So you have a Frigidaire which is a little different from the model I'm talking about. I'm surprised at this behavior in a machine that does not sound as though it is S.Korean in origin.
Regarding LG top load washers - reckon this applies to Samsung top loads as well - the detergent and fabric softners used in S. Korea are much weaker than those typically used in The States. Over there, it was customary that everything enter the machine at the beginning of the wash cycle. Detergent and softner or laundry sanitizer used in The States must not enter the wash at the same time. The softner or sanitizer absolutely interferes with the ability of the detergent to do its job. It is said this is because the chemical action is much stronger.
S. Korean made top load machines have an automatic dispenser with separete compartments for softner/sanitizer and detergent but what one would find with careful observation - just as you have - is that everything in the tray gets siphoned into the laundry at once in the beginning. It seems the designers didn't realize the user would want to add them separately. They weren't aware that the need to wait on the rinse cycle and catch it to add softner or laundry sanitizer was the bane of many for laundry days and that entire marketing campaigns used this trope in their media in the 80s and 90s with no solution.
Suffice it to say, you basically have to catch the cycle and add that stuff manually at the right time with these machines. Don't know if this design has been corrected on newer top loading machines from these companies.
Maybe Electrolux, Frigidaire's Swedish parent company, designs their machines using the same philosophy? I thought it was just a S. Korea thing.