Quoted from RTS:Yes it does that all correctly.
It will also release a ball before timing out if you lock a 2nd ball before scoring a jackpot with 2 balls in play. It all seems normal.
That's not normal behavior. Reading this it seems to me your drop down target never goes up to block the entrance of the caster's club. You cannot "lock a 2nd ball before scoring a jackpot with 2 balls in play". If you only have 2 balls in play, and you lock 1 , the caster's club entrance will be blocked until it has put ball 1 back in play, either from collecting the jackpot or running out of time.
EDIT : Unless you mean you locked 1 ball and you have 2 on the playfield , locking a 2nd one, leaving one more ball on the playfield. But to me that would be 3 balls in play, since there aren't any balls in the trough , then they are in play. Please confirm.
Quoted from RTS:
When I'm down to just two balls and hit the casters club to begin the Jackpot countdown and let time runout without ever scoring a jackpot, and keep doing this several times (casters club to start countdown but no jp during countdown) eventually the casters club shot reverts back to locking balls instead of starting another jackpot countdown.
I just tried this with the glass off and it never acted that way. I went through 12 jackpot countdowns while in tropical fishing and it always behaved normally, always starting the jackpot timer. Then on the 13th countdown I collected the jackpot. I went through another 12 jackpot countdowns in fresh water fishing and it always behaved the same, starting the countdown. I then just let the countdown drop without pressing any other switches and eventually the game started looking for the missing ball 2 I had kept in my hands during that time. This is the only time it kicked back the ball from the caster's club, because it went through the whole sequence of ball search and since during jackpot mode the first ball waits in the catapult it got shot out.
EDIT : Those tests were done with 1 ball drained and 2 balls in play.
Quoted from RTS:
It seems like it may be by design because when the game reverts back to the ball lock sequence instead of another jackpot countdown during 2 ball, the game still seems to recognize it was in a multiball mode because it keeps the same ball in play after you drain.
The game is not recognizing it was in multiball but rather the game knows one of the ball in still in play. It has 2 balls in the trough and points are still being scored so : 1) the 3rd ball is not in the trough 2) the 3rd ball is not currently missing because points are being scored.
This happens to me all the time if you got setting A1 33 -> Game Reset -> Instantly. This setting allows you to restart a game after ball 2 or later is in play by pressing the Start button again. If you drain a ball and ball 2 is coming out and you press Start with the correct timing , it will actually shoot a 2nd ball in the lane and fire them right away. You now start a game with a 2 ball multiball. Thing is , the machine isn't in multiball mode so you get none of the benefits. If you lock a ball in the casters club then , it will not put out a 2nd ball in the lane because it knows that ball is not in the trough, so it must be in play. If you score points then , it knows the play really is on the playfield so it won't search for the ball.
My diagnostic, your drop target is not coming up like it should. If more issues are present once this is fixed (or confirmed working) it's time to look at the CPU board for corrosion or bad solder joints or chips like ASIC that might need to be pushed on for better contact , cleaning switches connectors , unplugging and replugging ribbon cables, testing all switches involved in the caster's club logic and their diodes. When the VUK kicks the ball up in the caster's club it creates some vibrations and other flaky switches / connections nearby could be affected.