Searge, one of the development team working on the PC version of Minecraft, has recently revealed why they had to remove a feature in the 1.8.6 update.
After it was revealed last week that Minecraft had a server security flaw, Mojang have been hard at work to fix the exploit. They rushed out a patch, version 1.8.5, which fixed a number of issues however it seems the exploit was not fully removed. With the release of version 1.8.6 the team are now confident the exploit, which allowed gamers to give themselves OP status on any server, has been dealt with.
Unfortunately, fixing the exploit has come at a cost. Mojang have had to remove a feature which was “related to command blocks and dispensers.” Adding that “maps that rely on it need to be changed to work again.” Searge revealed on the social networking website Twitter, “for the security fix in 1.8.6 it was necessary to remove a feature (permanently) that was used by map makers. It wasn’t an easy decision.”
Fans will be pleased to know that 1.8.6 is fully compatible with all previous Minecraft 1.8 releases. The previous patch 1.8.5 made a number of fixes to solve a few known issues as well as the exploit. Here are the 1.8.5 patch notes:
- [Bug MC-79632] – Phantom Custom Player in Scoreboard / UUIDs of non-player entities on scoreboards truncated after relog
- [Bug MC-75630] – Exploit with signs and command blocks
- [Bug MC-80478] – Better server validation for movement packets
- [Bug MC-80479] – Invalid beacon effects are not validated
- [Bug MC-80480] – Certain attribute values are not bound
