Player interact cannot deny block use but allow place

Expected behavior

When in PlayerInteractEvent the following are set:

  event.setUseItemInHand(Event.Result.ALLOW);
  event.setUseInteractedBlock(Event.Result.DENY); 

You'd expect that using the block (eg: opening a chest, or flipping a trapdoor) is denied, but placing a block is still possible.

Observed/Actual behavior

No block placing is allowed anymore.

Steps/models to reproduce

Have a plugin with the following:

@EventHandler
public void onPlayerInteract(PlayerInteractEvent pie) {
  if (pie.getAction() != Action.RIGHT_CLICK_BLOCK) return;

  pie.setCancelled(false);
  pie.setUseItemInHand(Event.Result.ALLOW);
  pie.setUseInteractedBlock(Event.Result.DENY); 
}

Attempt to place any block.

Plugin and Datapack List

Not relevant, see above.

Paper version

1.21.11-127-main@bd74bf6 (2026-03-10T02:55:23Z)

Other

This used to work just fine in the past (eg: 1.8), and investigating the root cause of the issue seems to lead to this commit (1.20.5) as the original root cause of the issue:
https://hub.spigotmc.org/stash/projects/SPIGOT/repos/craftbukkit/commits/735b2d0d7f10bc3b3a816e103cc86af8cb1ec645#nms-patches%2Fnet%2Fminecraft%2Fserver%2Flevel%2FPlayerInteractManager.patch?t=316

Notice that prior to this diff, the code would enuminteractionresult = ... (and set the interaction result to PASS) but let the execution continue and the code below, as long as the previous interaction wasn't SUCCESS, would do the block placing. Since it now directly returns the PASS result, it will never attempt to place the block.

As of latest, the issue still resides in https://github.com/PaperMC/Paper/blob/main/paper-server/patches/sources/net/minecraft/server/level/ServerPlayerGameMode.java.patch#L384 .

A simple/minimal diff that fixes this issue is the following (note, it still has unneeded inventory resync logic so the item looks to do a jump in the inventory client-side, but the expected serverside behavior is correct):

diff --git a/net/minecraft/server/level/ServerPlayerGameMode.java b/net/minecraft/server/level/ServerPlayerGameMode.java
index 84d19d79e77cec6a5d64f59fbcce703e467b2407..87bb20f74716342e504c0cecfab616dc367818b3 100755
--- a/net/minecraft/server/level/ServerPlayerGameMode.java
+++ b/net/minecraft/server/level/ServerPlayerGameMode.java
@@ -526,7 +526,7 @@ public class ServerPlayerGameMode {
             }
             // Paper end - Fix inventory desync
             this.player.resyncUsingItem(this.player); // Paper - Properly cancel usable items
-            return (event.useItemInHand() != org.bukkit.event.Event.Result.ALLOW) ? InteractionResult.SUCCESS : InteractionResult.PASS;
+            if (event.useItemInHand() != org.bukkit.event.Event.Result.ALLOW) return InteractionResult.SUCCESS; // Paper - handle useInteractedBlock and useItemInHand separately
         } else if (this.gameModeForPlayer == GameType.SPECTATOR) {
             MenuProvider menuProvider = blockState.getMenuProvider(level, blockPos);
             if (menuProvider != null && player.openMenu(menuProvider).isPresent()) { // Paper - Fix InventoryOpenEvent cancellation
@@ -553,9 +553,10 @@ public class ServerPlayerGameMode {
                     }
                 }
             }
-
+        } {  // Paper - handle useInteractedBlock and useItemInHand separately
             if (!stack.isEmpty() && !this.interactResult) { // add !interactResult SPIGOT-764
                 UseOnContext useOnContext = new UseOnContext(player, hand, hitResult);
+                ItemStack itemStack = stack.copy(); // Paper - handle useInteractedBlock and useItemInHand separately
                 InteractionResult interactionResult1;
                 if (player.hasInfiniteMaterials()) {
                     int count = stack.getCount();

Start at paper-server/patches/sources/net/minecraft/server/level/ServerPlayerGameMode.java.patch around line 384 and trace the PlayerInteractEvent handling for useInteractedBlock and useItemInHand. Reproduce the provided plugin scenario, then verify that denying block use still permits block placement while block interactions remain denied.