Mining not working in Dwarf Fortress v0.43

Question

Whenever I try to mine, it doesn't work. I press D for designate, then D again for mine. Then I press Enter, and it makes the green cross. But once I press Enter in a different place, it just gets rid of the green cross and doesn't make a highlighted box. I've tried using <and >, but going onto a different level doesn't help either.

Answer 1

First of all, they key combination is dd, not DD. But you already know this, because the first part ("green cross") worked.

It seems that you have accidentally selected "automining" (a), and the area you are trying to mine doesn't contain useful minerals - if so, press a a few more times until it chooses "normal mining".