New Embark, no one will mine or chop wood.

[2 Zons]

Just started a new embark on an existing world with one previous retired fort. None of my dwarves will mine or chop wood. Using default embark settings. I checked. There is a miner assigned in the labour tab, and a woodcutter. Those jobs can't be assigned to everyone. People will gather food when ordered. This is really strange.

[Bralbaard]

do you have axes and pickaxes?
You should when using default embark settings, but please check.

[2 Zons]

Yeah, that was the first thing I checked. Both were there, in the wagon.
Very strange. I just abandoned the embark, must have been bugged.

[Rainbow Jeremy]

I know you already abandoned but my first thought is that the axes or picks got accidentally marked as forbidden.

[2 Zons]

No, I checked that too

[kheftel]

i know it's too late, but for next time, the things I know of that can cause problems with mining/woodcutting are:

having miners/woodcutters/hunters in military squads

enabling more than one of mining/woodcutting/hunting on a single dwarf

could of course be something else...

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by kheftel:

i know it's too late, but for next time, the things I know of that can cause problems with mining/woodcutting are:

having miners/woodcutters/hunters in military squads

enabling more than one of mining/woodcutting/hunting on a single dwarf

could of course be something else...

Yeah, it's an issue with conflicting Uniforms. Miners, Hunters, and Woodcutters have a "Uniform" order that includes their weapon/tool that they use to fulfill that role. Conflicting Uniforms will remove that necessary tool.

You could, AFAIK, assign Woodcutters to a Military Squad that used Axes and they might still chop down trees. Since military squads can also use picks, you might be able to do that as well? I think the Hunter "uniform" has a conflict with standard archer/crossbowdwarf Uniforms, though. (unsure)

In general, it's best to not assign any dwarf in these roles to a military squad. Just for simplicity if not for practicality. (Tracing down uniform conflicts isn't fun in a large-pop fortress.)

[2 Zons]

I literally started a new embark, while paused assigned some mining, woodcutting and plant gathering to be done then unpaused. The plant gathering happened but the mining or woodcutting wouldn't happen. The woodcutter and miner both had "no job" as their status. I restarted a whole new world thinking that the world may be bugged. It was disappointing as it was the first time I had a new deploy with a "treasure of the gods" or something like that message after deploy message. There was a cavern that was exposed right at the start with large underground fields of grass. I saved the embark and started a whole new world.

[Bagpipe]

google searching this same issue brought me here. brand new embark, mining and woodcutting aint happening but everything else is fine.
3 copper picks, labors all set correct, no squads etc etc. bah humbug, was a cool embark too

[Gunsaremagic]

Did you assign them as wood cutters ? they cut wood for me

[AlP]

Originally posted by Bagpipe:

google searching this same issue brought me here. brand new embark, mining and woodcutting aint happening but everything else is fine.
3 copper picks, labors all set correct, no squads etc etc. bah humbug, was a cool embark too

When you set your labors correctly, make sure you don't assign mining, woodcutting or hunting to the same dwarf, and don't assign those dwarves to the military. They all have uniforms that don't work with each other and cause such problems.

[Wolfguarde]

Originally posted by Bagpipe:

google searching this same issue brought me here. brand new embark, mining and woodcutting aint happening but everything else is fine.
3 copper picks, labors all set correct, no squads etc etc. bah humbug, was a cool embark too

I had this issue with one recent embark. I put it down to a mod bug/malfunction and left the game alone for a while. Never went back to that save, but the ones since have worked fine.

[Empath demon]

If you set a zone for plant gathering, in my experience that zone gets prioritized above mining and chopping labors. Possibly everyone was too busy gathering fallen fruit.

[alan sleep]

Originally posted by 2 Zons:

I literally started a new embark, while paused assigned some mining, woodcutting and plant gathering to be done then unpaused. The plant gathering happened but the mining or woodcutting wouldn't happen. The woodcutter and miner both had "no job" as their status. I restarted a whole new world thinking that the world may be bugged. It was disappointing as it was the first time I had a new deploy with a "treasure of the gods" or something like that message after deploy message. There was a cavern that was exposed right at the start with large underground fields of grass. I saved the embark and started a whole new world.

this is very abnormal world generation, especially considering the treasure of the gods
similar oddities have been recorded in the past (such as the infamous infinite adamantine pillar ), with similar side effects

[gclemens]

Bit late to the party here, but just had this problem. New embark, using a custom prepared profile. My issue was that I had accidentally set hunting to 'Everybody does this', causing a conflict with the required tools for the miners, so they weren't picking up picks. Hope this helps others.