Thank you so much for your tip! I actually wanted to try clicking the button, but I discovered something incredible by accident that I want to share with you and everyone else stuck in this loophole.
My UI didn't show a delete button at first—only a green '+' to extend the time. But since ads sometimes freeze on my tablet, I decided to open my game on my smartphone to check the status. Suddenly, a red 'X' appeared on all three expired orders!
It seems switching devices forces a server sync that refreshes the UI. If you do this, you can safely trash the expired bugged orders! Interestingly, after I deleted the first one on my tablet, the 'X' disappeared for the other two, so I had to close the game and log in on my phone again to force another sync for each slot.
Unfortunately, the overall bug is still active—as soon as I cleared the slots, the game immediately gave me two brand new locked Cactus Canyon orders again. So while the device-switch trick helps us clear the standstill temporarily, EA definitely needs to patch this logic failure permanently. Thanks again for your support!
UPDATE:
I did some more testing and found the exact reason why the red 'X' disappears, and an even easier way to clear the blocked slots!
It turns out it's a layering bug in the user interface. When you freshly launch the game, the ad system takes a few seconds to become available. If you go directly into the Train HQ immediately after the loading screen finishes, the ads haven't loaded yet. Because of this, the red 'X' is fully visible and active! I was able to delete both of my expired Cactus Canyon tasks quickly one after the other.
As soon as the game connects to the ad server a few seconds later, the green '+' button (for video extension) simply overlays and covers the red 'X', making it impossible to delete the task normally.
New, easy workaround for everyone:
- Close the game completely (kill the app).
- Start the game.
- As soon as your city loads, immediately open the Train HQ.
- Tap the red 'X' to delete the expired bugged orders before the green button appears!
This proves the code for deleting expired tasks is there, it's just being covered up by a broken ad button layout. EA needs to fix this UI layer overlap!
