I presume this is the redirect users to top page setting (Automatically redirect new and long absent users to the top page.) overriding the user’s preference.
Perhaps the logic should be changed there as the user has expressed a clear preference? I’ve disabled the setting on our instance because I’m not sure it’s so useful given our breadth of content.
Also worth noting if you are a new user (one of the targets here) you cannot have set this pref, by definition. That leaves long absent, returning users as the only possibility.