I saw the same behavior in my little auto-farm. I created some farmland in the middle of nowhere, and spawned in some villagers to work it. The villagers didn't come from a village, and there was never a village in the area.
Ringing the bell causes all villagers to freeze forever, as above.
Reloading the game causes villagers to resume work.
Placing a bed then ringing the bell causes villagers to run toward the bed for some seconds, then resume work.
Deleting the bed then ringing the bell causes villagers to run around for some seconds, then resume work.
Interestingly, after I started writing this comment, I want back to the game and rang the bell, and the villagers froze permanently.
While they were frozen, I placed a bed, and they resume work.
I would guess the bell makes them panic, but without any place tagged "village" they can't find a place to run toward, so the AI hangs. Placing a bed causes the area to be tagged "village," allowing the AI to run. But I see the above pics are full of beds, so I dunno.
I used CurseForge to assemble Minecraft for Java 1.20.1 with Forge 47.3.0 and 4 mods.
wrzwicky
I saw the same behavior in my little auto-farm. I created some farmland in the middle of nowhere, and spawned in some villagers to work it. The villagers didn't come from a village, and there was never a village in the area.
Ringing the bell causes all villagers to freeze forever, as above.
Reloading the game causes villagers to resume work.
Placing a bed then ringing the bell causes villagers to run toward the bed for some seconds, then resume work.
Deleting the bed then ringing the bell causes villagers to run around for some seconds, then resume work.
Interestingly, after I started writing this comment, I want back to the game and rang the bell, and the villagers froze permanently.
While they were frozen, I placed a bed, and they resume work.
I would guess the bell makes them panic, but without any place tagged "village" they can't find a place to run toward, so the AI hangs. Placing a bed causes the area to be tagged "village," allowing the AI to run. But I see the above pics are full of beds, so I dunno.
I used CurseForge to assemble Minecraft for Java 1.20.1 with Forge 47.3.0 and 4 mods.