Slots 'Only allow preferred instances' not working.

Hey ​@Damian_Summersall 👋 Thanks for the recording, that's really helpful.

To help narrow this down, could you let me know whether you're on the desktop app or browser, and which OS? Also, when you tested this, was it only through what’s shown in the video, or did you also try dragging a different instance directly onto the slot? I wonder if the behavior is the same either way. Talk soon! — Jaycee

Sure, it’s the desktop app on macOS 26.5.1. Yes, I hadn’t tried dragging, but I've just tried it and dragging also works. The same applies for the browser version (Safari 26.5). 

Hi, ​@Damian_Summersall 👋 I opened a support ticket for this. The ID is 1995294. Keep an eye on your inbox for any follow-up questions or replies from support. Thanks! — Jaycee 

I have same problem!🙋

Hey ​@imboting , Celine from Figma here, stepping in for ​@Jaycee Lewis on this one. Thanks for flagging this, and sorry for the trouble it's causing! 

We're currently looking into ​@Damian_Summersall ‘s report, but we're still waiting to hear back from them with more details, so we haven't been able to reproduce the issue on our end yet. It's really helpful to know you're seeing the same behavior.

If it's still happening for you, would you mind submitting a bug report through our secure form.  To do that: Go to the Support Hub / Type “Report a bug, contact agent” / Click Start a chat, select Enter and follow the prompts.

Please include:

• A link to the affected file and grant "Can View" access with support-share@figma.com
• A short screen recording showing the behavior.
• The steps to reproduce the issue, if you've identified them.

That'll give our team everything they need to investigate and try to reproduce it properly. Thank you!

​@Celine_ I’ve just replied to the email I got yesterday with another recording, for reference. 

We’re having the same issue as well.

 and then dragging another component or frame into it - i receive a message, but it stays in the slot and is visible.
 

This seems like a behavior that would be prohibited if that checkbox is checked.

Hey, ​@jbrycedavis 👋 Looking at the Help center article and what my teammate ​@Celine_ shared above, this is working-as-designed-but-not-as-you-expect. The disconnect, to my eye, is that the setting informs versus enforces, while the popup text reads as enforce not inform. I’ll pass that along as feedback. 

One question if you have a sec — with the non-preferred layer still sitting in the slot, select the slot (or its parent instance) and look at the Limits label in the right sidebar. Does it show an orange warning icon?

Thank you! — Jaycee

All i see is: 

if I click on it then, yes - but there’s no affordance to even tell me it’s clickable until you told me. It looks just like the Modified above it which is not clickable - the only difference is color.

Once i click on it it looks like this:
 

In my opinion, when looking at the Master’s slot property’s settings, Preferred instances at the bottom (if set) are (as you put it [and I like]) Inform, but when I click the “Only allow preferred instances” checkbox, that changes my decision from Inform to Enforce/Restrict.

Thanks for the feedback ​@jbrycedavis I’ll take this to the team and get it shared. I don’t have insight into changes to this behaviour or help text at this time. And I will add it here if I do. We appreciate you! — Jaycee

Thanks, Jaycee. Appreciate it. 

My final thought is this - and a co-worker pointed it out to me. If that checkbox is not intended to be restrictive - why does it even exist? If anything can always go in there even if I say not to - why would this even be necessary as a check box? I am by no way advocating for it’s removal - but the mental model of the labeling versus the actual functionality (not restricting the user) seems flawed.