Many people are eager to plug in their air purifiers and get started, but they often miss the fine print about checking inside the unit. Leaving the plastic bag on the filter basically turns the purifier into a fan, without any actual filtering. I saw someone post that they ran theirs like that for months before realizing it—no air getting filtered the whole time! Your dust photo reminded me, so just wanted to mention it in case you hadn’t checked for the bag inside.