I'm experiencing the exact same issue. So far it has only been when selling items in the workshop, haven't been on long enough to test if its a broader game-wide issue for myself.
I found I'm unable to restore an artifact once upgrading it to orange. By restore I mean similarly to relic item restoration where it requires lanolin and borax. I did not play on preview so there is a chance I'm doing the process wrong, but I have the required reagents and it is unable to upgrade.