Six-sided Piston

{
 "title": "Six-sided Piston",
 "rows": [
 {
 "field": "Yes",
 "label": "(link to Renewable resource article, displayed as Renewable)"
 },
 {
 "field": "Any tool",
 "label": "Tool"
 },
 {
 "field": "0.5",
 "label": "(link to Explosion#Blast resistance article, displayed as Blast resistance)"
 },
 {
 "field": "1.5",
 "label": "(link to Breaking#Blocks by hardness article, displayed as Hardness)"
 },
 {
 "field": "No",
 "label": "(link to Light article, displayed as Luminous)"
 },
 {
 "field": "No",
 "label": "(link to Opacity article, displayed as Transparent)"
 },
 {
 "field": "No",
 "label": "(link to Flammable article, displayed as Flammable)"
 },
 {
 "field": "No",
 "label": "Catches fire<br>from (link to lava article, displayed as lava)"
 },
 {
 "field": "Default (Harp)",
 "label": "(link to Note Block#Instruments article, displayed as Note block instrument)"
 }
 ],
 "invimages": [],
 "images": [
 "Piston (no direction) JE1.png",
 "Sticky Piston (no direction).png",
 "Piston (no direction) BE2.png"
 ]
}

A six-sided piston was an extreme metadata variant of the piston. It could be used as update suppression agents.

Six-sided pistons can be broken in the same way normal pistons can. They cannot be obtained as an item, instead dropping normal pistons.

Six-sided pistons of metadata value 7 could be created if a placed piston updates a BUD-powered piston, such that it pushes or pulls the placed piston.

Multiple block transmutation methods can be used to create Six-sided Pistons in Java Edition. From Beta 1.7.2 to Beta 1.9 Prerelease 5, Six-sided Pistons can be created using moving piston merge transmutation, from Beta 1.7.3 to 1.2.3, can be created using water transmutation, and from 13w36a-1 to 1.7.5 and 14w02a to 14w11b, can be created using arrow transmutation.

Six-sided pistons can be obtainable using the /setblock and /fill command. (e.g /setblock ~ ~ ~ piston (or sticky_piston) metadata value beyond 6)​^{[more information needed]}

When powered, six-sided pistons of metadata 6 immediately crash the game. This game crash happens so quick that block updates are not processed correctly, and this can allow for otherwise-impossible arrangements of blocks to be achieved.

Every time the six-sided pistons is updated while receiving power, the game crashes again, so having it be in a position where it receives constant updates is not recommended due to effectively softlocking the world. Depowering the six-sided pistons should make it safe again. This has a possibility of corrupting singleplayer worlds, and it is much safer to perform this on a hosted server.

Analysis of the behavior of metadata 6 six-sided pistons using 1.7 releases and 1.8 snapshots suggests that they remain at data value 6 permanently, even upon loading a world, as opposed to converting to data value 14 - if they do indeed convert, this conversion is not saved.

Six-sided Pistons effectively were issues themselves, due to resulting from a quirk of block metadata handling at the time. As they have since been removed with several reworkings of block metadata, they can be considered already fixed.