Sydney Layne

Update:  After observing the naturally spawned iron golem for a decent while, I never saw it run away. So I reckon Dcn was right about how only naturally spawned iron golems patrol their villages.

Somehow though, I don't think that is supposed to be a feature. I read on the Wiki that ALL iron golems are supposed to patrol villages, not only naturally spawned golems. I'm pretty sure that by now, the wiki would've been mostly updated to 1.14, so I assume its info is valid. 

Ive just found a naturally spawned iron golem, and he is exhibiting the same erratic behaviour as other iron golems, though he hasn't ran away from the village yet. I'll keep a close eye on him when I've got time, as it usually takes them 15-30 minutes to wander away from a village.

However, even if this isn't a bug but rather a feature where iron golems only patrol villages they are naturally spawned in, then I'd say it's a bad feature. It takes away from an Iron Golem's original purpose if the only way you can get them to guard a village is by chaining them to a fence post. 

As for villagers running away, I haven't experienced that problem so much here on android. However I have seen oddities in their AI, though I'll save that for another post.

I've been wondering, has anyone experienced something similar to this, or been able to reproduce this bug? 

Or is this a local, isolated bug?

The bells ring correctly, and villagers do respond to them. All of the villages this happens in do seem to be recognized as true villages. I used the locate command to find a village, it takes me to that village. 

Bad Omen effects also cause raids when I enter these villages, so they are true legitimate villages. 

The problem seems based in the Iron Golems AI. I don't recall this being a problem before the release of 1.11, "Village and Pillage." Perhaps the Iron Golems weren't correctly updated to recognize the new villages.   

I thought that too, but it turns out the presence of a bell doesn't make any difference in this situation. I tested this both with and without bells present in the village, and the iron golem always ran away. 

In fact, in those pictures I posted there is a bell present at the house, though it was obstructed from view. This seems to happen in every village of mine, and these villages do meet the parameters of at least 1 villager, 1 workstation, 1 bed, and 1 bell. Iron golems have even ran away from villages with around 14 villagers and 2 bells present. 

I've just added a picture of the aforementioned village, notice how I've leashed the iron golems to fence posts to keep them from running away.