Villagers don't attempt to find job sites

How far apart are the villages you are working with?
If you break the job block the villager should be linked to, do any villagers get angry particles?
Are there job blocks for all of the villagers in the village?

Quite far, several hundred blocks at least. There are no blocks of interest, such as job sites and beds, that link these villages together. I understand village mechanics. Job blocks are available and easily accessible to villagers. They're not nitwits.

There are no angry particles or green particles at all (except during mingling time where they try to link to bells), they don't attempt to find new job sites, and behave similarly to unemployed villagers, even though I provided beds and available job sites close to them.

Update: New village at 40+ villagers now. It seems that after several Minecraft weeks, my Chemists finally started working as intended. Same goes for the Librarian. But another Librarian with similar origins lost their job and behave like unemployed villagers again. And a new Librarian I moved here has this same issue again. This issue can last for several Minecraft weeks.

I'm not sure what's causing this issue. For some villagers, they seemingly just gave up searching for job sites. Maybe they didn't unlink properly from their previous sites, but I'm unsure. I'm not certain what fixed this issue either.

Update 2: The Librarian that stopped working finally linked to a lectern, after several Minecraft weeks. I decided to break the lectern, and smoke particles came out, but when I placed another lectern, they don't have green particles. Again, they just wander around aimlessly, sometimes interacting with bookshelves, but never attempt to find new job sites. It might take many more days before they decide to find job sites again

Update 3: Got a farmer and stone mason from another village. The farmer is working as intended, and even if I break his job site, he'll immediately try to seek another. But not the stone mason. Again, they'd wander around aimlessly, and it takes a lot of time before they decide to find a job site. I sure wish that they'd just take the job site that I put right next to them.

Update 4: I figured out what fixed the issue. Strangely, if I save and quit while being close to the villager who wanders around aimlessly, restart the app and play again, that villager will seek and work on job sites. But again, if I break that job site and place a new one, that villager will behave like unemployed villagers again, wandering aimlessly. This might go on until I decide to restart the app again.

Not all villagers have this behavior. The new farmer I got is working 100% as intended, constantly seeking new job sites if they get unlinked. Could it be because of the village's large size? It seems that so far, only the newer villagers I brought from far away have this issue.

Thank you for your report!

However, this issue has been temporarily closed as Awaiting Response.

Is this still an issue in the latest version? If yes, can you please add it to the affected versions (or mention it if you are not the reporter)?

This ticket will automatically reopen when you reply.

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I've been playing 1.17.30, and the issue still persists. I got a butcher and shepherd from another village, zombie cure them 5x, and took them to my big village using boats. I gave them beds and job sites. They took the beds, but they ignore the job sites forever, behaving similarly to unemployed villagers. If I save & quit near them, and then load my save file, they'll immediately start working.

Four of my old 1.15 farmers stopped working entirely, possibly because they disconnected from their job sites at one point, they haven't been working for a very long time. These guys can't be fixed by restarting the app. I've also been trying to break inaccessible composters, to try to unlink them should they take it, but it's not working. They never took the nearby available composters no matter what. There's no angry and green particles at all. These guys are currently the only ones I'm having trouble with, as for the other 47 villagers in my village, the restarting trick works well.

I think villagers should try to link to the closest available job site appropriate for their job, and if they haven't been working, this check should happen more often (but not so much that it causes lag). Don't let them steal taken job sites, though!

For reference, it is intended that villagers do not necessarily link to the nearest workstation: MCPE-45270.

Villagers do search for new POI blocks constantly. When they find them, they add them to a list for the village, and then the village links the next available villager in its dwellers list to the next POI (workstations to profession-locked villagers only if they match, of course). There is a limit to the found & unlinked POI list though. Does MCPE-79433 explain what’s happening in your world?

Could you provide a copy of the affected world? You may upload it to a file sharing site and post the link here.

I know, MCPE-45270 is working as intended, though I'm hoping that villagers would just try to grab the available job site that is right next to them, it'll solve a lot of headache! Or perhaps an item that lets you manually link each villager to a point of interest.

MCPE-79433 might be similar to my issue. I do have a big village with lots of unlinked job sites like barrels lying around, although they're spread apart and not packed in a small area. Will reloading the game fix the issue in MCPE-79433? I think you can reopen that ticket, it might be related to what I'm experiencing on 1.17.30 at the moment. Although, the four farmers I mentioned might have another problem entirely. Once they fixed zombie villager zombification on hard mode, I could safely try to zombify and cure these farmers, to see if that'll "restart" their AI.

I have 51 villagers in a big town, 47 of which are working after restarting app. I estimate that the town is about 240 x 240 blocks wide, with about 100 job site blocks scattered about, trying to stitch the entire village together with job sites and beds.

The butcher and shepherd I mentioned does not have angry particles nor green particles, they never try to link to a job site, unless I restart the app. Also, I'd rather not share this private world, sorry about this.

Thank your for the additional detail. I've reconfirmed MCPE-79433 in 1.17.32 and I am 100% sure that's your issue. Sorry it took so long to figure out. The unlinked job site block list can only hold 32 entries, so with 100 job site blocks around and only 51 villagers to use them, your village will not be able to record all of the unused ones. The reason some villagers link when you reload is that the village's list of unlinked POI gets remade every time you reload the world, and the blocks that get found first will vary randomly. If you start breaking the job site blocks that you aren't using, your stuck villagers should start linking again. Keep in mind that a job site block must been with 16 blocks horizontal and 4 vertical of a villager to be found and added to the village's list.