Conveyor Belt Troubleshooting in Core Keeper

#Direct Answer

When a Conveyor Belt line fails, test it in four parts: direction, gaps, pickup, and destination. Remove every branch except one short belt, send one cheap item through it, and add machines back only after that test passes. Rebuilding the entire factory first usually hides the original fault.

#A five-minute isolation test

1. Empty the belt and place a single input chest, one belt segment, and one output chest in a straight line.
2. Confirm every segment points the same way. A reversed piece can send items back into the source or make a loop look like a jam.
3. Leave a full tile around insertion and extraction points. Robot Arms need a reachable pickup and drop tile; walls and decorative blocks can make a working arm appear dead.
4. Feed one common item. If it arrives, the belt is healthy. Add the arm, then the filter, testing one component at a time.
5. Reconnect the main line only after the small test works. Keep a chest beside each junction so overflow has somewhere visible to land.

#Common symptoms and fixes

#Items stop at one tile

Look for a missing or reversed segment, a blocked corner, or a destination chest that is full. Temporarily remove the last belt and place a chest there. If items now arrive, the problem is downstream storage rather than transport.

#Robot Arm never picks up

Move the arm one tile closer to the belt and verify its pickup side faces the moving item. Test with an item already on the belt; an empty belt can make a correctly placed arm look inactive.

#The wrong items reach a chest

Disable the filter and run one item type through the line. If that works, the filter rule or its orientation is wrong. Use separate labeled chests for ore, food, and crafted parts before combining outputs.

#Items disappear into a loop

Break the loop at one junction and add a temporary chest. A loop is useful for buffering, but it can hide a full output chest and keep arms cycling forever. Give every loop a deliberate exit and a visible overflow chest.

#Design rule for reliable factories

Build short, named modules: input, processing, and output. Leave one tile of access beside belts and arms so you can inspect them without mining half the room. Once a module passes the one-item test, copy it; do not copy an untested junction.

#When the belt is not the problem

Sometimes the conveyor looks broken because the real bottleneck is storage, not transport.

• If the line works until the last chest fills up, the fix is destination capacity.
• If the arm moves items but the next machine does nothing, the issue is often machine setup or recipe input.
• If only one item type jams, the filter is probably wrong or too strict.
• If the whole line works in a test but fails in the base, the real issue is usually path congestion or a hidden blocked tile.

That distinction matters because many players rebuild the belt first and only discover later that the chest, machine, or room layout was the actual fault.

#A clean module layout

For a simple base, keep the flow in this order:

1. Source chest
2. One short belt lane
3. Processing station or filter
4. Output chest

If you need a longer line, split it into two short verified sections instead of one long mystery chain. A short chain can be tested and repaired in minutes; a giant loop can hide the first mistake for a long time.

#Common rebuild traps

1. Replacing every belt before testing one segment.
2. Adding arms before the belt direction is proven.
3. Mixing three item types through the same unlabelled output.
4. Using decorative room changes that block pickup tiles.
5. Forgetting that an overfull chest can make a perfect line look dead.

#Quick recovery order

When a line fails, do the same order every time:

1. Test source to chest.
2. Test source to belt.
3. Test belt to arm.
4. Test arm to destination.
5. Rebuild the full line only after each small piece works.

That order keeps the fix small and tells you which part actually needs attention.

For a broader setup, pair this checklist with the base automation baseline and record which chest owns each material.