Stockpiles vs Barrels/Bins

[Shiranai]

What things are safe to store in barrels/bins and things are not?
I keep getting job cancellations because of lack of materials when I have plenty of them...
...stored on barrels/bins.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

I definitely turn off mass storage for seed stockpiles.

[Shiranai]

I'm having trouble with everything food related and also cloth.
Any suggestions/tricks to fix this problem?

[BlackSmokeDMax]

Hmm, not sure. I usually don't see any issues with food. For cloth, I use a quantum stockpile, but really that isn't/shouldn't be necessary.

[AlP]

Blocks are safe. Crafts for trading are safe.

Everything else, use quantum stockpiles.

[ColdWonder]

I think bins are bugged. Since they put my bolts in a bin the hunters wont hunt.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by ColdWonder:

I think bins are bugged. Since they put my bolts in a bin the hunters wont hunt.

Sometimes, Dorfs who've been newly told to do a Crossbow task won't "see" any ammo that was in your stockpiles before they were given the task. Make some new Bolts and see what they do.

Every time they go into the Bin to retrieve bolts, they reserve the bin only for themselves while doing so. Others trying to access other bolts in there will stop, thinking that they're now all gone until that other Dorf is done.

Sometimes... there's nothing to hunt. I'm not sure if they will also halt hunting if storage is full or if it stops after they've made a kill and have nowhere to haul the hunted corpse to.

[ccwscott]

Originally posted by Shiranai:

I'm having trouble with everything food related and also cloth.
Any suggestions/tricks to fix this problem?

Turn it off and turn it back on again.

Dump everything on that square into a dump zone. Then unforbid all of the items you dumped. Normally that works. You can also try removing the stockpile from that square and then creating a stockpile on the barrel that takes a different good, coins is a good choice because who has coins. If there is another stockpile to receive the goods often they'll move them. Completely deleting the original stockpile is an option. Sometimes just forbidding them, letting a couple frames go by, and then unforbidding them will do it.