Random and inconsistent? That’s got to be a joke, right? It is anything but random and inconsistent…it happens every damn time and to pretty much every other member of my alliance. And it’s been an issue for 2+ years with multiple tickets to CS and nothing ever gets fixed. Like others have said, there is absolutely no way to capture the issue with a screenshot, as it happens when you are not logged in to the game.
The only way we have found to prevent the University research speed up requests from disappearing after one donation, is to remain online. As long as you are logged into the game when other members donate to the request, it will work fine. But, if you close the game and someone donates, the request will immediately disappear.
People have been complaining about this bug on the forum for years and we are always told that it is actively being investigated and will be fixed soon, yet nothing ever does get fixed. You guys are too busy wasting time on useless councilor cards, barracks troop boosts/nerfing fiascos, and overpriced events to actually fix this and the countless other bugs that continue to plague this game while never being fixed.