Minecraft is no stranger to beta updates and releases. The game spent the first several years of its development progressing through an alpha and then a beta. Additionally, Minecraft has received dozens, if not hundreds, of beta updates and snapshots of major fan-favorite updates in the decade since its release.
Minecraft 1.21 is no exception to this rule, having received several snapshots. The most recent of these was snapshot 24w09a, which contained major UI changes and the replacement of the NBT item tag.
This snapshot also came with a plethora of bug fixes, the five most important of which are detailed below.
Minecraft snapshot 24w09a's best 5 bug fixes
1) Unscutable Baby Armadillos
Bug Fixed: MC-268778: Baby armadillos shouldn't drop scutes when brushed.
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This bug arrived with the newly introduced Minecraft armadillo mob, more specifically with baby armadillos. When first introduced to Java experimental, they could be brushed to get scutes, but this was not the case in Bedrock experimental. As it turns out, being able to brush baby armadillos in Java was a bug, so this fix removed that ability.
This bug fix is more focused on immersion, as baby animals in the game are not supposed to be harvestable, so it would have been strange if armadillos were released as an exception.
2) Unstackable Named Items
Bug Fixed: MC-267451: Items named with an anvil on 1.20.4 don't stack with items named prior.
This is a very strange bug. MC-267451 prevented players from combining stacks of the same item with the same anvil-changed name if they were renamed before and after update 1.20.4.
While not the largest of bugs to have been fixed, what makes it so important is just how hard it can be to diagnose this problem. Without knowing there is a specific issue with item stacking between items named before and after version 1.20.4, there would be no way to determine why this happened.
This bug could have also broken many advanced redstone contraptions that rely on renamed items.
3) Persistent Wind Charges
Bug Fixed: MC-268350: Wind Charges never despawn.
This bug relates to the newly added wind charge item that drops from the latest breeze elemental. When thrown by players, they will collide with a block or entity and explode. However, if they miss all targets, they would not despawn, unlike other flying entities such as fireballs, which naturally vanish after traveling a certain distance in the air.
This may not seem like a huge bug to have fixed, but it is. It would cause any wind charge that was thrown into the sky to never despawn, constantly taking up a precious entity in the entity limit. This also means that too many wind charge shenanigans could bring any of Minecraft's best multiplayer servers to their knees, as the entities would never despawn.
4) Wind Charge Fall Cancelling
Bug Fixed: MC-268710: The fall damage reduction for the Wind Charge is not working.
MC-268710 was first reported after Minecraft snapshots added Wind Charges. Under normal circumstances, Wind Charges can be used before hitting the ground to remove all fall damage. These charges have many other potential movement uses, but this fall damage canceling effect was not working correctly, resulting in players incurring damage.
Thankfully, this bug has been fixed, meaning wind charges can now be used to fall cancel.
5) Inventory Lag
Bug Fixed: MC-259284: Severe performance issues with inventories containing lots of data.
This is by far the most important bug that Mojang has fixed. MC-259284 was related to an issue where having an inventory containing too many different shulker boxes filled with various items would have a negative impact on the game's overall performance.
With this major bug fixed, it does not matter how many filled shulker boxes and uniquely named items players carry around, it will have no noticeable impact on performance. This is great news for builders and explorers alike.
