[2.0.68] Inserter to proxy container of agricultural tower output does not wake up again after inventory is filled

[FiveYellowMice]

When it happens:

An inserter is placed to move items from an infinity chest into a proxy container, the proxy container points to the output inventory of an agricultural tower. There are items in the infinity chest, so the inserter picks them up and drops them into the proxy container. Then, the proxy container gets completely filled, the inserter stops.

Screenshot_20250927_113623.png (1.19 MiB) Viewed 87 times

What happened:

When the items in the proxy container is removed (either by hand or another inserter), the inserter in question stays in "Waiting for source items" state, despite there being items in the source inventory and empty slots in the target inventory. The inserter starts working again only when it gets updated (e.g. putting items into the infinity chest, connecting wires to the inserter, or the inserter is disabled and reenabled by circuit condition).

What should happen:

When the items in the proxy container is removed, the inserter starts moving items again.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Starts a new sandbox game with space exploration.
2. Unlock all technologies; enable cheats.
3. Place and build this blueprint:

   Code: Select all

   0eNqFkttugzAMht/F16EqLYeVV5kqFIJh0UJS5dCVVbz7HNqibkNb7hLH32//9hUaFfBkpfZQXUEKox1Ur1dwstdcxTfNB4QKeG+lCMoHy1XizQdamBhI3eIFqnRiKymoUHjKSlCj7ceERNB2XOBT5m46MkDtpZd4U54vY63D0JBGlbL/cQxOxhHB6KgeqQxGqJI96TSh69DWTn4SI90uJ1b8Q2q3SLnQOM9n4C929mCvEPbsD7t+kYpNfmdt8jVattCaoN6pX4fWr4H2D9CWQAxaacmpOZzuVrj5wpW6k5pCiXhD51d8/A5+fK8dei917+I3i4M5Yx0opqg6bGvpcaCQtwEZ3F5vo72r6iAUcpt0ARVpChPi9tGgB9POg75w4dUIT+t1XPOnWPo4WXOhJoz2XOo1h7LnRuLKxRqjscv2MzhTmXNGXuwO2eGQly9lWRbbafoCO4wOPA==

4. Make the proxy container point to the agricultural tower output, run console commands:

   Code: Select all

   /c game.player.surface.find_entities_filtered{name="proxy-container"}[1].proxy_target_entity = game.player.surface.find_entities_filtered{name="agricultural-tower"}[1]
   /c game.player.surface.find_entities_filtered{name="proxy-container"}[1].proxy_target_inventory = defines.inventory.agricultural_tower_output
   

5. Wait for the proxy container to be filled.
6. Remove items from the proxy container. See that the inserter stays asleep.
7. Put something in the infinity chest. See that the inserter starts working until the proxy container fills up again.

[boskid]

While i am seeing this behavior as incorrect, i am hesitant about fixing it. Simple fix of this behavior will have a performance overhead since item removal from result inventory will have to wakeup all input inserters facing an agricultural tower, something that is not required in normal circumstances. Similarily if a proxy container would be attached to an input inventory and inserters trying to take items out of it, i would have to notify all output inserters not only when products are added to product inventory but also when seeds are added, and those extra notifications will cause regular inserters interacting with agri tower to wakeup and consume a little bit of cpu even when there is nothing to be done for them. I will think about a solution for this, but for me this feels like a relatively minor issue, and if forced to fix i may make proxy containers to stop using agricultural tower wakeup lists which will make your inserters to not sleep which will prevent the issue from happening.