I think I may be having this problem as well. It seems to happen when a cat has its pathfinding towards a chest or bed interrupted; under some circumstances that I've had difficulty in reproducing, when a cat starts moving towards a chest or bed but I move far enough away before they assume their automatic-sitting behavior, they seem to become "stuck" in "sit on item" mode and unwilling to move away even with use of fish as should get them to move again. But as I said, I'm having trouble reproducing reliably; any advice on that would be appreciated.
The server I play on has been using 16w07b the past couple of days, and so far, server lag has not been present at any significant level that I have observed. (Server lag comparable to 1.8, only occurring when multiple resource-intensive tasks have been going on such as one player loading new chunks while another is near a massive redstone project and another is at an Enderman farm, and even then at rather minimal levels and nothing like it was for several snapshots.) If there are any specific situations that should be tested for, please let me know!
@Early Reflections
Water can work, if you plan around it from the start, but I find minecarts much easier (and worth the resources)... when they work, anyway.
Believe me, I feel your pain; I had just finished building (& laying track for) a villager trading hall when the server I play on updated to 15w45a.
Came here to report the same; tested using various entities, results are the same. Worked in 15w44b, doesn't work in 15w45a.
Tested in Minecraft 15w45a on Windows 8.1 using Java 1.8.0_25 64 bit.
Sorry FVbico, that's the most recent I have access to for multiplayer and figured some info is better than none. 😞
Appears to have happened on the server I play on running 15w42a, though I do not have enough access to provide further confirmation beyond knowing that the server reset a couple of times (regularly scheduled for performance) and it continued to work, but at some point since (roughly a day later) the villages appear to have merged based on observed iron golem spawn rates.
In regards to
@unknown added a comment - 02/Jun/18 9:26 AM
Couldn't the auto-refresh routine just use either the Profession or Career data to determine whether auto-refreshing should be initiated? If it isn't on the list of default, vanilla minecraft Professions or Careers, ignore any such routine.