Piston glitch

[Indras]

I need some help with this one... I'm trying to build an automatic sugarcane farm. I remember seeing one using a lens and detector combo on the boards, and tried building it from memory. I kept getting one or two pistons that are "stuck", in both the extended and retracted position simultaneously. I dug around the board and found the post: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4689&start=100#p85004, so I went ahead and changed my redstone wiring to match his perfectly, but it still happens, roughly every other time a piece of sugarcane grows. When it happens, the other seven pistons just continuously extend and retract until I get up there and break the glitched piston arm. Here's a picture of what I mean:

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I'm using just modloader, btw, and rei's minimap, installed in that order. I tried from a fresh vanilla jar again a few minutes ago just to be safe. I don't want to file this in the bug reports section, because I really think it is a vanilla bug, but I can't verify it, because it requires BTW components to build.

Has anyone else run into this and has come up with a workaround?

[Scarrboros]

I believe that there is a glitch in 1.3.2 that makes pistons facing certain ways (it was 2 out of the 4 facings, can't remember which) have that ridiculously strange behavior.

If you spin the entire wiring so all the pistons face in the direction to right or left of what you currently have them in, it might work.

Another possible thing you could do is to move all the pistons back one and put a block in front of them. It usually stops the problem, but takes up more space.

[Indras]

I believe that there is a glitch in 1.3.2 that makes pistons facing certain ways (it was 2 out of the 4 facings, can't remember which) have that ridiculously strange behavior.

If you spin the entire wiring so all the pistons face in the direction to right or left of what you currently have them in, it might work.

Another possible thing you could do is to move all the pistons back one and put a block in front of them. It usually stops the problem, but takes up more space.

The whole mess is aligned east-west, I can turn it with a little elbow grease and give it a shot. If it doesn't work, I'll try switching to sticky pistons with a block in front.

Edit: tore down and rebuilt facing north-south, made it worse, got 3 stuck pistons instead of 1:

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Caught the screenshot with all the pistons extended this time, but it is the same glitch.

Edit 2: Switched to sticky pistons, works great now, thanks for the help!

[Twololcats]

I saw a video by generikb i believe (it was some mincrafter who makes crazy contraptions in vanilla)
and he had this problem as well, its supposedly a vanilla bug *cough* *cough* *Coujebfixyourgamedangitcough*
ah sorry something in my throat

[Cuchonchuir]

I can confirm it's a vanilla bug, on my vanilla server I have it happening almost every damn time.

[Scarrboros]

I saw a video by generikb i believe (it was some mincrafter who makes crazy contraptions in vanilla)
and he had this problem as well, its supposedly a vanilla bug *cough* *cough* *Coujebfixyourgamedangitcough*
ah sorry something in my throat

I actually got my answer from his video on that.

He is a very helpful guy actually.

[Thalarctia]

How long is the pulse you use to extend the pistons? If the pulse is too short, this could happen quite often. Try extending the pulse somewhat, so that the pistons are in the extended position for a longer amount of time.

[Rich131]

Piston glitch was acting up for me when i was trying to make a T flip flop. I got so frustrated with it that I just used a block dispenser instead. I did try extending the pulse, which made the toggle work like 20% of the time. BD works every time though :)

[DaveYanakov]

I usually just end up using sticky pistons so that an actual block ratchets out to push the reeds into the water. It's a little more expensive but it allows more flexibility in where you put it which is key in HCB mode. It also ends up looking a little bit better to me.

[The Phoenixian]

Okay, I encountered this bug in my own world and it's a really weird one.

I also have a fix for it although I have no idea how or why it works or if it will work for you: Making the piston closest to the lens, and only that piston, extend and retract one torch delay before all the other pistons seems to have fixed it in my case.

(Note that the piston heads extend towards the south and the lens is at the west if it matters. Which I have no clue of.)

How or why I have no idea since I was working with a completely different buggy issue there.

[SterlingRed]

Dammit. Mojang! Get this shit together instead of making golden carrots!
Encountered this today when starting automation on my farms. Sticky pistons it is then.