Entities standing on mud or soul sand next to lava are set on fire and take damage

The catch fire -check is, iirc, dependent on whether the player's bounding box (slightly reduced in size, even) contains lava or flowing lava block (instead of e.g. checking the exact block the center of feet is in). And indeed, with less than full height block, the bottom of the box could slip into the neighboring lava block. (I may have it slightly wrong due to the spaghetti-coding between Entity, EntityLiving, EntityPlayer etc. and their update/movement related methods.)

Catching fire in that way makes sense in most cases, for me at least. In fact, real lava can ignite some things even when it is not even touching (the heat radiated and via hot air can be enough).

(Edit: coming to think of it, what I do not find to make sense is that I wouldn't lift my foot enough to not be in the lava.. but if we continue in this direction, we should also prevent (by default) walking over edges (and fall), or going closer than several meters of any lava, ..., or heck, even leaving a house if it is dark outside.)

I added a screenshot that shows how the player is actually in the lava.

Although its working as intended, because the player is supposed to be lower than the lava, therefor on fire, it may be something to be fixed.

Ah, that screenshot is good one. It shows two things: soulsand looks like full block, but makes the player to actually be lower, and lava looks slightly lower height, but burning effect probably continues to full size. Totally misleading.

Standing next to a lava flow in real life will melt your shoes, if not set your legs on fire. You don't have to touch it, just get close to it. Then again, lava also tends to be significantly more viscous and denser than water, so you wouldn't sink in it either. Minecraft gets this wrong, just like virtually every other game, or fictional portrayal. However, fire can set various flammable blocks on fire at a distance in Minecraft, showing that they're not entirely unaware of the concept.

In real life dirt can't fly.

Torabi, slight detail for sinking in lava. In real life, one would sink a bit into lava (but not fully); its density is around 3x that of human, so after about 1/3rd of body volume is in there (legs? if one can keep upright) the forces will balance - for a while, until matter burns away and flows away into the hot stuff, so the sinking continues slowly... Though one would probably die to other effects faster than sinking fully in.

True enough, it is impossible to dive into it (without twice of one's own mass as extra weight), even if one wouldn't burn. But hey, in Minecraft, who isn't running around with at least 64 cubic meters of solid rock in your pocket! That means sinking "like a rock" (pun intended), as the combined average density being roughly hundred times denser than that of lava's (molten rock). (Adjust by the amount of rock carried and estimated volume it is squeezed into).

Ezekiel: Ask the boys: dirt does fly. It is more about how much, how far, did it hit and did you get away.

My point is that there's no clear basis on which to call this a bug. Both the behavior expected by the reporter and the game's behavior are unrealistic. However, the game's behavior is also consistent, in that the player is inside the lava's block (visually, and as per the coordinates), and thus is set on fire.

I'd say that because the block looks like a full block, it should behave like a full block by lava as one would normally expect. Ignoring the physical fact that you are sinking, perhaps it can be made only as a visual change? The sinking only seems to serve as a visual effect, there would be no significant gameplay change that would result from the player physically sinking or not, aside from a few possible bugs in the code.

Its quite intended. The 7/8 of a block is physical, not just visual, which is the reason why one way walkways are possible, as well as sneaking into the fire while on that block. Also, its Minecraft! Physics ARE supposed to be "demented" or just "different" from Earth.

I think that it's working as designed but may need tweaking.

Is this still a concern in the current Minecraft version 1.6.4 / Launcher version 1.2.5 ? If so, please update the affected versions in order to best aid Mojang ensuring bugs are still valid in the latest releases/pre-releases.

Affects 1.6.4.

I would like to request ownership of this report

How has this not been marked as WAI yet? Soul sand is lower down, so as soon as you intersect with the full lava-block–>fire. Isn't it the same with pathblocks, farm land and snow layers?

@unknown, this report was previously flagged for review, and the developers verified it, so it is not WAI.
It has also been assigned a "Mojang Priority", which is another indicator that it will be worked on.

Can confirm in 20w48a.

Can confirm in 20w49a.

Can confirm in 21w03a.

Can confirm in 21w05a.

Can confirm in 21w05b.

Can confirm in 21w06a.

Can confirm in 21w07a.

Can confirm in 21w11a.

Can confirm in 21w14a.

Can confirm in 21w15a.

Can confirm in 21w17a.

Can confirm in 1.16.5 and 21w18a.

Can confirm in 1.17-pre1.

Can confirm in 1.17.

Can confirm in 1.17.1.

This is probably intentional, because soul sand has a smaller block collision box your player is technically inside the lava. Same aplies when walking on chests, honey blocks, path blocks, ender chests, etc

Probably not intentional, per se, but more like expected result of certain game rules.  The "bug" here is more about the mismatch between how things look and how they behave. Take a look at the example image and read my two old comments; soul sand at least looked full height, while lava looks slightly less than full height, yet their physical effects work as if their heights were reversed 😛

Can confirm in 1.18.1

Can confirm in 1.18.2.

Can confirm in 21w11a. This same concept also now applies to mud.

Can confirm in 22w14a. It's important to note that this issue can be seen with all entities and isn't just exclusive to the player.

Can confirm in 1.19.

This is caused by some blocks not having a hitbox 1.0 blocks tall. Any block that has a hitbox shorter than 0.9 blocks causes this problem because fluid source hitboxes are bigger than 0.9 blocks. infact cou can easily test this by just using the "F3" menu

@Hubbit GamingTV  Correct!  As already figured out in 2012 and described in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th comments of this ticket.

Can confirm in 1.19.1.

Can confirm in 1.19.2.

Can confirm in 23w04a