The bug
Prior to 1.12 burning arrows or fire charges hitting a TNT minecart would cause it to immediately blow up however in 1.12 burning arrows continue to immediately destroy minecart TNT but fire charges only ignite the TNT in the minecart.
Side note
This behavior changed as of 1.12-pre6, at the same time MC-116669 was solved.
Code analysis
Based on 1.12 decompiled using MCP 9.40 PRE 1
The method net.minecraft.entity.item.EntityMinecartTNT.attackEntityFrom(DamageSource, float)
now only explodes the minecart directly if it was damaged by a burning arrow. In all other situations it is only ignited.
Linked issues
Comments 14
Affects 20w29a. I would like to request ownership of this report since the reporter hasn't been active since 2018
Can confirm for MC 1.12.1.