After Effects watch folder not maxing out machines (bug?)

Hi Adobe Community!

I talked to technical support and they were unable to solve the problem so they said to post here in order to receive a response from the Adobe engineers.

I have two questions:

1. Can anyone explain what the following is in an RCF file:
   1.      int
   2.      html_init
   3.      (In Progress,99,6,6) - and "In Progress" vs "Working"
      
      
2. I have had this issue come up multiple times so I'll describe the steps:
   
   
   1. Using an extendScript, I prep an AE file and save it into a Watch Folder along with an RCF.txt file created by the extendScript. Here's the initial RCF file content:
      
      After Effects 13.2v1 Render Control File
      max_machines=7
      num_machines=0
      init=0
      html_init=0
      html_name=""
      
      
   2. I then boot seven (7) machines that are connected to the same server (including assets) and open AE in Watch Folder mode using the terminal.
      
      
   3. An HTML file is created linking to the logs and the machines starts rendering as expected. Here's an example of the update RCF file:
      
      After Effects 13.2v1 Render Control File
      max_machines=7
      num_machines=7
      init=1
      html_init=1
      html_name="7991_00.htm"
      item1=(In Progress,99,6,6)
      item2=(Queued,1,0,0)
      
      

The problem is, the RCF file updates to reflect the num_machines being seven (7) - maxing it out, however only six (6) machines are actually rendering while the seventh machine is still in searching mode.

Additionally, the HTML log file reflects only six (6) machines running and the log folder only shows six (6) "machine.htm" files with one of them missing (ie. machine3.htm is not there but the others are).

Is this a bug or something I am doing wrong that gets the RCF file, HTML logs, and machines to be out of sync?

Also, if this is a bug, is there a way to manually fix it in order to add the missing machine? Simply changing the "num_machines" from seven (7) to six (6) does not work as it remains in six (6) even while the seventh machine is still searching the watch folder.

All machines are running Windows 10 with the latest After Effects software.

Thanks for your time!

PS... I have included a screenshot showing the difference between the RCF file and the HTML files.