Hello, I'm not an old player but I can see from your replies that the bug has happened before.                                                                           

Hi guys!

Thank you very much for reporting it. This bug is already fixed but it will be applied in a future patch

(If the patch You were talking about was not the SpaceGuilds one then ignore the message)                                    Today I've experienced this issue, however one of the players was able to insert the sphere into the glitched altar, but when we had to move it to the next one, none of us could take it. We managed to let the rotters take the sphere, insert it in their altar and then take it back and advance in the mission.