When a shulker bullet hits an entity, the explodes sound is not played and particles are not produced

I think works as intended becouse normally they don’t explode when hitting an entity, right? I think it normally explodes only when colliding with blocks

Can confirm.

@unknown, the Bedrock version of the shulker bullet will play an explodes sound when hitting the entity.

I can confirm this in 1.18.1.

Here's a code analysis of this issue. The following is based on a decompiled version of Minecraft 1.18.1 using MCP-Reborn. 

Code Analysis:

net.minecraft.world.entity.projectile.ShulkerBullet.java

public class ShulkerBullet extends Projectile {
   ...
   protected void onHitEntity(EntityHitResult $ehr) {
      super.onHitEntity($ehr);
      Entity entity = $ehr.getEntity();
      Entity entity1 = this.getOwner();
      LivingEntity livingentity = entity1 instanceof LivingEntity ? (LivingEntity)entity1 : null;
      boolean flag = entity.hurt(DamageSource.indirectMobAttack(this, livingentity).setProjectile(), 4.0F);
      if (flag) {
         this.doEnchantDamageEffects(livingentity, entity);
         if (entity instanceof LivingEntity) {
            ((LivingEntity)entity).addEffect(new MobEffectInstance(MobEffects.LEVITATION, 200), MoreObjects.firstNonNull(entity1, this));
         }
      }

   }
   ...

If we look at the above class, we can see that no sound or particles are produced when a shulker bullet hits an entity, unlike hitting a block.

Potential Fix (tentative):

Simply adding some lines of code that will play a sound and produce some explosion particles when a shulker bullet hits an entity, should resolve this problem. The following lines of code could be used in order to fix this:

((ServerLevel)this.level).sendParticles(ParticleTypes.EXPLOSION, this.getX(), this.getY(), this.getZ(), 2, 0.2D, 0.2D, 0.2D, 0.0D);

this.playSound(SoundEvents.SHULKER_BULLET_HIT, 1.0F, 1.0F);

The correct piece of code within its class should look something like the following:

net.minecraft.world.entity.projectile.ShulkerBullet.java

public class ShulkerBullet extends Projectile {
   ...
   protected void onHitEntity(EntityHitResult $ehr) {
      super.onHitEntity($ehr);
      ((ServerLevel)this.level).sendParticles(ParticleTypes.EXPLOSION, this.getX(), this.getY(), this.getZ(), 2, 0.2D, 0.2D, 0.2D, 0.0D);
      this.playSound(SoundEvents.SHULKER_BULLET_HIT, 1.0F, 1.0F);
      Entity entity = $ehr.getEntity();
      Entity entity1 = this.getOwner();
      LivingEntity livingentity = entity1 instanceof LivingEntity ? (LivingEntity)entity1 : null;
      boolean flag = entity.hurt(DamageSource.indirectMobAttack(this, livingentity).setProjectile(), 4.0F);
      if (flag) {
         this.doEnchantDamageEffects(livingentity, entity);
         if (entity instanceof LivingEntity) {
            ((LivingEntity)entity).addEffect(new MobEffectInstance(MobEffects.LEVITATION, 200), MoreObjects.firstNonNull(entity1, this));
         }
      }

   }
   ...

Can confirm in 1.18.2.

In 24w37a