To reproduce:
Place furnace and smelt at least one item in it
Break the furnace with a pickaxe or explode it or use `/fill … destroy` or whatever
Result: Contained items drop, but not the stored XP.
Anecdote: I have smelted cobblestone in a furnace for about a month of in-game time and a creeper just blew up the furnace, destroying all the XP inside. 😞
Comments 4
Thank you for your report!
We're actually already tracking this issue in MC-1601, so I resolved and linked this ticket as a duplicate.
However, that ticket has already been resolved as Fixed. The fix will arrive in the next version or is already included in the latest development version of the game.
If you haven't already, you might like to make use of the search feature in the future to see if the issue has already been reported.
Quick Links:
📓 Issue Guidelines – 💬 Community Support – 📧 Customer Support – ✍️ Feedback and Suggestions – 📖 Game Wiki
Its already been fixed in the new snapshots I think.