Anyone Using 4.14.x In Production? Cart Forgets Products?

I know that the latest 4.14.2 SP1 update is supposed to include bugfixes for shopping cart losing products, but even after the update, I am still seeing problems with products being "forgotten." The most direct correlation I can see is when there's some payment processing problem. Is it possible that CS-Cart is prematurely clearing the cart (mistaking the error as a completed payment) or is it likely the problem is more subtle?

Is there a central area where I might be able to swap localStorage in place of cookies or is it too integral to the underlying PHP code? I'm generally seeing more reliable persistence with localStorage than cookies and it seems like an alternative path to explore.

More importantly, can anyone vouch for the latest version in a real production environment?

what browser and version

is it the same in all browsers

I don't think the issue is browser-specific, but I expect to have more detailed insights this week.