And with the first picture, maybe you were too fast for the repeater. Repeaters always have delay no matter what.
The redstone is not facing into the block, so the block is not powered, so the repeater is not powered.
It's never happend to me, but try placing a stair in the same direction of the stair on the other side of the broken stair on the other side and break it. Or maybe you just placed it in the wrong angle.
It is happening to me on 1.16 snapshot 20w21a, and i am not on peaceful mode. (If you are on peaceful mode, and you sucessfully summon the wither, you will see a blink for less than a second and then it will despawn.)