Bug: Could not return Philippines provinces to Philippines after liberating

[unmerged(13058)]

In my most recent USA game, Japan made successful landings at several unoccupied VP provinces in the southern Philippines early in the war (Davao, Cagayan, Leyte, and Mindoro). They didn’t go for Manila or the other northern VPs to try and annex Philippines, even though the Philippines Garrison and locked US infantry unit were the only units there (Japan AI problems?). Anyway, later I took back those VPs from Japan as USA. They were naval invasions from US territories, so the provinces were owned by Philippines, but controlled by the US. I went to ‘open negotiations’ to give back the provinces back to Philippines, but those provinces were not there! Is it bacasue they are VP provinces? I was allowed to give them lots of other provinces if I wanted to. How do I give these territories back?

 

[Kanalratte]

Don't know if the old HoI2DD trick still works:

You need an expeditionary force from your puppet.
- Move all of your troops out of the province and leave only the EF there.
- Sent the EF back to its owner.
- The province should be under the control of your puppet.
- In most cases , the puppet will return the EF (on some other troops) to you and you can repeat the procedure with further provinces.

I don't have AoD, so I'm not sure if it works.