Water stream push force too small

I play Minecraft 1.14.4 vanilla on a server I host for a few friends and family. Server version is 1.14.4 as I confirmed from the server log:

Starting minecraft server version 1.14.4

I am in the process of building an ice farm that makes use of water streams that transport the player along a horizontal route.

As water push strength got reduced in 1.13, each segment of the water stream is 5 blocks long and has ice below it. However, the force is still not strong enough to keep the player moving.

I built the same setup in my local creative test world. Strangely, in this world the water streams work fine. I disabled all datapacks that were in use to ensure that they do not create the issue.

I verified that the issue is related to the world itself, not to the multiplayer aspect, by downloading the world save and testing locally. The issue persists. I also tried switching to creative which does not make a difference. Further, I tried multiple locations within the world - all to no avail. There seems to be some issue with the world save itself - I am at a loss.

The world itself was created in version 1.13.2 and later, with the release of 1.14.4 converted to the recent format.

This is my test setup that works fine: As you can see, I tried with different types of ice below the water. They all work as expected. I also tried them as a single block width channel which worked fine.

This is the setup on the server which does not work: For debugging purposes I also tried reducing the length of the waterstream to two blocks - to no avail. Travelling speed is as slow the entire time as it would usually be on the last few blocks. Am I missing something here?

After more debugging, the issue seems to berelated to the level.dat file. This is how I tested it:

1. Create a new world
2. Replace the level.dat
3. build a water stream

The level.dat I used can be found here.

Note: To clarify: The player shall be moved by itself, there are no boats inplay here - see the video above for an example.

After more debugging, the issue seems to berelated to the level.dat file. This is how tested it:

1. Create a new world
2. Replace the level.dat
3. build a water stream

Doing the above copies your armor. Take off your Depth Strider III boots. They are the issue.

I copied the .dat file and on reload my character was in a different spot, had differnet equipment on, and the inventory was differnet. So I looked at the boots, saw the enchantment, and took them off. Then my water stream test worked just fine.