I've had problems in less populated areas of multi-player servers. I'll load my furnaces, log off, and come back hours later to no progress. I've been told this is because the chunks aren't loaded. Why not make a program that will keep chunks with active furnaces loaded until they run out of fuel or items to smelt? This would especially help smaller servers where there isn't always someone online all around, and people still want to log in to finished furnaces. It doesn't seem like it would be too hard to make. Just check each chunk that was active last cycle for active furnaces and if there are any force those blocks to remain active again regardless of whether a person is near it. A similar thing was done with minecrats in this thread, so the API does support it. I'll give whoever makes this plugin one snickers, 3 cookies, and a cake. That's quite a reward, and I'm sure someone will want to do this. Thank you for considering my idea.
Yes. I looked at the plugin list and there's no plugin for it. I'm also sure that chunks get unloaded if a player is not within 150 blocks of them. There's a large server I'm on using bukkit and that's what all the devs there say. You can try it. Just load a furnace and log off. Log in later to see the progress, or lack of it.
use this plugin and keep a cart on you chunk with the furnaces: http://forums.bukkit.org/threads/mech-evercart-v1-0-storage-minecarts-load-chunks-617-670-674.11460/
I've actually been asked about making a plugin to let an admin or people with the right permissions to use a command and keep a chunk loaded so crops can grow, furnaces will still work, etc. I'm a bit behind with some other stuff, but I do plan on making it once I get the chance.
That may work. It may just be that the server I'm on disposes of chunks because they're so big. Maybe they have a plugin for it.
