I posted about this before recently and at this point I feel like maybe I should post in the bug report forum about this?
I'm playing DF Version 44.12
I know in older versions of DF, the dwarves made use of containers much more easily and without any special attention needed so it really feels like something is broken here or not functioning as well as it did in older versions at least.
I first encountered these container issues on a different embark recently, right at the start of the embark, the dwarves insisted on storing one item per tile in every stockpile instead of using containers which I had (I always make bins early on and bring barrels with me) to store things more efficiently. It took over a year (because of this storage inefficiency) to finish unloading my wagon on that embark and then for some reason the dwarves finally started using containers after I turned the accepting of bins/barrels off and on, on stockpiles a few times. At that time I figured it was my fault for not turning on the taking of containers at stockpiles or something and moved on.
I have since started a new fort/embark and I am running into the same issues again with containers, however, this time, making sure that stockpiles accept containers does not seem to be fixing the issue. I have several bins that literally are just left to sit at the carpenter's workshop and are ignored by the dwarves. The carpenter shop is set to give out to any stockpile etc. the dwarves simply refuse to take the containers and store them in stockpiles and make use of them. I've tried setting stockpiles to only take from the carpenter shop with the bins etc. and nothing happens.
I even got creative and made a one tile dump zone on the stockpile I wanted a bin to go to and dumped a bin there, then claimed the bin and removed the dump zone. Still, the dwarves refuse to use the bins even if they are sitting on the stockpile. I have idler dwarves that could be storing the bins/putting items in the bins with the appropriate labors turned on and it just doesn't happen. Even with empty non-forbidden bins sitting on the stockpiles now they still store one leather, one cloth, one ring, one bracelet etc. per stockpile tile and ignore the empty bins sitting right there.
Anyone have any suggestions? Could DF Hack be used to fix this somehow? Is there anything else I should try or should I just post this in the bug forum? If I'm still somehow doing something wrong and this is still somehow my fault, I really have no idea what it could be at this point.