5.3.1 doesn't generate support for offset model and moves model

[StarNamer 4]

To avoid a elephant's foot, a trick I've used in the past is to turn off "drop model to build plate" then lift the model a few millimetres and use support "touching buildplate" to lift the model away from the plate. In 5.3.1, I instead get very strange behaviour: no support is generated and the model is moved and may even be below the build plate. Here's a contrived example where I place the model several centimetres above the plate (Prepare view) and it gets and it gets generated below the plate (Preview view).

 

Is this a bug? If not, what am I doing wrong?

Edited June 9 by StarNamer
fix typos

[ahoeben 1,845]

It is a bug, slated to be fixed in Cura 5.4 as far as I know.

 

As a workaround, disable supports, then find and unset the "Remove empty layers" setting, and re-enable supports again.