My miners won't pick up picks!

[Ms. Lana]

All of my mining areas are accessible, I have tons of accessible picks, several miners designated and they won't grab picks to mine. I finally have a good fortress going and its falling to ruin without the ability to expand. Please help!

[LastChime]

Make sure they aren't also assigned to military, woodcutting or hunting bout all I can think of off the top of my head

[Ms. Lana]

I've made sure they're only task is mining. I even deleted all work orders.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Ms. Lana:

I've made sure they're only task is mining. I even deleted all work orders.

What does it say their current Jbb is? IOW - What do they think they're doing?

[The Trashman]

They're not in any military squads, are they?

When you check their inventory, are they holding anything?

How have you tested accessibility to mining area? Did you do the same thing for pick access?

What are the miners doing?

[Gedsaro]

Also if you have any burrows made, make sure that the miner, the pick, the location to mine, are all in the same burrow, and accessable.

Also... if you have had combat, make sure your miners still have working arms/hands with which to use the pick XD

[Ms. Lana]

So I had to retire the fortress and reclaim it and suddenly everyone wanted to do their jobs. Now I've reached the point in my reclaim wherein they won't work again.

[AlP]

Originally posted by Ms. Lana:

So I had to retire the fortress and reclaim it and suddenly everyone wanted to do their jobs.

Please stop doing things like that... Retiring your fortress, making a new world, or similar stupid ♥♥♥♥ is not going to fix what in most cases is your fault.

It also doesn't help anyone figure out if there's an actual bug.

[Ms. Lana]

Originally posted by AlP:

Originally posted by Ms. Lana:

So I had to retire the fortress and reclaim it and suddenly everyone wanted to do their jobs.

Please stop doing things like that... Retiring your fortress, making a new world, or similar stupid ♥♥♥♥ is not going to fix what in most cases is your fault.

It also doesn't help anyone figure out if there's an actual bug.

Wow, I can't believe it. Your comment alone actually fixed it. I guess we can all call this one "Case Closed!" Thank you for your helpful thoughts and prayers.

[NimrodX]

Where are the picks located? How many miners? Are any assigned to a squad? Any squad orders?

[AlP]

Originally posted by Ms. Lana:

Wow, I can't believe it. Your comment alone actually fixed it.

While retiring your fortress actually fixed it. Oh wait, it didn't:

Originally posted by Ms. Lana:

Now I've reached the point in my reclaim wherein they won't work again.

[Mogg]

Did you wipe that fort and restart? I would have liked you to try something just to see if you stumbled onto the exact problem I encountered in one of my games.

1) Open labors menu (bottom left hammer symbol, or "y" shortcut). Make sure Dwarves have only a singular one of these on them, not together in any combination: Miners, Woodcutters, Hunter. -each profession uses a different tool, and they conflict for slot position which causes calculation issues.

2) Make sure all the picks (or at least one for this test) do not have a padlock on them. This means the item is forbidden. Chances are, if this is like what happened to me, this wont be a thing for you.

3) Stop all other jobs and only leave the mining jobs to do to remove all potential distractions.

Check to see if the dwarves take up the pick axes. If not create a stockpile that will be for Weapons (pick is a weapon). Cancel all mining jobs, and unpause. See if they grab the picks and move them into the stock piles.
If they don't move them, you've stumbled onto the exact same problem I encountered which I have unfortunately no fix for. :(

Basically the picks are there, visible and interactive to you, but are completely ignored by the dwarves as if the picks don't exist. Pissed me off this happened and nobody could provide a fix for this. So I just abandoned the Fort. I've not encountered this issue since.
I am guessing the cause of this issue happened because I set the dwarves to do a specific job only causing them to drop the picks and never again pick them up. When I undid all of the constraints I set, it didn't fix anything. My only course of action was to just start up another fort.
I didn't try and reclaim the fort, which stupid me I really should have tried to see if the bug persisted upon revisit to that location. That world had been deleted.

For the record, my dwarves weren't in a squad. I've actually not even gotten to the stage of needing them.

Originally posted by Ms. Lana:

So I had to retire the fortress and reclaim it and suddenly everyone wanted to do their jobs. Now I've reached the point in my reclaim wherein they won't work again.

As in they have the picks equipped and wont work? That goes beyond the bug I had. Sorry to be of no help in this case at all.

[Lamp]

I had a similar problem and it turned out that at one point I'd thrown everyone in a 'no designated equipment' squad (or w/e its called), which ironically seems to designate fists. Meaning nobody would pick up their picks or axes because they were locked to using only their fists.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Lamp:

I had a similar problem and it turned out that at one point I'd thrown everyone in a 'no designated equipment' squad (or w/e its called), which ironically seems to designate fists. Meaning nobody would pick up their picks or axes because they were locked to using only their fists.

Nice discovery, actually, and a good checklist item. Thanks!

(For "Therapy Squad" users, it could be an easy answer to their equipment issues.)

[NimrodX]

I kind of wonder if a "therapy squad" should be "no equipment". It might be part of the trick that keeps the therapy squad from doing work on duty..... Need to tinker with it.

[Ms. Lana]

Originally posted by NimrodX:

Where are the picks located? How many miners? Are any assigned to a squad? Any squad orders?

The picks are located in various bins throughout my stockpile and there's a few just hanging out at the smithy. The dwarves aren't in squads, never have been. No squads, no orders.