Heli signal failed to materialize

On US Scourge, many players have reported helis won't come. Personally I have verified this twice; no message or heli when thrown.

Here is a video of the behavior. This was a signal that was given to me by another player, placed in a box, and then removed. If I had to hazard a guess, placing it in the box might have broken things? I used other signals before putting them in the box. The  box in question is at my base in the Southeast swamp on Scourge.

When I attempted it with one bought straight from the store, it worked. However, it no longer said "smoke grenade" in my inventory, but "apache distress signal".

This problem appears to still exist for some players. @Oxeus knows the most details about this, as he has been selling the signals from his vending machine. Apparently (as you can see in the chat), it says "Apache Distress Signal" in inventory, but when it is either dispensed through a vending machine or even dropped to another player, it changes to saying "Smoke Grenade" in that other player's inventory. I bought one of the signals from his shop and tried it in this video—it had the apache logo on it but said "Smoke Grenade" when clicked in inventory. The result was, as expected with this bug, just a smoke grenade.

However, when I bought a signal from the store, and moved it from my inventory to my backpack and back again, it didn't change. It's limited data, since it was one signal moved into my backpack and not then into a box or vending machine, but I figured more data is better when debugging.
 

Had a player on EU Survival , reporting that no heli came after being thrown . I threw one myself i had no issues with mine. Seems to be an issue with some players 

A summary of my findings:

This seems to happen for me with a "cursed stack" of signals. I've found that a reliable way to tell if the stack is cursed (and this has been verified by other players on Scourge US), is to click on the signal in your inventory and see if it says "Smoke Grenade" instead of Apache/APC Distress Signal. The picture, alone, absolutely does not guarantee that the signal will work. The "curse stacks" still have the standard signal image. I've seen it so far with both Apache and APC signals, however, there have been reports of attack helicopter flares—and I have personally observed this with minicopter flares—where the stack will say "Flare" instead of something like "Minicopter Signal" (sorry can't remember exact text), and when thrown, nothing will appear. I have reported and documented what I can in another ticket.

At least one source of this problem is splitting a stack: pulling one signal off the stack will leave you with a stack that says apache and the pulled off signal being a smoke grenade. This happens for both the original person and someone it's traded to or dropped to.

Another source has been linked to the backpack:

• Buying (either one at a time or multiples) and moving a stack into the backpack and removing turns the entire stack into smokes
• Buying one and moving it into the backpack turns it into a smoke grenade either when placed into the backpack or eventually when removed.

@ZΞD and I were able to confirm that this problem was likely masked by people using the signals as soon as they were purchased, regardless of the stack size, because if you have a stack that isn't cursed, move it into your hotbar, and then throw straight from the stack, the stack remains a stack of Apache signals as long as you keep it together and don't move it into your backpack. 

Well I had a surprise! I threw one while recording to document that I had a stack of duds... and it was definitely not a dud any more haha. I'll leave the edge case testing to the professionals, but it seems to work for me right now.

Is there any chance that, since it's the last day, I could get what I have transferred to next wipe? Even if there was a waiting period so I don't go crazy on day 1? Most of my gunpowder has gone straight towards net worth, and I no longer need any of the loot for myself or to sell for scrap.