Janitors don't work

[CryGuy]

You might say there are not sufficient janitors. Maybe, but the problem is that those I have are just slowly walking around without working (idle). They are not tired, and the dirty areas are reachable..

If I select one janitor and manually send him to a dirty location, others are automatically following him and start cleaning that room, but only that room. This proves that the area is accessible. Then they go back into idle. But why do I have to trigger cleaning on my own? Is there a known reason?

I've read this problem already reported in 2013 but without a permanent solution- still not fixed?

[MekaDovah]

The slowly walking around part I have never really seen before. My janitors tend to be unable to keep up with all the filth in my prison so I always have dirty spots, but they're always running around somewhere taking care of something.

Are you using any mods? How does the rest of your game run? Are the janitors moving slowly, but everyone else is moving fine?

Also how clean is your prison generally and do you have prisoners doing janitor work as well? How are they doing at it? And are any of the zones they not going into marked as access only?

[CryGuy]

Here's a short video (50 s) that shows:

1. Idle Janitors
2. If I send one of them to the dirty workshop, it get's cleaned
3. Other areas remain dirty and won't be cleaned even later. I'd have to trigger that manually again every time.

https://mega.nz/#!q1YG3QjA!QYGc0RLyrtkZkOl4ddcG7vMp_imPbHIPso8VDM-QwDo

[CryGuy]

Ok, the video link has been removed. Then not.
- I can't judge if thy could keep up with all the filth as most of them don't do anything.
- I don't use any mods. Apart from that, the game runs w/o a problem.
- Yes, prisoners also do janitor's work.
- It's getting more and more dirty as janitor's don't work.
- Ther are no-access zones but these are not the one's in question. And those dirty one's in question are reachable

There are 12 janitors BTW (and 85 prisoners)


EDIT: Screenshot: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1582302800
It shows some janitors at the right in the deliveries and storage area, while the workshop at the top left and cells at the bottom left are dirty. As written, I can send one of the janitors to a dirty place, it will be cleaned, but only that place. Til yesterday, I didn't have to trigger that manual, but I don't know what happened that changed this behavior.

[MekaDovah]

Do the prisoners doing janitor jobs bug out in a similar way or is it just the janitors?

[MekaDovah]

Also I don't suppose you have an older copy of the save to roll back to?

[CryGuy]

First, thanks for your support.

Normally, when you open the "Materials" view/menu, white rectangles indicate cells to be cleaned. Now, there are no such rectangles. Hence, prisoners don't clean the floor either.

I've watched how it develops over time at full speed without interferring:
Sometimes, janitors seem to be in the right mood. A group of them suddenly starts cleaning a room like stung by a bee - then go back to idle mode. Story short: By recording it as a video max zoomed out to observe everything, I've found out that the gardener is constantly cleaning outside, and as soon as he cleans a cell that is next to an indoor cell that is visually dirty but not marked as dirty yet, the indoor cell gets marked dirty, too. A janitor goes to clean it. As he does, adjacent cells are also marked dirty, and so on. So the whole room/section gets cleaned.

Well... ^^

[qcs2017]

I can confirm CryGuy's observations. They are, as detailed as they are, 100% what I can see. This also happens in Vanilla (I observed this behaviour before I even subscribed to my first mod). I always thought "maybe they have a threshold where I can see it is already dirty, but they don't consider it dirty enough to clean yet". Also, a similar observation can be done for gardeners and overgrown/pissed/puked on paths/ways.

[MekaDovah]

Hm. I know janitors and cleaning prisoners tend only to the dirty brown smudge spots that build up on indoor floors over time. I've seen my prisoners leave other messes on the ground routinely that just fade away after awhile and go unattended.

[CryGuy]

Nother example:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1582533961
You see 6 janitors (only 1 tire) around an obviously dirty armoury that hasn't been cleaned for a while.

[MekaDovah]

Hm. Unfortunately, unless one of the mods you're using is responsible, you're probably looking at a bug and I honestly don't know what else you can do short of starting over to flush it out of the game.

Do you have any other saved games to test with and see if it's just that one that has the problem? Because if it's happening to all of them, then I would be inclined to think it's less the individual prison and more a mod or something up with your game itself.

[CryGuy]

As I wrote, I do not use any mod.

[MekaDovah]

Oh sorry. I'm not used to seeing the digital clock. I had forgotten that was vanilla.

[CryGuy]

Originally posted by MekaDovah:

Oh sorry. I'm not used to seeing the digital clock. I had forgotten that was vanilla.

No problem.
I've just posted (and solved) another issue that was due to a no-access area. Maybe this one willt be solved, too, as a side effect. I'll see what happens. Probably the problem will disappear by itself as it happens sometimes.

Anway, thanks to both of you.

[CryGuy]

Oh, and BTW: Do not select Materials -> Clear indoor area, and select the whole prison, in order to have the janitors clean everything! :D ...Becaus it destroys/dismantles everything.

[MekaDovah]

Originally posted by CryGuy:

Oh, and BTW: Do not select Materials -> Clear indoor area, and select the whole prison, in order to have the janitors clean everything! :D ...Becaus it destroys/dismantles everything.

Heh, yeah I found that out the hard way a long time ago. Kinda awkward.