Salem

I built a fireplace last night, and today I went to add some branches, then used a tinder drill on it (Torch was refusing to work) and my guy blew on it, but even after having loaded it fully it's not lit.

it doesn't help that when I go to cook things on it it claims that I'm not using a fire, when in fact I've lit it, put branches in it, etc.

I've even tried making a pile of wood, and it still failed to light, yet I can't use another tinder drill on it.

Are you right clicking on the lit fireplace or pile of wood before trying to cook something (it needs to be your active target for the commands to work). This same thing applies to stuff like workbenches for whittling (you need to right click on it before trying a recipe that uses it).

Yes I am.

The problem is it's lit.
But it's not.

It doesn't appear lit, and I can't use any tinder drills on it anymore, nor can I use a torch.

Yet I was able to use one earlier, which that tinder drill had reached 100%.

Did you figure this out? I have the same issue...

fireplace becomes a kind of oven after some time burning... you can right click it and put stuff inside for cooking special recipes: http://salemwiki.info/index.php/Fireplace

for simple fire it's better just to make a pile of wood: http://salemwiki.info/index.php/Pile_of_Wood

also remember that you can lit a torch on a fire and lit a fire with a torch(http://salemwiki.info/index.php/Torch)... so you won't ever need to use a tinder drill again, just remember to lit the torch before the pile of wood vanishes(around 40min??)... you can use Ender's client timers to remember you when the fire is about to vanish...

Well, I may have overseen something, but this doesn't solve my issue in this case.
I simply can't light the fireplace (neither by using a tinder nor by using a torch).
Left-clicking on the tinder / torch and right-clicking on the fireplace appears not to work (nothing happens).

try right-clicking at the border, around those stones

I have a follow-up question regarding fires and tinder drills.
Is there a way to increase the success rate of using tinder drills? So far I seem to have a success rate of 1/5 or 1/6. It's getting quite annoying that my tinder drills break as early as 20% through lighting a torch/fire.

tinder drill is annoying but you shouldn't be using more than once, since you can use the pile of wood as a flame "storage"... get a torch and right click the fire to recover the flame

I seem to have a much better success right lighting stuff with a tinder drill if my phlegm is full.