1.6-1.6.4 Release Notes

Seeing as how everyone just wants to post random links to different sources, I figured I would go on ahead and make a full detailed thread even though I was not even home when the 1.6 was released.

The current version of minecraft is 1.6.4, which is the highest release-day-update number ever achieved (from my memory) which is naturally so seeing as how notch fixed well over 100 bugs, added a few new features. Its only natural for everything that notch fixes or adds to have something else get messed up. Ahh the wonderful world of Java.


New Features:

• Added Nether support to multiplayer.
• The client will ask minecraft.net if the current login is valid. If the server says “no”, a warning message appears in the client. You can still play the game even if this happens.
• Added craftable Maps.
• Added trapdoors.
• Added Tall Grass in some biomes.
• Mushrooms now spreads (very) slowly.
• Added server property view-distance. Sets the radius of terrain updates (in chunks) to send to the players. Range 3-15, default 10.
• Added Dead Shrubs in Deserts.
• Added allow-nether (set to true or false) in server.properties.
• Blocks destroyed by other players in multiplayer now shows the breaking block particle effect.
• Doors make sound for other players in multiplayer.
• The record player now supports more than 15 different songs. No new songs/records were added, though.
• Activated dispensers make sounds and trigger particles in multiplayer.
• Players stuck in walls will slide towards the nearest gap if there is one.
• Shift-clicking while crafting makes as much as possible and moves it straight to your inventory.
• The blocks in the inventory and stats page got a new look.
• Disabled Advanced OpenGL until we can fix some bugs with it
• It’s no longer possible to build solid blocks on the top layer of the maps
• Made booster tracks speedier
• Severely nerfed fire so it spread slower, and doesn’t spread infinitely
• Seeds are now found in tall grass, using a hoe on the ground no longer works
• Compressed network traffic more aggressively
• Blocks that don’t change appearance when the data changes don’t send block updates when their data changes now
• Arrows shot by players can now be picked up by all players
• Nothing riding anything or being ridden by anything can enter portals
• Glowstone now acts similarly to glass with regards to rails, torches, ladders, etc.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed running out of memory corrupting the current level
• Fixed the side textures of grass getting extra dark when mining them
• Fixed anaglyph 3d rendering mode having severe visual bugs
• Fixed the crash screen vanishing immediately
• Fixed not being able to target blocks when at x or z pos 1000
• Fixed the achievements screen messing up the sky color
• Fixed saving while sneaking dropping the player through the ground
• Fixed a system clock change messing up the game speed
• Fixed rain sounds not playing with fast graphics enabled
• Fixed hair and cloaks being rendered in the wrong locations on sneaking players
• Fixed the attack/swing animation not being applied to the armor layer
• Fixed player rotation not being loaded correctly when loading a saved game
• Fixed arrow physics, making them not get stuck midair when you open a door
• Fixed arrows hitting reeds, portals, and other non-solid blocks
• Fixed keybindings not getting saved properly under certain conditions
• Fixed the player not being able to sneak off lowered blocks like cacti
• Fixed a bug where the player could mine without swinging their arm
• Fixed boats placed on snow being placed too far up
• Fixed submerged boats rising very very fast
• Fixed sand dropping onto boats getting stuck in a falling animation
• Fixed a game crash when riding a vehicle or animal into the nether
• Fixed falling while riding not dealing damage to the rider
• Fixed buttons and levers too close to the player being impossible to use
• Fixed dispensers shooting through walls
• Fixed fire hurting through wall corners
• Fixed entities reaching water through wall corners
• Fixed placing doors next to cacti creating half-doors
• Fixed buttons and levers being placeable on leaves in “fast graphics” mode
• Fixed furnaces and dispensers not dropping their contents when destroyed
• Fixed dispensers biasing later slots
• Fixed farmland taking too long to dig
• Fixed tilling below some blocks being possible
• Fixed tilling the underside of blocks somehow working
• Fixed fences and stairs sometimes becoming invisible
• Fixed walking on top of fences not producing step sounds
• Fixed fire sometimes existing mid-air as an invisible block of pain
• Fixed fences and wooden stairs not being flammable
• Fixed fire effect on burning entities sometimes getting rendered in the wrong location
• Fixed fishing rod rendering being a bit lacking
• Fixed fishing rods being stackable
• Fixed mining glass hiding the clouds behind the glass
• Fixed rain falling through liquids
• Fixed items in glass blocks not getting ejected properly
• Fixed water interacting strangely with glass
• Fixed glass not blocking rain sound
• Fixed fences and signs preventing grass from growing
• Fixed rain and snow being incorrectly lit
• Fixed grass staying alive below stair blocks
• Fixed the achievement screen not pausing the game
• Fixed some screens breaking the sky tint color
• Fixed fullscreen mode switching causing mouse issues and screen closes
• Fixed chat messages surviving through game switches
• Fixed ice so it regenerates regardless of whether it’s snowing or not
• Fixed rain falling too slowly
• Fixed levers being placeable on weird locations
• Fixed floor levers sometimes not delivering a signal downwards
• Fixed floor levers sometimes not being removed when the floor is removed
• Fixed rail tiles sometimes not properly connecting to a new neighbor
• Fixed minecarts next to each other causing extreme velocities
• Fixed wolves not following their owner if the name has different caps
• Fixed creepers retaining charge level when they can’t see their target
• Fixed dying in the nether spawning new portals
• “Fixed” beds in the nether
• Fixed inventory acting weird when portaling by making the portal close all screens
• Fixed wooden pressure plates being mined with pickaxes
• Fixed redstone repeaters having the wrong particles
• Fixed saplings being plantable through snow onto non-grass blocks
• Fixed ore density varying per quadrant from the center of the world
• Fixed dispenser graphics being one pixel off.
• Fixed mushrooms spawning everywhere during nights
• Fixed animals only spawning near light during the night
• Fixed the multiplayer join screen input field being too short
• Fixed IPv6 addresses being parsed wrongly. To connect to a specific port in IPv6, use the format [1234:567::1]:25565
• Fixed network packets being sent unbuffered, causing huge amounts of packets being sent
• Fixed entity positions going out of synch sometimes. They get re-synched every 20 seconds now.
• Fixed inventory icons not animating after being picked up in multiplayer
• Fixed mushroom soup not leaving a bowl in multiplayer
• Fixed entities above the map height limit becoming invisible
• Fixed healing not flashing the health bar in multiplayer
• Fixed arrows being animated really strangely in multiplayer
• Fixed arrows triggering too many entity move updates in multiplayer
• Fixed the compass not pointing at the spawn location in multiplayer
• Fixed fires being impossible to put out in multiplayer
• Fixed record players spawning client-side fake records in multiplayer
• Fixed records not playing for other players in multiplayer
• Fixed players spawning in the wrong location and quickly lerping to the correct location
• Fixed monsters not being visible for players with their difficulty set to peaceful
• Fixed pigs getting hit by lightning in multiplayer spawning client-side zombie pigmen
• Fixed loads of exploding tnt generating way too many particles, possibly crashing the client
• Fixed bonemeal use in multiplayer sometimes spawning fake client-side trees
• Fixed saplings sometimes spawning trees client-side in multiplayer
• Fixed weather sometimes changing client-side in multiplayer
• Fixed grasscolor.png and foliagecolor.png not being read from texture packs
• Fixed stats getting saved to different files in offline mode if the caps in the player name differ from the true spelling
• Fixed fireballs not being visible in multiplayer
• Fixed ghasts’ fireing animation not being visible in multiplayer
• Fixed receiving more items than the maximum stack size sometimes causing an oversized stack in the inventory
• Glowstone recessed into a wall no longer has shadows cast on it by surrounding blocks when smooth lighting is enabled
• When breaking a minecart the player is currently riding in, the player no longer falls through the block the track is placed on

New Bugs:

• Extreme lags on Linux and Windows multiplayer servers, the Minecraft process uses 100% of CPU as soon as the host is logged on. Others may log in via LAN, and wireless without lag.
• The frames per second of the client dropped considerably for some users.
• Items do not eject properly from any block, they will become buried if a block is placed over them. Must dig it back out to retrieve.
• Items received from a Furnace sometimes have no stack number, items from the furnace can also be duplicated by right clicking.
• Right clicking a Duplicated item from a furnace while the chest is open results in a crash.
• Hatches Close through you even if standing at same level.
• Tall Grass are off centered and can float off edges.
• When looking at a map the indicator at the player's coordinated does not always point the correct direction. For example, when facing due North, South, East or West the marker will sometimes point slightly clockwise from the direction it should.
• When pressing Q to drop a tool and re-collecting that tool, when you use it it'll break instantly.
• watercolor.png doesn't do anything.
• If you Shift-click to place items chest and the chest is full the screen will change to the "Saving Chunks" screen except there will be no loading bar and the text will be in a lighter shade of grey. The game will then crash and will flick to the error report before the screeen goes black and you cannot do anything.
• After death, any tools dropped will give an infinite number of clone tools to the player when he/she attempts to pick them up.
• Missing tooltips for Tall Grass and Dead Shrubs in Statistics menu.
• Tall Grass looks grey in Statistics menu (because it's color depends on Dirt's block grass color).
• Furnaces will sometimes eject all but the last item in every slot.
• Upon logging into a world, the player receives half a heart of damage possibly due to spawning partially in the floor or ceiling, if indoors
• An item bug was introduced where people could pickup items while their inventory is full.
• The invisible fence fix is not working, so the fences that were invisible before 1.6 are still invisible

The Center of the map is where the map was crafted.
There is some factor that determines what a maps zoom level is. Unknown for the time being.
You can trade maps with other players in SMP to see where they have been.
Maps dont work in the nether. They will spin in circles like the compass does.
There can be no more than 65536 unique maps per world
Notch said that he will try to make maps placeable onto a wall.
When the edge of a map is walked off, the player's location will momentary jump to the other side of the map.
When edited into inventory, the map's name (unless damage value was correctly specified) is always "map_x", where x is the number of the map. The first one will be map_0.
Maps dont work in third person.
Maps can't map void areas, attempting to do so will cause the game to cause a saving chunks screen to appear followed by a crash

A trapdoor is nothing more than a door that opens vertically instead of horizontally. They need to be placed next to a block in order to work.

Hatches seem to break faster using a pickaxe instead of an axe, like wooden slabs.
Minecarts do not collide with hatches whether they are open or closed.
Hatches may not be placed next to double half blocks.
If you open or close a hatch by right-clicking it with a tool (pickaxe, sword, shovel, etc) the tool will disappear.
Hatches block movement when approaching from another block on the same level and the hatch has a block exactly 2 spaces above it, but it does not block movement in the same case if approaching from another hatch. This allows one way drawbridges.

It spawns on Grass blocks in certain biomes. Seeds are no longer able to be produced from grass blocks and only spawn from harvesting these blocks. Little else is known about it, however. Tall grass isn't a solid block, but rather an aesthetic weed that does not block movements, like Sugar Cane, Shrubs and Wheat; just occurring naturally in large quantities.

The color of tall grass is biome dependent, and the same color as grass.
Tall Grass does not drop when destroyed, therefore it's impossible to replant it.
Tall Grass is also offset from its block as can be seen in the third screenshot.(This seems intentional since it's a random offset and also has a hieght offset.)
If placed on normal grass, tall grass blocks appear as Dead Shrubs.
It is currently possible to place blocks on top of tall grass, although said grass will (in most cases) get destroyed afterwards.
In Statistics the tall grass image is gray, because the tall grass's texture is grayscale. The color is applied by the game, depending of the biome.


Shrubs are nothing more than different versions of Tall Grass. In the desert biomes, they appear as dead shrubs, and in forest biomes, they appear as living shrubs.

Shrubs do have a chance to drop seeds when destroyed.





Bug Fixes:
Fixed new item duplication bug.

New Bugs:

• The item duplication bug was not actually fixed; items placed in a furnace can still be taken out of a furnace and duplicated infinitely by right-clicking (although it appears the newly duplicated item will not function).
• When using a furnace and placing items into it, as soon as it's activated all items minus 1 are ejected and must be placed back in the furnace in order to use it.
• Lighting is not always updated when digging new holes/tunnels, placing torches or setting blocks on fire (in both nether & normal world).
• Tall grass can grow on dirt with no grass on it.
• Shift-clicking something into a full chest from inventory or from chest into full inventory crashes the client.
• It is now impossible to row a boat in 1 block deep water.
• Sometimes (tested while in a boat on water, and when floating in water) while viewing a map the game will switch to a "saving chunks screen" then end on a black screen.
• When quitting game the "Saving Chunks" progress bar does not appear sometimes.
• When loading a world and standing in a cave less than 4 blocks high, the player gets some initial damage (at least the damage sound appears).
• Maps may cause crashes or instability on multiplayer servers.
• "Out of memory" error. Often appears after the "blocks don't disappear" bug.

---------------------------------------------
These Bugs will only happen in chunks generated after the 1.6.2 update.

• Some chunks don't get dark at night (and vice versa; some chunks stay dark during the day).
• The textures don't load on some chunks (The blocks are present but with transparent textures).
• Some blocks don't disappear after being broken; it appears as if the block is still there, but can be passed through.
• When in a moving minecart, the player shows the walking animation.

New Features:

• The renderer is now capped at 100 fps while there are chunks to be generated. The excess time will be spent generating chunks instead of rendering frames.
• The “limit framerate” option now limits the game to 40 fps and will spend at least 10 ms per frame sleeping.
• The “limit framerate” option has been reset to “off” for all players, enable it again if you want it.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed some block updates not updating lighting properly under some circumstances by reverting the “don’t always send block data” fix in 1.6.
• Fixed a major CPU load issue in the server where a very tight loop would starve all other threads.
• Fixed furnaces dropping/duplicating their contents when they change state from lit to unlit or back.

New Bugs:

• FPS limiter limits FPS to 41 instead of 40.
• The fix for the CPU load issue is not working, and still starves all other threads.
• Water will freeze and turn into ice very rapidly (maybe not a bug ?).

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed CPU issue on multiplayer.
• Attempt at fix for severe CPU hog bug on SSP

New Bugs:

• When running server on x64bit OS, the map will not load chunks correctly.
• Sometimes freezes most water into ice regardless of if its in a snow biome or not.
• Sound Effects lose sync with their respective actions.(?)
• Large sections of blocks may be see through (even when not standing on those blocks; underground caverns visible)
• When a tool has damage and is removed from your inventory by any means and then picked up again, it will disappear upon right clicking on anything or left clicking to, say chop a tree. Once it's chopped the item disappears. Also if two like items with damage are stacked one will disappear.
• CPU issue fix is still failing, same loop as 1.6.3
• Achievements may get bugged.
• Updating of lighting due to torches and other player instigated sources seems to be even worse.
• Underground or otherwise enclosed minetrack corners can cause you to clip through wall and lose health.
• One Minecart may partially pass through another on a slope, when held by a non-activated booster track.
• Fire does not show up on a map item.
• Fire sticks around much longer on blocks it can't burn.
• Cobweb now acting like a solid block, player can pass through it, but he/she will get damaged.
• You are able to travel down through a "closed" Trapdoor/Hatch (Under certain circumstances)
• Sometimes upon loading a world, the player will spawn an additional 1.62 meters higher than where he quit, and then fall down. In particular, if this occurs while standing under a solid block (such as a low ceiling), then the player will suffer 0.5 hearts of damage (suffocation) from clipping into the block temporarily.
• When boats are submerged, they do not float back to surface
• All TNT-entities stay clientside after exploding, until reconnection. (New bug because before just random ones stayed)
• Shift-clicking to transfer items to/from chests, inventory, dispensers and storage minecarts can result in the game crashing.
• Can't move and can mostly only see sky and sea when server.properties "view-distance" is set above 5. Note that the default is 10. Didn't see this in 1.6.3.
• Hostile mobs sometimes spawn when using a bed even in a well lit room sealed off from outside enviroments, this appears to possibly be related to the lighting bug mentioned above.
• Fighting through wooden doors no longer works. Swinging as sword through the window of the door will do damage, but also cause the door to open, letting in your enemy. Iron doors are still safe. (Possibly intentional or part of the "too close to levers" fix?)
• Craftable maps sometimes don't display the correct name, become blank or have gaps. (true for SMP, not tested on SSP)
• In SMP when you place a new portal and it connect to an existing portal nether side, you will exit at the original portal (known). If you disable the original portal, then re-enter the second portal, upon returning to the real world, the game will spawn a new random portal (obsidian frame and all). Your client will then crash. If you destroy THAT portal and repeat the game will spawn yet ANOTHER portal next to the new one, then you crash. If you destroy that portal and re-enable the original one, the game makes that the primary portal again.
• When crafting an item, shift clicking may cause different items to be created if the elimination of resources would create a situation in which that item can be crafted. For example, having 1 stone in the top left and two in the top middle and top right, along with two sticks in the middle and bottom middle, shift clicking will create a pick and a hoe.

I will at least try to keep this updated when new stuff arises, but there is so much info here I may not be able to get it all. I hate to make yet another thread about this 1.6 update, but it seems everyone else was just posting links to various sources and not actually providing any info. I wouldnt have bothered making this if someone else had beat me to it. I wasnt even in town when the update(s) shipped out. :x

I also foresee more updates coming too seeing as how everything notch touches causes more problems than fixes. But currently there are not any game crashing bugs that we know of, so the game is still playable as of the 1.6.4 update.

duplication doesnt work
seems to be patched

good work bro

now find me 1.6 cracked LOL