Gemcutter not working?

[Benjamin_Bellamarca]

New player here, welcome any advice- I have a gemcutters workshop, a dawrf assigned to it who has gem cutting skills, and... they never seem to work there. I set them to "specialize", so I thought that was supposed to prevent them from doing other stuff. I have a bunch of rough gems lying around and they never seem to be working on my "cut gems" task. Can anyone advise?

[Fel]

For some jobs apparently setting them on a workshop isn't enough and you have to make a work detail for it as well and asign that dwarf to it.
So maybe try that?

[Duuvian]

Try removing the worker assignment (if the dwarf is the only gemcutter) and if that doesn't work, see if another dwarf will take the job by allowing all to cut gems. If no one takes it, check the workshop links, the workshop might be set to take from the wrong stockpile. If that doesn't work make sure there is a path to the jeweler's workshop. Also check to make sure the rough gems aren't forbidden, such as from forbidding materials to pick them yourself for a strange mood.

[MumbaiTechnical*******]

How are you telling him to cut gems and are any conditions being met?

Are you looking in the "stop sign" section to see why orders fail?

[Ranix]

something weird could be up like the gems are all in a container, like a bin, that the dwarf doesn't have access to because it's owned by a guild or military or something, try taking the gems out of the bin

[Fel]

There is also a difference between cancelled tasks and nobody doing the task.

[harlequin_corps]

remove the dorf from the workshop, set the dorf to unspecialize. Then do the Cut Gems task from the workshop task menu and prioritize it. Check to see if any dorf goes to the workshop to cut gems. If they still don't go to the workhop, remove the workshop completely and make another one. The workshop itself might be bugged.
Then, once you see that the workshop actually works, undo all your stockpiles with gems in them, remove them completely, and dig up some more gems and let them just sit there where they were dug. Make sure you have a Bookkeeper assigned.
Then assign that single dorf to the workshop, unspecialized still, and see what tasks they are doing. Many things interrupt a dorf assigned to a workshop, especially with no priority tasks from the Manager Workorders. If, after a few days it still doesn't work, setup a task in the workshop with priority. That should trigger the dorf to be assigned that task before other tasks.
My bets are that there is a problem with the stockpiles somewhere. You generally don't need to stockpile flow gem cutters because rough gems are so light they don't impede the movement of the dorf. It is arguably more efficient to just let the cutter go get the gems from the dig site because it's only 1 dorf moving/cutting the gem instead of needing 2 dorfs to move items around.

[Benjamin_Bellamarca]

Thank you all!