Bedrock Edition:World Save Insertion
World Save Insertion is the process of forcing the game to generate a fresh world data file for an existing and unplayable world. This takes advantage of the game's way of creating worlds. When "New" is clicked on the world selection screen, the game prepares a level.dat with all the settings chosen for the world (seed, game mode, world type, etc.) and places it in a world folder containing the world name that is specified. This is how the game is tricked into generating a new level.dat for an old world, by making the game believe that an old world folder is the folder it created for the new world.
There is currently no known method of performing world save insertion in modern versions of the game due to the folder names for newly created worlds being hashed in v0.11.0 alpha and later, but it can be performed in most versions predating the implementation of folder name hashing.
Dangers
Depending on the version, this feature may be dangerous and result in crashes or corruption. In order to avoid this these precautions are recommended: make at least one world backup before attempting this feature, check if the version you are playing on is listed in Potentially Dangerous Versions and avoid it if so, and make sure the world save is converted to the version currently being played on.
Performing
Completing this feature requires external editing in the form of deleting and/or moving a world's level.dat file. If you do not plan to import your old level.dat when you are done it is important to empty your inventory of any important items. Things such as setting the time or your spawn will not matter as those will be reset upon world load. It is also suggested, once again, to make at least one world backup.
v0.2.0 to v0.10.5
Forcing the game to generate a new level.dat in v0.2.0 alpha through v0.10.5 alpha is the only known version span this method can be completed on.
- Instructions
- Make at least one world backup!
- Go into the save files and open the folder for the world you want to perform world save insertion on.
- Delete or move the following files:
level.dat, andlevel.dat_oldif it exists.- Note: moving is suggested if you want to keep any discontinued data contained in these files.
- Delete or move the "players" folders in its entirety if it exists and contains anything in it.
- Note: moving is suggested if you want to keep any discontinued data contained in these files.
- Load up Minecraft and click "New" or "Create new" in the world selection screen.
- Inside "Name" or "World name" type out the exact name of the world you are trying to force a new level.dat to generate in.
- Example: if your world is named "New World", fill in the name as "New World".
- Note: this is how we trick the game into generating a new level.dat for a preexisting world.
- Set the world seed and settings how you want them.
- Click "Create World!"
- Upon world load all newly generated chunks will contain the settings chosen on the world creation screen.
Possible Discontinued Features
Limitations
- Attempting to perform world save insertion in v0.1.3 or earlier using the method detailed above causes the game to crash on the "Building terrain" screen and not generate a new level.dat file.
- Before v0.9.0 alpha, all chunks in a world were generated and saved to
chunks.daton world creation. This makes it impossible to generate terrain from a different seed by performing world save insertion before v0.9.0. - Performing world save insertion before v0.9.0 causes the
entites.datfile to get regenerated, resulting in the loss of any previous entity data. - In v0.9.0, player data was moved out of level.dat and into the same location as most other world data, resulting in world save insertion not generating new player data from that version onwards.
- If world save insertion is attempted in v0.9.0 or later on a world last played in v0.8.1 or earlier, the game simply generates a new world while keeping the
chunks.datandentities.datfiles from the previous world unused and fully intact in the world's save folder.