Sometimes, when going through a nether portal (either to the Nether or to the Overworld), the game will get stuck on the loading screen. While it is stuck, you can hear your character taking suffocation damage and eventually stop (die), but still, the game never loads. You can wait as long as you like; nothing happens, you’re still stuck on the purple Generating World loading screen. So then you force exit the game and come back in, but your stuff is nowhere to be found, neither in the Nether nor in the Overworld, even if it’s only been 30 seconds since you died.

The first time I saw this happen, it happened to a player going from the Overworld to the Nether with me. I made it through the portal to the Nether just fine, but he was eating when he went through, and he never came through the other side—however, I heard him suffocating and saw some white death particles drift up from the side of the portal after the suffocation noises stopped. His things—diamond gear, elytra, etc—never appeared.

This glitch has since happened to that same guy at least three times (most times he was not eating), me personally once (while I was eating), and two other server members once each (but neither of them were eating). It is quite frustrating, because there is no way to avoid or escape it and no way to recover your things once it happens.