I never made it past Carnival Night Zone

Ever since Sonic 3 came out, I never made it past Carnival Night Zone. I'm not sure which act, but I always got trapped at some point and would have to reset the game. I don't think it was a glitch, I just got stuck at some point. It happened back in the day on the Genesis console and even now when I attempt the game using an emulator.

Did this happen to anyone else? I'm a pretty capable gamer, but I never could get past this one part. It seemed that all paths led to this little trap room and there was no way out.

How do I get out?

I think you're talking about the room with the red-and-white diamond barrel in Act 2 where you have to get the barrel low enough in order to progress to the next area. What I thought you needed to do was to jump up and down and time it properly in order to push the barrel down low enough.

This is the wrong method!

What you need to do is merely alternate pressing up and down on the directional pad in order to get the barrel to move, no jumping required. You can see a youtube video of this process here:

Do not feel alone! Pretty much everyone I talked to made this mistake as a young gamer. I never completed it either. I did get past the barrel twice I think, but by then I'd come so close to the 10 minute mark that I ran out of time before the end of the level. I didn't find out how to do this until talking with some friends a couple years ago. The answer eluded me for well over 10 years.