Trade Depots not exporting/importing

@tinybigjacko wrote:

Cool - just bear in mind that if the problem turns out to be staffing-levels, then it's not really a bug (and the 'problem-solved' link to the post about this and the recycling-centre may not be truly accurate anymore). IMHO, the recycling centre's problems also include the self-same staff issue (plus a couple of other interactions) - some folks are missing the whole underlying staff situation (no thanks to Maxis for making it a tad difficult to see staff shortages), and calling 'bug' as a result. Me included, at first. Now my eyes are a little more opened.

Having said that, there are still some big issues with regards to the over-simplified way that sims find jobs each day (any job, anywhere) and return home to any house, regardless of who 'owns' it - and the fact that this makes everything a tad hollow - but that's another issue entirely! 🙂

Do let me know how you get on with the staff in your trade-depot - if it isn't that, then I'd be happy to concur we've run out of options, and 'bug' is duly called-for! 🙂

---

Place a recycling center, it says hiring. Then after it hires sims (you can see them walking around) it goes to no products to recycle. It never sends the trucks. This is BROKEN.

I have same problem, but my trucks stuck on the highway and nothing can repair it. I try to destroy all my depots and run game again, but after this trucks again move out from the city and stuck in same place on highway :O

rsqviper wrote: Place a recycling center, it says hiring. Then after it hires sims (you can see them walking around) it goes to no products to recycle. It never sends the trucks. This is BROKEN.

With respect, I don't think this is broken. I think maybe you've misunderstood it, possibly, and mean that in the nicest possible way.

When you've first plopped the centre and it's staffed, there is no recyclable material there yet because none has been collected - so the 'nothing to recycle' warning is appropriate at that time. I think we're both agreed on that, yes?

However, the crucial point 'it never sends the trucks' is - in my experience - not true. It can depend on when the centre has been populated; what time of day things are at. You may have to wait a bit - worst case, maybe even a whole game-day.

The recycling centre normally sends out trucks at 5am in the morning. I'm not sure whether it'll make you wait all day for that time to come around again, or whether it will immediately start sending out trucks if, say, you plopped the recycling centre at 5:05am and had a full complement of staff in place by 5:10am.

But in my experience, the collecting trucks leave the centre at 5am and enter their 'collection-phase' and then at around 4 or 5pm (I need to clarify that for myself), the 'collecting phase will end, all trucks will return to offload and garage for the night.

During the collection phase, trucks will gather until they are filled (3 tons). If they are filled, they will return to the centre and drop off whatever they can: the full 3 tons if there is room; if not enough room, then it'll drop as much as it can to refill the hopper (if the intake hopper at the centre is nearly filled, say to 18.6 tons, a filled truck will drop off 1.4 ton, fill the material hopper and leave with 1.6 tons on board, and continue collecting, return again when it's filled itself to 3 tons once more).

Also, the existence of 'walking around sims' at the recycling centre is no guarantee that it is fully populated. Graphically, you can't be sure - the only way you can really tell is to pop up the data view (Population) and see how many workers are there. The RC will take around 60 staff, and I believe that the quantity and distribution of that staff directly affects the speed of the reclamation-production cycle (i.e. less workers or wrong balance of workers = slower production process = intake hopper emptied slower = trucks unable to drop off). Similarly, on the output phase, if there is no downstream demand or space for the output materials (alloy/plastic/metal) then an output ramp's storage area will be filled, and the entire production process stalls, until there is a place for the delivery truck(s) to take that output material.

The reclamation process runs all night, if necessary, even after the collection-phase is over and the trucks are all garaged. The trucks will keep trying to offload their cargo of recyclables well into the night, if the production process is slow/stopped, but they generally do it to completion if it is possible. They will garage with less-than-1 ton on board if necessary, possibly even fully loaded if the production is entirely stopped - but I think all overnighted loads are lost in the morning at 5am when they leave on another collection phase.

Once the intake materials hopper is empty (ie Materials is zero on the dialog window) the RC plant will show the original red warning that there is no recyclable material and production is stopped. As soon as the first truck returns with some material sometime after leaving at 5am, this will go away again, and production will restart.

The only time I have seen a real bug with this so far, is when the output stage has been blocked due to nowhere downstream to take the output goods (e.g. a Trade Depot with plastics/metals/alloy storage areas and room for new deliveries). In the one time it glitched for me, the orange floating icons showing that the output process had stopped, didn't go away (though the processes themselves appear to have restarted). I simply went into edit mode on the RC, and selected each ramp in turn and then turned them off and on again. Icons cleared, production cycle (end-to-end) was working again. Not had any problems since.

I'm not totally convinced there are major, game-breaking bugs with recycling yet. There are some tricksy things to watch out for, and some impacting elements which are not made overtly clear by the game GUI, but that's not quite a gamebreaking bug to me. It could be better, though, I agree - but knowing its vagaries has helped me make a few million Simoleons out of my RC plant, and so far, so good!

Hope this helps.

Yeh, just because your recycling center has some empoyees, doesn't mean it has enough to operate effectivly, check the population data layer in the day time when the workers are on shift. You can get clues from the detailed population table, if you have a deficit of low wealth workers (an excess of low wealth jobs), this is probably the problem. There are other bugs with the delivery trucks, so watch out you're not falling victim of the "dissapearing delivery trucks after a disaster" bug.

---

@renegade0260 wrote:

Yeh, just because your recycling center has some empoyees, doesn't mean it has enough to operate effectivly, check the population data layer in the day time when the workers are on shift. You can get clues from the detailed population table, if you have a deficit of low wealth workers (an excess of low wealth jobs), this is probably the problem. There are other bugs with the delivery trucks, so watch out you're not falling victim of the "dissapearing delivery trucks after a disaster" bug.

---

Then also explain that no matter where it's placed, it is broken. I've moved it several times. It has always worked, now no matter where it is, even with a LARGER population, it is broken and will not run.

rsqviper wrote: Then also explain that no matter where it's placed, it is broken. I've moved it several times. It has always worked, now no matter where it is, even with a LARGER population, it is broken and will not run.

If - in your case - it's not staff levels that's the problem, then positioning won't make any difference. You've not responded with regards to the timing issues, so it's impossible to explain much unless you elaborate on your situation. If, for example, you're repositioning the RC at midnight, staffing it immediately, and expecting either 😇 a recyclable-materials production-run to start immediately or (b) the pickup trucks to go out immediately, then you'll be frustrated. In the case of 😇 there won't be anything to process until the trucks have been out and returned with materials. In the case of (b) they'll go out at 5am on the next cycle (presuming all other factors: staff, power, available output storage, etc have been satifisfied).

Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying there ISN'T a bug. I just don't have sufficient evidence (either from other people, or personally-gathered) to call it one yet.

I'm not having issues with the recycling center, but with the trade  port. The trade port is connected via water and heavy freight rail, but only ships out the good via trucks. Ive sat and looked at it for an entire day and neither have operated causing my port to become full.

This post states trade depots not recycling centers..so NO it's not solved.

My depots are all sitting full. **bleep** this game is buggy as **bleep**

Confirmed buggy as trade HQ requirements call for 3 trade depots. I have 3 and its only saying I have 1. Also only the one is exporting. Soo messed...

• I have 3 trade depots with 3 each expansions. Only 1 expansion is NOT oil. 
• I do not have traffic problems and there is easy access to the region highway
• I do not have illness/health problems
• As far as I can tell, there are no staffing problems (8, 6 and 3 workers at each). There is residential across the street from all three depots
• All are set to EXPORT
• All have 4 trucks
• My total exports per day is 1 barrel
• I have gone through many many sim-days with this setup. No trucks ever leave the trade depots. They are full.

In all fairness to whoever said there was not enough evidence for this to be a bug, I count 30 pages - 10 posts each - of "trade depot not working/exporting" search results. It doesn't work dude!  😕mileyfrustrated:

Yep, mine is still not working - similar situation.

I have 3 trade ports, 3 tv factories and 3 processor factories. All rely on imported alloy. My city imports no alloy through trade ports now and exports no TV's through the trade ports. I have tried demolishing everything and rebuilding - still the same outcome. This is only after patch 1.7

Hey, let's not beat up on him/her. They're just trying to figure things out like the rest of us. Every little piece of information helps, whether it turns out that a hypothesis is wrong or right, in the end it will help us get to the bottom of each issue and figure out if it is somethign that we can work around, or a "feature" that we do not understand yet, or if it is indeed a bug.

Not to be a smart ass, though many are going to think that I am being one, we should approach this as if we were beta testers .... because right or wrong, that's what we are now.

I too have this problem, I have 3 trade depots, all in different parts of my city, all full of oil, plastic, alloy and freight, and my oil field has shut down because its storage is full.

They were working to begin with, but definitely not working anymore, the people go to the trade depot to work, it's costing me money to run, but once the storage areas are full there is no more activity and they just sit there costing me money.

I've tried turning them off, and back on after an hour ingame.

I've tried turning them off and logging off, then back in and turning them back on.

I've tried turning global exports off and then back on again.

Very frustrating to have all that stuff in storage and taking up so much of the map when it is not working.

My thanks to cagestooge for his fairness. XP duly delivered, pal.

As a background to my comments about interrogating the staff, I did make it clear (so I thought) that you might actually have to click on individuals and examine their 'follow' screen (to see what reasons they gave for leaving work), and perhaps even follow them to the type of home they went to (because the land-value of this home will indicate what $-rank they are).

My rationale for this exploration was because someone else had commented that he'd seen staff going into buildings, and immediately turning round and going back to a home, with the explanation about leaving work early after picking up their paycheck, skipping work and suchlike. We deduced that it may be to do with the wrong wealth-level or education-level staff taking jobs at the plant when no other staff was available. Sure, it was an early-day hypothesis, made very soon after game-release - and it may still prove to be relevant - but who knows for sure? Certainly for some folks, the issue of staffing (mainly overall numbers, but in some cases, proximity of a building to a nearby population centre of the right wealth-level) HAS proven to be a critical factor in getting their building(s) working. Not everyone, for sure - but for some folks yes. Some folks didn't even consider that they NEEDED staff, or know how to check that the buildings were staffed at all (Population overlay). I've had one or two 'thankyous' precisely on that score, so it wasn't a completely wasted trip.

And to be totally fair, 30+ pages of people yelling "heyitdontworkmaxisfixityoulamers" doesn't exactly constitute 'evidence'. It constitutes noise. Evidence comes from examining the factors - sometimes even quite seemingly unrelated or non-obvious factors - in a Sherlock Holmsian kinda way, until you've eliminated all chance of PEBCAKery from the equation. It seems a lot of people are resistant to doing that, because it involves work, or thinking, or for reasons I can only guess at. I can imagine those same people trying to operate heavy machinery or pilot an airliner in the real world - and I have to laugh. I'm not addressing anyone on this thread with that comment (but if you're reading this and the cap fits, well hey!)...

I would however make the same comment here as I have on another thread. If you have a 'broken' trade-depot or port, why not get someone else to have a look at it as a spectator and see if they can help you PROVE that it's a bug. Many eyes are better than one, and all that. Tell people these three bits of info and we MIGHT be able to find your city and look at your problem first hand.

•  The SERVER your city is on
•  The REGION name on that server where your city is
•  Your CITY name.

Given those three bits of info, there is a chance that some of these cities can be found and checked, to see whether there are overlooked outside influences or whether, hey, yeah buddy, you're absolutely right, this is a grade-A, starin'-us-in-the-face, hot-darn BUG, chap.

But my last call for this kind of info met with equally scant attention-to-detail (on another thread) - so far, not one person has managed to provide ALL THREE bits of info, making it virtually impossible to even find their cities, let alone check them. And if people can't even follow such simple instructions, it again makes you wonder whether the bugs are ALL down to the game, or its handling by its players.

As cagestooge said - don't shoot down the people trying to help you - instead help them to help you. It's clear that Maxis/EA aren't listening to this forum in the slightest (maybe all the feedback they're listening to is coming in via Facebook, or Twitter, or at their local t*tty-bar, perhaps). So in the meantime, we have to help ourselves if we can. Step one, is provide data - and there's usually too much to fit into a single forum-post, or you'll miss stuff out, so the easiest thing to do is to share your city's info in the hope that others can find and examine it. That alone is not easy, thanks to Maxis's lack of search-facility on the servers, and there being so many servers now. But that's all we can do. One more time:

SERVER - REGION - CITY. Anything less than all three is a waste of everyone's time.

Good luck out there. It's madness on the streets of SimCity right now. 😉

In all "Fairness", you shouldn't set things as solved when they aren't either.

As about Server and everything, I had created a other topic with specific informations yesterday.

The trade depots are taking in the normal goods (crates from the industry) and as they come, so they are going aswell which shows that this part still works and the workers as also the trucks are working aswell.

However, OIL doesn't work. My oil pump was full till I bulldozed the thing and went with culture ignoring that I even have oil and my two trade depots that are still there are filled with oil that is NOT getting exported no matter what.

It's like the recycling center issue with the materials it seems.

On the other hand, great works are gaining materials and then all of sudden losing them which ends up with us not being able to finish a great work due to the lack of materials.

Had metal up to around 1100 at traders ridge (Dumekas Region on NA West 1 server) and it dropped down to 210 in front of my eyes.

We had oil almost filled and then it all of sudden dropped down to the half.

dumeka - just for reference - I didn't set the topic as solved. Only the original poster can do that. Not me.

In my city, traffic is not an issue. I watch the garbage and recycling trucks travel the city every day.

For me, the problem is starting at the trade depots. For some reason they are NOT exporting goods. Most of my city income is in tourism, but at some point I had the "brilliant" idea (with the game's prodding) to restart my processor and electronics factory. Instead of supplying the raw goods from mining and a refinery, I've been using reclaimed plastic and ores. It worked for a period of time.

But then the depots stopped exporting. ALL of them. So TVs, computers and processors stack up in storage lots ... then the factories shut down because they have nowhere to send their finished products (since the depots are full), so THEN the recycling facilities get backed up because there is nowhere to send plastic, metal and alloy. THAT leads to complaints from city hall about garbage in my city. The truck are traveling but they can't drop anything off.

It's just a huge chain reaction.

Even if your city itself doesn't have traffic problems, it's possible that the region does. Trade export trucks come from the region only - if you have a backup at the entrance to your city, or if one of the cities in your region has major backups that is blocking the traffic flow to your city, the trucks may be stuck there or taking so long to get to your city that they don't have enough "time" to do the pickup.

The fact that you have tourism probably plays a big part in the issue. All of those regional sims flooding in to your city will cause the regional traffic flow to slow down to a crawl. Tbh, anything that causes regional traffic can cause major problems. I have just taken out all of my regional bus terminals from every city, and have only community colleges or universities for education so there are no bus stops. It seems to have reduced the amount of missing students I have (they were "commuting" out of town, never to return). Although it doesn't seem like this is related, when you think about it in terms of regional traffic, they are actually the same issue.

Try watching the trade map to see if you can spot the incoming freight trucks. If it's stuck at the entrance to your city, you may be able to rework your entrance to get traffic to flow in better. I sometimes put a road off to the side right at the first entrance connection, with nothing on it. A lot of those backed-up cars will run to the end, loop around and go right back out. If the traffic has been backed up, there might be a lot of stupid incoming things that never got to their destination in time. The AI system is pretty wonky, I seem to have the best luck with letting the ones that were in line and technically missed their deadline to enter the city, turn around and leave to trigger the rest. If there are a lot of them, it could take 24 or more sim-hours to clear up, but it's worth a shot.

If you can see freight trucks back up at a different city entrance, you will need to solve the other city's problem to clear up the traffic flow. If you own the other city, transfer over there and try the same thing with the entrance. If you're playing multiplayer and the other city is owned by someone else, this can be a huge problem, especially if the other city is abandoned. You can at least try visiting the other city to see what the problem is, perhaps you can solve it or contact the other mayor to get them to work out their problem.

A few other things to try, that seem to help me - 

1. Place your trade depots as close to the entrance as possible, with nothing else on the road - clear shot to the exit highway. 

2. Demolish the freight warehouse that comes as a default with your depots and ports.

3. Use separate depots for imports and exports.

4. Demolish all the truck garages in every depot except for the import ones. EXPORT uses trucks from the global market (they come in via regional highway); USE LOCALLY uses trucks from the facility that is supplying them (processor factory, oil drill, etc), IMPORT sends trucks out to the global market via regional highway and is the only one that uses the depot trucks.

5. If you have access to any water, plop a trade port and use the trade dock for exports. The water transit doesn't get clogged and sends out up to 200 tons of product at a time. 

6. For delivery between local resources (like an ore mine to a smelting factory), you can use service roads from the dump or oil well to connect them directly. Only the delivery & service vehicles will use these roads, so no traffic jams and almost immediate delivery.

7. Demolish the old trade depots and rebuild. This only works if your regional traffic is not an issue, and your regional freight trucks have disappeared (which can happen - they go out to the global market, never to return). To try to do this without losing all the resources in the existing depots - Build a new trade depot. Building a new trade depot creates 2 new regional trucks to handle exports. Demolish the freight warehouse & add one warehouse with a resource you don't normally use. Import one delivery (you'll need a freight garage for this), then set it to export. If it successfully exports, you know that you've solved whatever the original issue was. Leave this depot running, set to export, with no product. If you're lucky, the old full depots may "borrow" the 2 new freight trucks and start exporting your product. If that's the case, turn off local deliveries to the old depots so they don't refill, and demolish them once they're empty. Rebuild to create new regional trucks. You can then either demolish the test one, or just demolish the unused storage lot and build what you need.

8. This won't help you because of your tourism, but in case it helps someone else: get rid of everything you can that causes regional transport. This means no regional bus terminals (you can use shuttle buses, they only run in the city), no trains, no airports, no elementary or high schools that use bus stops, and no tourism or gambling facilities. Stop sharing vehicles between cities. Anything that causes vehicles on the regional highway will slow your region traffic. Once you get the traffic flowing again, you can add some services back in, one at a time, just keep an eye on the regional traffic and time between exports, and back off if they start to slow or stall. This also works to combat the problem with students, workers and shoppers commuting out and disappearing. 

Bottom line is regional play, even in offline mode, is basically broken. The services like power and water seem to work pretty well, I've never had a problem with those. And sharing the various unlocks between the cities works well also. But anything that involves transfers of AI agents just doesn't work reliably. They will head out from one city and never return, whether they actually reach the other cities or not.

This has become a much longer post than I expected. Let me know if any of these suggestions were useful or helped your situation.

OP has been an issue since the game was launched, and it is still an issue, and it will always be an issue, since EA has given up on doing anything with this game. It is what it is.

Indeed, it will never be fixed.
My city, right here, right now in June 2021, just bought over 600.000$ worth of Processors, but none of them are delivered. I mean, what ? So I just lost 600K over .. nothing.

I had started getting all sort of trade backup problems including one depot sitting full and also being unable to import oil so my plants were shutting down if my pumps couldn't keep up. I tried monkeying with the import/export, turning on/off local deliveries, demolishing and recreating trucks, etc. Then I decided to set it to cheetah speed and watch a three hour movie in the next room. When I came back things had improved and my exports were moving again. Don't ask me why.

If you use the VTOL at Omega Factory or Trade Port it will work