The bug

If you eat an enchanted golden apple, use up all of your golden absorption hearts, and then try to get more gold hearts by eating a regular golden apple, the gold hearts from the regular golden apple will not be applied until after the duration of the absorption effect from the enchanted golden apple has run out. While the timer for the enchanted golden apple's absorption effect is ticking down, the timer for the regular golden apple's absorption effect is also ticking down, even though you do not currently have the gold hearts from the regular golden apple. This means that there is a severe delay between eating the regular golden apple and receiving the gold hearts, and that when you do finally receive the gold hearts, the duration is almost over.

To reproduce

1. Eat an enchanted golden apple.
2. Take damage to use up all of your gold hearts.
3. Eat a regular golden apple.
4. Observe that you don't have any gold hearts, even though you just ate a regular golden apple.
5. Open your inventory and watch the timer for Absorption IV (from the enchanted golden apple) tick down.
6. When it reaches 0:00, it is replaced by Absorption I, and you finally get the 2 gold hearts from the regular golden apple, but the duration of the Absorption I is almost over.

History

I tested this bug in 1.12.2, 1.13, 1.15.1, 1.15.2, and 1.16.3.

• In 1.12.2 (and presumably older versions), if you ate a regular golden apple after using up all of the gold hearts from an enchanted golden apple, it would (incorrectly) restore all 8 of the gold hearts from the enchanted golden apple. (This was the old version of MC-88694.)
• In versions 1.13 to 1.15.1, if you ate a regular golden apple after using up all of the gold hearts from an enchanted golden apple, the absorption from the regular golden apple was never applied at all. (This was the original version of this bug report.)
• In versions 1.15.2 to the present version, if you eat a regular golden apple after using up all of the gold hearts from an enchanted golden apple, the absorption from the regular golden apple is severely delayed and shortened. (This is the current version of this bug report.)

Extra information

• The change in this bug from 1.15.1 to 1.15.2 was likely caused by the fix of MC-1541.
• The underlying cause of the current version of this bug is MC-202432.
• This bug has an adverse impact on PVP and UHCs.