting paradigm, not specifically related to this problem.

Third one can cause severe wrist strain since you HAVE to fiddle with chest requests and inserter capacity to make sure that inserters never pick more things than these can stick.
It, by extent, means exactly 1 input of 1 thing per crafting machine (combinations of items in input are allowed where desired stack size is same).
And no stack inserters for both input and output! Only bulks!
Which is... well... I don't mind configuring each chest manually - but it's slightly beyond my patience. And I'm using drone-first logistics wherever I can (which can have similar problems, aggravated by Quality introduction further).

[Xorimuth]

I'm having issues with inserters picking up bioflux, it spoiling mid-swing, and then the inserter can't stick the spoilage into the destination. This causes the inserter to hang trying to insert spoilage.

At first I thought I could just use another inserter with a spoilage filter to access the spoilage in the hand of the other inserter, but you can't! It seems inserters inventory can only be accessed manually by players, and not other inserters. I'm aware of the "fresh first" filter, but it doesn't help when all the bioflux on the belt is nearly spoiled.

My understanding was that the inserter would place the spoilage into the trash/output inventory of the target machine. Is this not the case?

[DarkShadow44]

That got mentioned in Items held by the inserters shouldn't spoil:

2/ If an item spoils while in hand, then inserter will hold an item that is known to be a spoil product of a different item. Such items get slightly different treatment when trying to insert into entity where the item does not fit into input inventory. If its attempted to be inserted into assembler and it does not fit ingredients inventory it will be put into dump inventory as a spoil product.

Can you share a setup to reproduce the issue?

[atomizer]

Since we're talking about bioflux, it's probably about captive spawners. They don't have any trash slots for the result. If bioflux spoils mid-swing, the inserter tries to insert into the same slot as the egg output. If there are eggs there, the inserter is stuck until they are removed (see image). When the slot is empty, spoilage is inserted there. Then, when the slot is occupied by spoilage, any further eggs are voided. Seems like a bug? I'm not sure, captive spawners are strange.

[Nemoricus]

That does indeed look like a bug.

[Rseding91]

The solution is to remove the biter eggs so the spoilage can get passed through.

[Orum]

Since we're talking about bioflux, it's probably about captive spawners. They don't have any trash slots for the result. If bioflux spoils mid-swing, the inserter tries to insert into the same slot as the egg output. If there are eggs there, the inserter is stuck until they are removed (see image). When the slot is empty, spoilage is inserted there. Then, when the slot is occupied by spoilage, any further eggs are voided. Seems like a bug? I'm not sure, captive spawners are strange.

It is indeed about captive spawners. That's rather interesting that spoilage can block egg spawning. However, since eggs don't spoil while they're in a spawner, I can't see any utility in deliberately blocking their spawn.

In any case, it looks like I just need to keep them empty of eggs. Thanks.