In T119672#1497278, @Geez wrote:

Hello Flimflamm and thank you for the report.
By persistence, do you mean the actual persistence upon server restart or do you mean the fireplace lifetime? (The time upon which the fireplace despawns when player is not nearby)
Regards,
Geez

7/23/2015 update

Same functionality issues with the barrel. The liquid cannot be emptied.

Trying to tan animal pelts with garden lime in the barrel makes both the lime and the pelt disappear after waiting for a few minutes for the process to complete.

7/22/2015 update

Exp version 58.128787

The barrel begins the process of tanning pelts, but after the minute or so of waiting ends the contents disappear.

Liquid still cannot be emptied or added to barrels. Each barrel spawns with a random amount of unknown liquid in them and nothing can be done about this.

I'm guessing that the barrel needs bug-fixes to account for network lag at various points in the processes of barrel functions...

7/17/2015 update

Exp version 58.128761

Just found a barrel and now I cannot even put items into it, nor can I empty liquid from it.

Has this issue been addressed in another report? I could not find it.

I just wish we could get some specific info. I want to test out the barrel but don't even know where it might spawn, if at all.

My guess is that respawning does not work properly... You can probably kill them when the server is fresh but beyond that they seem universally scarce.