Canonical Titles - effect not sticking?

Or perhaps I am misunderstanding how this field is supposed to function.

I have been combining on Fyodor Dostoevsky's combine/separate page this weekend - since there are many, many translations of his works the elected titles are not always in English. Since I am on the English-language site I think it is reasonable to Canonically Name the work by its English title - so I do that, the name changes, and now shows up on the author's combine/separate page in alphabetical order by its English name (which is what I wanted).

HOWEVER - if the canonically named work then gets combined with another work the canonical name field remains filled in but it seems to lose its "effect" - the work reverts to the elected title - which makes it hard to find again on the author combine/separate page.

Example:
Le notti bianche (White Nights)
http://www.librarything.com/work/6175122

So, my question - is this how it is supposed to work? Does the canonical name have to be removed and re-entered after every combining in order to stay effective?

This might also be contributing to a "multiple canonical title" issue noted by klarusu in the Combiners group - thread here:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/53977

I've also noticed this annoying "feature." Adding canonical titles isn't really that helpful if they don't stick when combining. And we've had to do more combining than usual recently. :-/

Yep Portia, also found this - I've found that to make it appear, you need to re-save the canonical name (which still shows in the CK field) but not re-enter. Odd because it doesn't disappear from the CK field but it doesn't seem to be recognised after combination ...

I suppose the situation could occur where two works to be combined could each have a Canonical Title, in that instance which one should be dominant? As sure as one succeeds there will immediately be someone complaining that the other did not. It's possible that you are being forced to re-elect the preferred title.

Yes some times combination knocks the CT loose. if there is more than one title delete the extras and/or resave the CT and it will be back to normal.

Well, in the example that I gave there was no other Canonical Title. The CK field held the one I had entered - it just didn't seem to be working. The problem with having to resave it is finding it again (the reason I gave it a CT is so I could find it alphabetically on the very lengthy author combine/separate page) so I would have to search for it again - which rather defeats the purpose of my having put it there.

In the example that klarusu gave in the other thread (link in my first post) the problem was that the work had multiple CT after someone (else) combined them and LT picked the "wrong" one. The work had to be re-separated and the CTs re-entered. This type of problem could be solved by having the info that a work has a CT seen at combining like the disambiguation notices do now (which is SOOOOO much help).

Right, I keep hoping they will give us a secondary notification when combining IF both have CT's and they don't match, not refuse but "Are you REALLY sure?".