That does not yet prove the old bug has returned. We currently have a new player report, not confirmation from Blizzard that Patch 3.1.0 has regressed. But the history matters because the earlier problem was real, widespread enough to generate reports across PC and PlayStation, and expensive enough that some players lost millions of Gem Fragments before Blizzard corrected it.
When the same sort of thing appears again two months later, keeping your Grand Gems intact for a little longer suddenly seems like reasonable financial planning.
A New PS5 Report Says High-Tier Emerald Progress Disappeared
The new September 6 PS5 report describes a player salvaging Emeralds and discovering that their high-tier gem progression was no longer where they expected it to be afterward. Instead of being able to reconstruct the same amount of advanced gems from the returned materials, the player was apparently left with lower-tier progression.
That sounds extremely familiar.
Earlier this year, Diablo IV players repeatedly reported Grand Gems disappearing or returning far fewer fragments than their crafting value when salvaged. One May PlayStation report said salvaging a Grand Gem was followed by Royal Gems disappearing without contributing correctly toward another Grand Gem. That player reported losing more than 40 Royal Gems and over 10,000 Forgotten Souls while trying to work around the problem.
PC players were seeing similar behaviour. One report described Grand Gems costing one million fragments to craft but returning only 100,000 fragments when salvaged — effectively deleting 90% of their fragment value.
That is not a particularly generous recycling programme.
Blizzard Officially Fixed High-Tier Gem Salvaging in Patch 3.1.0
The important difference between this and an ordinary forum complaint is that Blizzard eventually acknowledged the underlying problem through its patch notes.
When Patch 3.1.0 launched on June 30, Blizzard included a very direct fix:
“Fixed an issue where salvaging high-tier gems returned fewer fragments than intended.”
That appeared to address the most obvious version of the problem. Players subsequently confirmed that Grand Gems could once again return the expected number of fragments, and for a while the issue looked safely buried with the rest of Season 13's bugs.
Not entirely.
A July discussion included another player claiming that roughly 50 salvaged Royal Gems disappeared without being correctly reflected in the Jeweler's progression counter. Another July player initially thought the salvage bug had returned, although that particular case turned out to be a shortage of Forgotten Souls rather than missing fragments.
That distinction is important because Diablo IV's current gem economy is complicated enough to make a functioning system look broken if you are missing one of its secondary crafting currencies.
The new PS5 report therefore needs more reproduction before we can say the old bug is definitively back.
Grand Gems Represent a Lot More Than One Item Slot
The reason even one report deserves attention is the amount of progression hidden inside Diablo IV's upper gem tiers.
Grand Gems are only the beginning of Lord of Hatred's high-end gem chain. Five Grand Gems are required to create one Horadric Gem through the Horadric Cube, and five Horadric Gems are then required for one Flawless Horadric Gem.
We previously calculated just how quickly those requirements escalate when looking at the enormous fragment requirements behind high-end Horadric Gem crafting. A finished set represents millions upon millions of fragments together with Gold, Forgotten Souls and considerable farming time.
We also covered why Flawless Horadric Gems became one of Lord of Hatred's biggest long-term grinds. Losing progression somewhere near the bottom of that crafting pyramid does not just cost one gem. It potentially removes part of everything that would eventually have been built above it.
That makes experimenting with salvage rather less appealing.
Season 14 Was Supposed to Make Gem Progression Less Painful
The timing is particularly awkward because Patch 3.1.0 did more than fix the old salvage problem. Blizzard also substantially increased Gem Fragment drops at Torment X and above and simplified Jeweler conversion recipes so players could more easily turn unwanted fragments into the types their builds actually needed.
Those were sensible changes aimed at reducing one of Diablo IV's more repetitive progression grinds.
But better fragment acquisition only helps if the fragments remain where they are supposed to be.
High-tier gems already have another strange economic issue this season. We recently looked at players still reporting enormous repair bills when Horadric Gems are socketed, despite that behaviour having been noticed months ago.
Diablo IV's gems are becoming increasingly powerful.
They are also developing an impressive collection of administrative side effects.
Do Not Mass-Salvage High-Tier Gems Until We Know More
At this point, there is no reason for panic. One new report does not establish a widespread regression, and plenty of players may be salvaging gems normally without any problem at all.
But there is also very little upside to being the person who performs the next large-scale test with their own collection.
If you have Grand Gems or other expensive high-tier gems that you do not urgently need to break down, keeping them intact until the new report receives more confirmations is the cautious option.
If you do salvage, it is worth noting your fragment totals beforehand and checking the returned amount immediately rather than processing an entire stash at once. That will make it much easier to identify whether anything has actually gone wrong — and considerably easier to produce a useful bug report if it has.
The Similarity to the Old Bug Is the Part Worth Watching
We are not yet at the point where we can say:
“Blizzard's fixed gem bug is definitely back.”
What we can say is that Blizzard previously fixed a confirmed bug involving high-tier gems returning incorrect salvage value, older players documented substantial losses from that problem, and a new PS5 player is now reporting very similar symptoms on September 6.
That is enough to watch closely.
Hopefully this turns out to be an isolated account issue or a misunderstanding of the newer crafting system.
Because Diablo IV's current gem ladder already asks players to collect an extraordinary number of fragments.
Collecting them twice would be excessive even by Sanctuary standards.
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