Keepers won't feed animals

Swjosdotschka

Swjosdotschka
Sometimes the keepers do not feed the animals. They enter the habitat and leave again, even if the nimals are starving. They do not visit a powered and free keeper hut nearby, nor do they clean poop.Keeper is asigned to a work zone, staff rooms and habitat are in that work zone.

Same problem? Link to issue tracker. Click

My save file is already with Frontier because of the other issue I have the the quarantine. After rarely having problem with the game, it seems like now I'm doomed. Really not relaxing to play that way. RIP, Lemurs.

EDIT: IF a keeper decides to feed the animals and I follow them, they prepare food, leave the keeper hut and then the food bucket suddenly disappears. Deleted the nearby keeper hut so the keepers were forced to search for another. That seemed to have worked.
 
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Nioell

Nioell
Probably several bugs that run together and result in this. I'm pretty sure the bugged pathfinding for staff also has to do with it, because in my new zoo they leave the habitat and then complain there's no keeper hut even though it's right there connected to the staff path opposit of the habitat. It seems they don't recognize the connection between the paths and buildings/habitats anymore and so they just walk around or in my case throw the transport boxes down on the path right in front of them instead of moving them to the habitats...

Edit: added a contribution to your report :)
 
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Neviren

N
Yeah, the navigation is really messed up, along with the work zones. The first time I fired up the game after updating, adding the DLC, and validating files, I had the same problem as you did. Starving animals which keepers were desperately trying to feed but like yours, their food bucket would disappear as soon as they left the keeper hut, so they would run off to try and feed different starving animals. Many of the habitats and exhibits they claimed were inaccessible. When the hungry/starving count reached 117 (I play Sandbox so they can't die), I decided to rework the work zones. Yep, immediate crash.

The second time I fired up the game, the keepers had no problems whatsoever with any habitat or exhibit, but now staff rooms have become inaccessible. Sigh! Now also it seems half the habitats are inaccessible to mechanics and vets. If a barrier needs repair and you click for a mechanic, if it says "mechanic requested" instead of "mechanic en route", it means they cannot access that habitat. I only get 4 notifications for vet or mechanic inaccessibility, however, if you read their thoughts, there are many more. In some cases, they can successfully check a habitat once, but never again. I replaced much pathing to many habitats but it only helped two habitats become accessible.

A mechanic that was supposed to repair the lion's barrier got to within a short distance of the gate but then decided there was no path to his work zone. He was in his work zone(!?) I deleted all work zones. It didn't do a thing for any of it.

Ah, but then the protestors. I used to be able to get rid of them (although they always came back when I loaded the game again) but now even deleting the paths under them doesn't do anything anymore. They stay even on elevated deleted pathways, dancing around on thin air. Every visitor in the entire zoo only have thoughts about protesters. I was so hoping it was going to be fixed in this update as it was in voting and older than the food quality issue.

There are many more issues in my games now but what's the point? The game was hard enough to play with the few issues I had before the update. Now it is impossible as I'm spending all my time taking care of staff and have no time for my animals. It was such an amazing update--I had such hopes! Hopefully the upcoming work zone hotfix will help.
 

marcnesiumHH

M
has anyone of you tested their affected zoos today after the 1.3.1 patch? have any of the issues with stuck staff, animals etc. been solved or gotten better?
 

Neviren

N
The work zones have indeed been fixed and the protestors are gone, but the inaccessible habitats/staff rooms/shops/toilets/whatever are still there. It is so strange that sometimes Keepers can access the habitats but vets and mechanics can't. With this last patch, I am also now getting visitors being stuck in small groups in various places on paths. Other visitors can walk around them but they state they are trapped. I've read that others have had this problem before but it's new to me. The navigation mapping is getting worse. I still also have climbing equipment not being recognized. I was hoping that fix would be included as it was also in voting in the Issue Tracker along with the protestors and food quality issue, but it hasn't been addressed yet.

ETA: All my zoos are affected, from my biggest (75 species), and medium zoos (22 to 46 species), down to my smallest zoo (7 species). It's all inclusive.
 
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wowman

wowman
Bumping this thread as I need to ask about it again. Is this problem happening again for others? I had what were perfectly working keepers, work zones, etc. in the past two weeks...One of my habitats now has starving animals, and then a week later a second habitat now has starving animals...and now a third.

These were working perfectly fine and i haven't changed anything...only added new areas to the zoo.

The keeper's setting are all ok, and the pathing is all ok and the work zones are all ok. The keepers actually go into the habitats and check on them, but they are not feeding the animals. The warning are mounting up and getting annoying. Any ideas other than what has already been recommended?
 

Neviren

N
Yes, this problem does keep cropping up now and then. Back in 2019 a Moderator stated, "If animals are dying of starvation this can indicate that the Keeper cannot access their hut, that the Keeper is too tired to function or it could be they have been assigned to a work zone that does not feature a Hut and Staff Room. It could also be a bug". But honestly, I have found it can be a myriad of things causing animals not being fed all of a sudden. So you're going to have to be a little more specific as there are now many fixes, workarounds and yes, returning bugs.

Have you tracked these Keepers to see what they are doing/reporting? Do they say the animals are not hungry when they are? Do they get stuck on a path anywhere? Are they too tired to complete their job? Are there more then one Keeper assigned to the habitat with the same job duties? Are your affected habitats in the new or old established areas? When you added the new areas, did you make new work zones and assign new employees to them or just tack them on to already existing work zones with employees you already had? What game mode are you playing?

This kind of specific info can help track down the problem, even though everything seemed to be working fine for awhile. Sometimes there really aren't answers though and it has to be reported as a bug.
 

Cocolori

Cocolori
I have had this happen once with cleaning as well and found that for some reason the keeper was walking into the habitat and then kind of getting stuck on the fence, not really assessing the habitat. Easiest is probably to delete the habitat gate and reset it which effectively creates a new habitat. Keeper hut bugs are more tricky I think as moving or deleting and then undoing doesn'talways seem to work
 

wowman

wowman
Neviren said:
Yes, this problem does keep cropping up now and then. Back in 2019 a Moderator stated, "If animals are dying of starvation this can indicate that the Keeper cannot access their hut, that the Keeper is too tired to function or it could be they have been assigned to a work zone that does not feature a Hut and Staff Room. It could also be a bug". But honestly, I have found it can be a myriad of things causing animals not being fed all of a sudden. So you're going to have to be a little more specific as there are now many fixes, workarounds and yes, returning bugs.

Have you tracked these Keepers to see what they are doing/reporting? Do they say the animals are not hungry when they are? Do they get stuck on a path anywhere? Are they too tired to complete their job? Are there more then one Keeper assigned to the habitat with the same job duties? Are your affected habitats in the new or old established areas? When you added the new areas, did you make new work zones and assign new employees to them or just tack them on to already existing work zones with employees you already had? What game mode are you playing?

This kind of specific info can help track down the problem, even though everything seemed to be working fine for awhile. Sometimes there really aren't answers though and it has to be reported as a bug.
Click to expand...
Have you tracked these Keepers to see what they are doing/reporting?
Yes, I track them, but nothing seems out of place, so maybe I need to look at the details a bit better. The walk around, go to the huts/staff rooms, then go to the habitat and just check it out and they leave.

Do they say the animals are not hungry when they are?
As mentioned, didn't think of reviewing the keepers comments that close, so I need to do this.

Do they get stuck on a path anywhere?
No, they do not get stuck anywhere.

Are they too tired to complete their job?
Not that I see, but I will look closer at this.

Are there more then one Keeper assigned to the habitat with the same job duties?
yes, there are because of the multiple animals in these areas, I have more than one keeper assigned to help with the workload.

Are your affected habitats in the new or old established areas?
These are all in the established areas that have been working fine until recently.

When you added the new areas, did you make new work zones and assign new employees to them or just tack them on to already existing work zones with employees you already had?
I always add new workers in new work zones. I find it difficult to not overlap work zones as well because they only have square/rectangle section options.

What game mode are you playing?
Always sandbox.
 

LindaBroer

L
Do you by chance have 'enable food spoiling' turned off in sandbox? I've found my keepers refuse to replace new food and my animals refuse to eat the existing food when I do. I turn the option on and all the existing food spoils, is cleaned up by the keepers and new food is placed. All my animals rush to the food and eat and the problem doesn't repeat itself anymore.
 

wowman

wowman
made this change today and I think it corrected the problem. Seems like this would be a bug....no?
I will let the game play a bit longer to see if it stays corrected.
 

Roxxsmom

Roxxsmom
I used to get a sporadic issue where keepers refused to feed certain enclosures within a work zone, but it hasn't been a problem lately. However, it does seem like there is a point in the game where keepers can't keep up with feeding and (especially) cleaning in habitats that have stable population sizes and are in work zones that have had the same number of habitats since the start of the game.

When I first opened my zoo, I had four habitats in workzone one, and I had one keeper who was able to keep up (the hut and break area are in the center of the four, so they don't have to walk far). This worked fine for a while, but at some point I started to get the health risk/filthy habitat alerts, so I added another keeper to the work zone as well as giving the first one some training. I even added another keeper hut and staff room, but it seems like the keepers can't keep up anymore. I culled the animal populations back to starting numbers too, but still no relief.

This started to be an issue around the time I added a second work zone. It has its own keeper hut and staff room, so it shouldn't affect the keepers in the first work zone at all. The only thing I can think is if the zoo has gotten busier, the keepers are held up by guest crowds. But since the staffroom and keeper huts are on a staff path that is completely between the four habitats (so they don't need to walk outside the staff area at all), it shouldn't be an issue either.

:oops:
 

Karen F

K
I had a recent problem with my enclosure of African animals. I had 2 zookeepers assigned to it but noticed the animals were constantly hungry. Turned out the one keeper was doing all of the work and was complaining about having no rest at all. While the other one was just wandering around, complaining about how boring his job was. Yeah duh! I eventually fired the lazy keeper, hopefully this doesn't happen again.
 
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