[6.20] Spawned lockboxes aren't collected automatically

[LameFox]

This unfortunately can't be shown in a save because the boxes in question disappear on loading.

I have noticed lately that there are some lockboxes, of the sort that spawn into an ongoing game but are not actively located by player scanning, that ships with an individual instruction of "collect" for lockboxes will totally ignore unless directly told to open that particular box.

I first realized it was happening because I had parked in an area of highish mining activity to do general empire management, with a ship set to collect drops flying around me. After some time I had come back to check on things as the ship I was sitting in fought some Kha'ak, and I saw a lockbox had spawned nearby. My collect drops ship should have seen it and collected it, but it didn't. I checked its settings and cancelled repeat orders in case that interfered, but nothing. I tried ordering a variety of different commands, like explore, update trades, defend position etc. but despite all being located at the box the ship wouldn't touch it. I also toggled the "collect" setting for boxes off and on again, and tried with and without 'notify me' to no avail. Finally I ordered it to collect the box manually (I think I was far enough away this was in low attention) and it did successfully open it and collect some crates.

I've encountered others since then. I don't know what separates them from other boxes, except origin: the fact that I don't manually discover them, and they spawn into the game in already-discovered areas.

The steps to reproduce this are simple but unfortunately slow and unpredictable. You have simply got to wait in-game until one spawns, ideally with satellite coverage I guess so you can see the general area, have a ship set up to try to open it, and let it fly around the box with a variety of orders—and observe that it does not.

[Tranxalive]

If you can, please try to get a save for us. It'd be much appreciated, as we're often too busy with other things, and need to prioritize what issues we look at, and we unfortunately don't have too much time to search for very unpredictable issues.

[LameFox]

Unfortunately that doesn't appear to be possible in this case. I tried to save it when I realized it was happening but on loading the save, the lockboxes in question would simply have disappeared.