Auto checkin for reservation item failing

We find that items are being left with status "checked out" after reservations are successfully marked as "checked in".

In includes/api.inc the last function merci_add_reservation_items($node) the conditional statement that determines whether or not to update merci_reservation_item_node is evaluating as false, because $node->merci_original_reservation_status is NULL.

e.g.
$item_status == MERCI_ITEM_STATUS_AVAILABLE is true, but $node->merci_original_reservation_status == MERCI_STATUS_CHECKED_OUT is false

We put a work around in our code that checks if the item status in the database is different from the item status in this function, then update the database with the latest status. This meets our needs.

I'm not sure why the logic is included that the item status is only checked in if the original reservation status was previously set as checked out.

But if that logic is important for the overall functioning of the module, then finding out why that value is not set for use in this conditional should be tracked down.