This crash occurs when 32 or more pistons retract in a single chunk. To reproduce the crash you can use the linked world. Just walk on the pressure plates twice. On closing the door the game crashes.
World download: http://www.mediafire.com/file/qy93ac93thos4k3/Fastest+4x4+%281_8+%29%282%29.zip
(World by DicoTheRedstoner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euLCroOrAvU)
Description: Ticking entity
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Cannot set property ats{name=extended, clazz=class java.lang.Boolean, values=[true, false]} as it does not exist in ath{block=minecraft:air, properties=[]}
at ath$a.a(SourceFile:176)
at ata.a(SourceFile:291)
at asz.a(SourceFile:152)
at ath$a.a(SourceFile:388)
at ajn.a(SourceFile:1009)
at sk.d(SourceFile:580)
at bpn.d(SourceFile:866)
at st.g(SourceFile:1570)
at aau.g(SourceFile:1546)
at st.n(SourceFile:1855)
at aau.n(SourceFile:515)
at bpn.n(SourceFile:823)
at st.A_(SourceFile:1688)
at aau.A_(SourceFile:270)
at bpn.A_(SourceFile:184)
at ajn.a(SourceFile:1533)
at ajn.g(SourceFile:1511)
at ajn.k(SourceFile:1394)
at ben.t(SourceFile:1649)
at ben.av(SourceFile:967)
at ben.a(SourceFile:395)
at net.minecraft.client.main.Main.main(SourceFile:124)
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Confirmed. I have a world that uses a decent amount of pistons as this does. I've removed redstone until the world no longer crashes, and when adding just 1 redstone (dust, repeater, comparator) that gets updated, not even powered, the world cashes. My last crash killed the world. Restore time...
http://imgur.com/MsTwOXB
Adding the repeater at the crosshair in the center of this picture, then activating the machine, the world crashes. Redstone wire has been removed where shown in an attempt to isolate.

A Redstoner called Robobrine sent me his missile factory that contains also pistons.
In 16w40a it crashes, in the previous 1.11 snapshots it doesn't.
If you relog into the world after the crash, you'll continue to crash.
Crash log attached, untouched/not-yet-crashed worldsave also attached.
Steps to reproduce the crash
Simply open up the world in 16w40a and hit the button to the very left, wait for a few seconds.

Might relate to MC-107543, the title is misleading but it tried to get there a property of an air block whereas here it tries to set one.

I've noticed that while I can trigger 48 pistons without a crash, triggering 22 sticky pistons with blocks does. Added screenshot and world download (16w40a Crash Test) as attachments.

Turns out, the bug is very easy to recreate from scratch. It turns out, that if you simply build a grand wall of around 70 or so pistons and power them all, the client will crash, when you unpower them. If you wanna recreate this bug, you can download the attachment ("Piston Crash Demo") and flick the lever, to turn off all the pistons. If the bug does not appear, you can add more pistons to stress the packets even more.
There can be multiple reasons for this, but from my perspective, I'd say that the pistons are simply creating so many packets, that the client get's out of sync with the server. When this happens, the tileentity might not have been deleted or the block might not have been set before the next gametick. This will cause the tile-entity to look at a blockstate on an airblock rather than the actual moving tile (as it's not been updated on the client yet).

I have done some testing and concluded that this is chunk based. The bug is only caused when 32 or more pistons retract at the same time in the same chunk. So you can have as many pistons retracting as you want as long as there is less than 32 per chunk.
Updated ticket with new information, thanks!

I'm pretty sure this has popped up again in the 1.13 snapshots
08:18:12 bmz Client thread fatal Reported exception thrown!
f: Ticking block entity
at aqt.k(SourceFile:1478)
at bmz.m(SourceFile:1253)
at bmz.b(SourceFile:791)
at bmz.a(SourceFile:380)
at net.minecraft.client.main.Main.main(SourceFile:140)
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
at bav.j(SourceFile:97)
at bav.f(SourceFile:108)
at bav.P_(SourceFile:317)
at aqt.k(SourceFile:1470)
... 4 more

I been able to reproduce this bug in 17w49b using 64 pistons or more in a chunk. I cannot get this to happen every time the pistons retract though. Sometimes of the first try, some on the 7th, etc.
While the conditions of the crash that is recently occurring in the snapshots are quite similar, it is now a NullPointerException rather than an IllegalArgumentException.
The new bug is tracked in this ticket: MC-123304