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[Leonidas]

On the first day of winter 291, eighty of my dwarves spontaneously decided to take off their boots.

Can anyone explain this? Better yet, does anyone have a trick to make them put their boots back on?

[kaijyuu]

They probably all considered their boots too old and worn and decided to grab a new pair somewhere. They'll put back on boots, just not the same ones.

[Uthimienure]

They've simply discovered the joy of airing out their toes.

[KevinM]

They wanted to try being Hobbits for once.


The only trick to have them put it back on is to make sure you have enough replacement boots for them to go put new ones on.
As for prevention, I usually set my dwarves up in military groups and make them wear military uniforms, except for twice a year where I make them go add their civilian clothes for a few mood boosts.

[Leonidas]

They probably all considered their boots too old and worn and decided to grab a new pair somewhere. They'll put back on boots, just not the same ones.

These are steel boots.

[Shonai_Dweller]

They probably all considered their boots too old and worn and decided to grab a new pair somewhere. They'll put back on boots, just not the same ones.

These are steel boots.

Then they all probably found themselves not part of an active military squad. Have you set schedules? Probably should have mentioned that in the first post. Citizens don't wear steel boots.

[Leonidas]

Then they all probably found themselves not part of an active military squad. Have you set schedules? Probably should have mentioned that in the first post. Citizens don't wear steel boots.

I did nothing. I've been running these squads for years. It was only the change of season that made 30 of them dump their boots.

But here's a clue: All the boots dumped were exceptional. None were masterwork. And as I'm making replacement boots, the exceptionals are piling up in the forge, and only the masterworks are getting picked up.

A year or so ago I had the same problem. Four squads all dumped their greaves. I thought that it was a random bug related to me changing the equipment of a separate squad. But there too, all the dropped greaves were exceptional. None were masterwork.

[Leonidas]

I've watched it several times now. The dwarves took off their exceptional boots because they will now only wear masterwork boots. I'm making lots of boots, and only the masterworks are being picked up:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This decision doesn't seem related to warrior skill. I put some untrained craftsmen into a squad, just so that they could wear armor, and they're choosing to go barefoot rather than wear mere exceptional boots. The other dwarves who dumped their boots are all very highly trained.

Maybe fortress wealth triggers this? I do have quite a bit at 66 million. I don't know. But the triggering event was definitely the change of season, and not anything that I did.

Edit: Here's another strange feature: The armor pickup is sequential on squad order. As each new masterwork boot is produced, the next dwarf in the squad picks it up. As the last dwarf in one squad got his boot, the captain of the next squad got the next boot. And they're all putting the boots on their right feet. It looks like they'll all need to put boots on their right feet before they start on their left feet.

Edit: I should clarify that the military equipment screen shows these barefoot dwarves as wearing boots. So maybe the reason they're putting on masterwork boots is that they think they're upgrading from exceptional to masterwork. But that still doesn't explain why the dwarves with masterwork boots kept theirs, while the dwarves with exceptional boots dropped theirs. First it was greaves, then it was boots. Maybe they'll eventually do this with all their armor parts.

[PatrikLundell]

The sequential replacement order is simple to explain: It's the replacement pecking order. Once the leader of a squad finds a "better" replacement for a piece of equipment, he'll immediately drop his current one and claim the replacement, but they're sluggish in picking up replacements. Once the leader has dropped his item, #2 finds that the leader's old item is better than his is, so he drops his item to claim and eventually pick up the new item. This means that the production of a single masterworks item can potentially result in every dorf dropping their corresponding item and claim the one dropped by their immediate higher ranking buddy, although there will usually be jumps, as some squad members will often have the same quality item as the one above, so there's no reason do drop the current item, so the recently dropped one is claimed by the next in rank instead.

One way to combat this replacement shuffling is to be specific with the type of gear used and only upgrade once a complete set of masterworks items has been produced ("complete set" as in enough for the whole squad, not all pieces for one dorf: you may e.g. start with helmets, move to breastplates, etc.).

[anewaname]

There were problems with uniform corruptions from raiding, and then there were fixes for those problems. So, have you raided, or sent dwarfs off-site for any reasons?

Normally, a dwarf will not drop their boots unless they have new boots available or are changing to their civilian uniform. So, for the dwarfs that dropped boots but have not picked up new ones yet, when you check the 'm' 'e' screen, is there a green checkmark next to the boots? And, if you are using Therapist, what boots does it show your dwarf should have? Because as Patrik posted, there should be jumps in the equipment shuffling when dwarfs already have the same quality of gear, so 80 dwarfs should not drop exceptional boots if only one masterwork boots are became available. One dwarf should drop boots to take the masterwork and one dwarf should drop their superb boots to take the dropped exceptionals.

Did some tantrum dwarf destroy the only barracks that all these dwarfs were using? Just because, it might mean something.

What sort of mods are you using?

I don't think this is normal and can be explained away. I do think something new is happening (I had dwarfs doing something unexpected with uniforms shortly before my fort died in a horrible civil war).

I do think the "On the first day of winter 291" info indicates when the code happened.

[Leonidas]

There were problems with uniform corruptions from raiding, and then there were fixes for those problems. So, have you raided, or sent dwarfs off-site for any reasons?

Normally, a dwarf will not drop their boots unless they have new boots available or are changing to their civilian uniform. So, for the dwarfs that dropped boots but have not picked up new ones yet, when you check the 'm' 'e' screen, is there a green checkmark next to the boots? And, if you are using Therapist, what boots does it show your dwarf should have? Because as Patrik posted, there should be jumps in the equipment shuffling when dwarfs already have the same quality of gear, so 80 dwarfs should not drop exceptional boots if only one masterwork boots are became available. One dwarf should drop boots to take the masterwork and one dwarf should drop their superb boots to take the dropped exceptionals.

Did some tantrum dwarf destroy the only barracks that all these dwarfs were using? Just because, it might mean something.

What sort of mods are you using?

I've done lots of raiding and pillaging.

The military equipment screen shows that they're all fully dressed.

Therapist shows that they're all wearing right boots but not left boots. And the boots that they were putting on last night were all replacements for the right boots. The left feet remain bare.

No tantrums. No mods.

It looks like Patrik's suggestion will work. I just tried assigning a dwarf two specific boots, and he put them both on with no problem. So it'll be a bit tedious, but at least now there's a workaround.

I have a full set of seasonal autosaves for this fort. Here is a zip with the save for the first day of winter and the first day of fall for comparison. It looks like this matches Bug 8005, so I'll post it there.

And I should correct: This bug actually hit eighty of my dwarves, not just thirty.

Edit: Hooray! After much fiddling, the magic of specific item assignment finally got all my dwarves to wear their pants and shoes! This bug wanders from dwarf to dwarf. I would tell one dwarf to wear a specific pair of greaves, and then the next dwarf in sequence with a general greaves assignment would drop his pants. Now they all have their own specific pairs of greaves, presumably with their names etched into them.

[knutor]

I had a similar occurence.

Made a new squad, just to keep Queen in armor. Well I used m menu, eq, priority, to place her squad on the very highest. Top gets best gear, bottom worst. To do it ya highlight it, then position in menu. Which sorta is counter intuitive to the way we prioritize other lists. Well it was 5 or 6 soldiers, so, all the lower squads and their troops dropped their gear to give the new squad first choice. Hunters didnt. K see we still cannot hunt with bows and blowdarts.  Soooo many yrs, since thats been reported.  Hunters fail to stuff ammo other than exactly "wooden bolts" into their quiver.

[Leonidas]

A week after I assigned all that individual armor, I hit a CTD that refused to go away. So I disbanded all the squads, and that seemed to help. But the corruption may still lurk somewhere. Most of them still won't put on greaves.

Is there anything else I can do against this equipment corruption bug?

[PatrikLundell]

The equipment corruption bug is fatal, as far as I know. Disbanding all squads and never assign any ever again is the only known way to avoid it crashing the game. However, the main known cause of equipment corruption is raiding (i.e. sending dorfs out, for whatever purpose), where the returning dorfs can somehow cause equipment to get corrupted.
I've encountered a second case where I lost a fortress to corruption without ever having sent anyone out (except two dorfs sent into exile, and they never returned). My best guess is that that corruption was caused by bugged performance troupe members "returning" to the fortress after I've foolishly accepted an earlier petition from some troupe members.
If you've done neither, and it's a confirmed corruption, it's a new case.

The equipment corruption bug can be confirmed by looking at the specific equipment for each armor category (including weapon and shield). At the bottom of one or more of the lists corrupted saves show nonsensical stuff, typically books.

[Leonidas]

The equipment corruption bug can be confirmed by looking at the specific equipment for each armor category (including weapon and shield). At the bottom of one or more of the lists corrupted saves show nonsensical stuff, typically books.

Do you mean in the military equipment screen (m-e) or the stocks screen (z) with headwear, handwear, etc.? I'm not seeing anything strange in either place.

Would this bug follow me if I retire and go to adventure mode? Would it affect a new fortress in the same world?
Edit: Would the bug follow to the new fort if it receives migrants from the old fort?

What if I retire the bugged fort, make a new fort, retire it, then have an adventurer and companions carry some choice weapons from the old site to the new site, and then unretire the new fort? Would that transfer the bug?

I'm wondering if I could still take over the world that way, given that I have so many high-level soldiers, armorsmiths, and weaponsmiths.