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[FoggyHunter]

So I've been playing dwarf fortress for a while now, and I have never seen this happen.  For some reason, my dwarfs don't think there is any bituminous coal on the map when there clearly is.  There is even a full stockpile (which has not had it's give/take options tampered with) of only bituminous coal right next to the smelters. But every time I give the smelter workshops the job to make coke, the message "dwarf cancels smelt bituminous coal: need bituminous coal" pops up. 
This seemed to randomly start during my game because they were smelting coal just fine before.
I'm starting to get nervous, however, because this trend is starting to spread to my other workshops.  My mason workshops are starting to pop up a similar messages despite there being rock literally everywhere on the map.  Same thing with my craft workshop and carpenter workshop.  Some times they do the job, but only when there is rock/wood present in the stockpiles next to them, which doesn't make sense because I haven't set those stockpiles (or any of my stockpiles, for that matter) to give and take to and from specific stockpiles and workshops. 
My entire smelting industry has essentially become crippled because of this and I'm afraid that I don't find a solution to make these dwarfs recognize that there is material at hand, I'm afraid this trend is going to "infect" the rest of my workshops.'
What do?

P.S. My smelters also won't melt down equipment that I have marked for melting, stating that it doesn't exist similar to the coal.

[Quietust]

Some times they do the job, but only when there is rock/wood present in the stockpiles next to them, which doesn't make sense because I haven't set those stockpiles (or any of my stockpiles, for that matter) to give and take to and from specific stockpiles and workshops.

Check the workshop/stockpile settings again - what you're seeing sounds exactly like it's caused by the workshops trying to take from specific stockpiles.

[FoggyHunter]

Never mind, I discovered the reason.  For some reason, my workshops were restricted to my Citizen Alert Barrow. Never knew that was a thing until now.

[Loci]

That "feature" is called Workshop restrictions, and it is "helpfully" enabled by pressing 'w' twice from the main screen.

[FoggyHunter]

Yea, I can see how it can be useful to speed up workshops by keeping craftdwarfs near the workshop instead of going out and grabbing the farthest material possible. The only problem is that keeping the stockpiles within the barrow full is kind of a bitch and clearly wasn't happening for me.

[GhostDwemer]

I believe you can make a default burrow encompassing the entire map, or all parts of the map you want to use, and even without putting any dwarves in it, workshops and stocks will then count as being in a burrow together. Then uyou don't have to mess around with placement of workshops and stocks in order to use the military alert system.

[PatrikLundell]

Are you sure the civilian alert will override the workshop burrow rather than add to it? Activating civilian alerts let my burrowed dorfs out, and I wouldn't be surprised if it worked the other way around as well.

[GhostDwemer]

No one is IN the "whole map" burrow, so there is nothing to override.

I guess I'm not understanding what you mean when you say activating your alert burrow lets dwarves out though. Do you manually put everyone INTO your civilian alert burrow, and add incoming dwarves as they appear? If so, wow, that is a whole lot of unnecessary work. You don't need to put anyone into a civilian alert burrow, the way they are supposed to work is, the game puts them in automatically when you activate them. That is the way I use them. I don't put dwarves in, but when I need everyone indoors in a hurry, I turn them on, and the dwarves all go indoors.

[Fleeting Frames]

No. What PatrickLundall is asking about is when you use dozen-two tile or so burrows for workshops for their closest material and applying "restrict workshops to burrow" to override both. 

Which yes, it does override. Workshops will take materials from all the burrows they're restricted to.

[PatrikLundell]

Well, the situation I've actually encountered is that dorfs burrowed to their rooms for pre nuptial/breeding purposes (using ordinary burrows) leave their burrows and roams freely within the civilian alert burrow when a civilian alert is in effect. Similarly, attempts to use two burrows to restrict dorfs to their intersection seems to allow them access to the union instead. So either civilian alerts completely override burrows, or they form a union with "normal" burrows so that dorfs are free to roam to location both in the civilian alert burrow AND the tavern in the middle of the invading goblin horde. Since I have yet to make such a tavern (or get visitors to any useful degree) I haven't seen what happens when DEFCON 1 is declared in such a case.
Thus, I don't allocate dorfs to civilian alert burrows.

If workshop burrows don't have anyone allocated to them you're right, there's nobody to release (but I'd still keep my eye out for dorfs trying to use a smelter burrow to pick up arrows from the battle field of the previous siege).

[GhostDwemer]

No. What PatrickLundall is asking about is when you use dozen-two tile or so burrows for workshops for their closest material and applying "restrict workshops to burrow" to override both. 

Which yes, it does override. Workshops will take materials from all the burrows they're restricted to.

Oh, I see. When would you use something like that rather than linked stockpiles?

[Fleeting Frames]

Well, in deathgame,
- I used it to effectively simultaneously link many stockpiles to many workshops at once: Most significantly in mood workshop burrow, where it linked something like 20 stockpiles to 10 workshops each, an action that would have taken otherwise something like third a hour. In case of a mood, all I had to do was to add the modded citizen to burrow and unforbid things in it, and unlike with linked stockpiles didn't even have to forbid other workshops to prevent those from being claimed. (Have to remember to remove them later, though.)

A different fortress could use similar application to ensure kitchen/still brews/cooks a mix of drinks, for instance.

- Further used it so that a decorating jeweler and forge could keep decorating that same crown without waiting for hauler to come to move it to desired linked stockpile and being cancel-spammed in the meantime.

Other applications would be using it with, say, a loom - in the caverns, ensuring that nobody important gets bitten by a cave spider or worse.

More like the first example, any time a workshop produces a good that is used in another workshop - with loom, again: draw from farmer's workshop without needing a hauler to haul the thread to a stockpile or needing a hospital store thread you want to keep for injuries in the hospital bag/box.

Even if you're linking just 1 workshop to 1 stockpile, a burrow is more amnesia-compatible; there's no way to get a list of all the stockpiles linked to a workshop without going through all the (possibly hundreds) of stockpiles you have. Very useful if you look back few months later, or perhaps pass the save in succession fortress.

[GhostDwemer]

Well, in deathgame,
- I used it to effectively simultaneously link many stockpiles to many workshops at once: Most significantly in mood workshop burrow, where it linked something like 20 stockpiles to 10 workshops each, an action that would have taken otherwise something like third a hour. In case of a mood, all I had to do was to add the modded citizen to burrow and unforbid things in it, and unlike with linked stockpiles didn't even have to forbid other workshops to prevent those from being claimed. (Have to remember to remove them later, though.)

A different fortress could use similar application to ensure kitchen/still brews/cooks a mix of drinks, for instance.

- Further used it so that a decorating jeweler and forge could keep decorating that same crown without waiting for hauler to come to move it to desired linked stockpile and being cancel-spammed in the meantime.

Other applications would be using it with, say, a loom - in the caverns, ensuring that nobody important gets bitten by a cave spider or worse.

More like the first example, any time a workshop produces a good that is used in another workshop - with loom, again: draw from farmer's workshop without needing a hauler to haul the thread to a stockpile or needing a hospital store thread you want to keep for injuries in the hospital bag/box.

Even if you're linking just 1 workshop to 1 stockpile, a burrow is more amnesia-compatible; there's no way to get a list of all the stockpiles linked to a workshop without going through all the (possibly hundreds) of stockpiles you have. Very useful if you look back few months later, or perhaps pass the save in succession fortress.

I've heard of the mood usage, it's how things like Planepacked got made. I was guessing the major other use was "convenience" but beyond that those are some cool ideas I will have to try, thanks!

[Fleeting Frames]

Well, the burrow bug that enabled Planepacked was killed 40.24. Though the upside of not having to forbid other workshops of a given type is nice

Even with all the above, stockpile linking still has unique uses to move things to minecarts or between stockpiles, such as for the purposes of sorting or moving things closer from a major stockpile. Plus, if you're setting quick and sloppy temporary things to be torn down, then a workshop+stockpile + link is faster to do.