Listing Carousel Query Strings NOT WORKING consistently

I have tried several experiements and have found that “Dynamic Content” Carousel that grabs listing items only responds to the query string parameber “orderby=” and defaults to name ordering if not specified at all. This is the PremiumPress Page Builder area of my home page, not the area in the theme editor/options.

I would really like to limit the carousel to show only “featured” listings. However, as I have searched this forum, several customers seemed to have asked this question many times with no answer.

I purchased the car theme, but I am hesitant to fill out a support ticket because my site does have additional plugins installed. There is warning that additional plugins will cause your support ticket to be immediately deleted. My site is live, I cannot disable additional plugins while I wait for someone halfway across the globe to respond to the ticket. That is a ridiculous demand from a support team that I PAID FOR.

So, can someone please tell me HOW to get the featured listing limit on the carousel? The query strings “meta_key=featured&meta_value=yes” DO NOT WORK and actually cause the carousel to display NOTHING. And YES, I have featured listings marked.