Category:Downgrade
A Downgrade Discontinued Feature is a feature that has to be obtained by going from a future version to a previous version. If it can be obtained any other way then it isn't considered a downgrade discontinued feature. These features can be dangerous, resulting in crashes or corruption.
Any pages that have this warning are pages that use downgrading:
Crashing and Corruption
Due to the fact that downgrading involves going from future versions to previous versions many problems can occur, especially the bigger the downgrade. The game may crash because it's unable to load certain blocks, items, mobs, etc. The world files may become corrupt and depending on the downgrade this might be a 100% certainty.
How to Avoid
If you want to avoid crashes or corruption (usually, some exclusions may apply) follow these general guidelines:
- Always, ALWAYS, make at least one back up in case of corruption or continued crashing.
- Remove all items from your inventory that didn't exist in the version you're downgrading to.
- Downgrade while in older chunks, or unimportant chunks if you don't have older (may be necessary that they be old if world doesn't load).
- Turn render distance all the way down before loading world.
Additional Problems
If world still doesn't load it may be because of the spawn chunks (due to the fact that they always load on reload). If that is the case open your world file and do the following:
- Open the "region" folder.
- locate the spawn region file. Region files are 32 chunk by 32 chunk areas of your world, the spawn chunks are located inside these files (may need to be calculated if spawn isn't near X:0, Z:0).
- Move the region files if they're important, if not you can simply delete them (region files that are for the usual ~0,0 spawn include the files labeled: r.0.0.mca, r.0.-1.mca, r.-1.0.mca, r.-1.-1.mca. The .mca will be .mcr for versions before 1.1)
If problems persist it's suggested to either create a new world and import the region file/ level.dat containing the discontinued feature. Other options include:
- Deleting or moving (for importing later) all region files.
- Deleting or moving (for importing later) level.dat. This will cause worlds to become unloadable so it's suggested to import a fresh level.dat created in the version you're attempting to downgrade to, or creating a new world with the exact same name as the now unloadable world (this tricks the game into loading the world with a fresh level.dat)
Versions to Not Downgrade
The level format has so far changed four times in Java Edition. Performing any of the following downgrades does corrupt your world due to the different formats:
- From Infdev 20100327 and above to Infdev 20100325 and lower
- From Beta 1.3 and above to Beta 1.2_02 and lower
- From 12w07a and above to 12w06a and lower
- From 17w47a and above to 17w46a and lower
List
While downgrade discontinued features are not currently covered on this wiki because of the focus being on other things for the time being, some have been discovered. A work in progress list of these can be found below:
Overstacked Honey Bottles
Honey bottles can be overstacked by getting a 16 stack in 19w44+ (1.15 snapshot) and then downgrading to 19w34a - 19w42a when it used to only stack to 1. This will result in overstacked bottles in that version, but if the player tries to stack those overstacked 16 stacks together, they can create up to a 64 stack of honey bottles. Other methods to overstack honey bottles exist, however.
Vanishing Blocks
Any block from a future version downgraded to a past version will generally act as a Vanishing Block and disappear. This allows floating blocks and other shenanigans.
Negative Durability Warped Fungus on a Stick
By going to 20w14a+ getting a 1 durability warped fungus on a stick and downgrading to 20w13a or 20w13b will turn it to -74 durability. To retain, two negatives need to be combined to make it even more negative.
Items Added Before Obtainable in Survival
All of these would technically be recontinued features, but are excluded due to the nature of acquiring them.
- Gilded blackstone existed in 20w15a (1.16 snapshot) but could not be obtained, by downgrading from 20w16a or later gilded blackstone can be obtained in 20w15a.
- Trident
- Barrel
- Bell
- Blast Furnace
- Smoker
- Cartography Table
- Fletching Table
- Smithing Table
- Stonecutter
- Grindstone
- Lectern
- Acacia Stairs
- Acacia Slabs
- Dark Oak Stairs
- Dark Oak Slabs
- Cobweb
- Grass Block
- Grass
- Tall Grass
- Tall Fern
- Redstone Ore
- Diamond Ore
- Lapis Lazuli Ore
- Coal Ore
Invalid Data Value Locked Chest
Downgrading stained glass from 13w41a or later to before 13w36b-2 would create locked chests with invalid data values.
Longer Name Items
Downgrading and upgrading can create a longer name item that 221 and if you downgrade multiple times it will increase in length exponentially and theoretically infinitely.
Reception
This is the general reception of players who have used downgrading:
Negative
Downgrading isn't intentionally meant to be used. You're only meant to go forward through versions, never backwards. Downgrading is dangerous and can crash or corrupt worlds. Allows for acquiring items to make getting previous discontinued features easier.
Positive
There is no intentional way to play the game, especially not for a community such as this. While it is dangerous there are ways to circumvent most dangers. Allows for acquiring otherwise impossible discontinued features and features that may have been missed due to knowledge not existing yet or them simply being missed. Additionally allows for acquiring features potentially previously overlooked.
(A poll on 15 December 2020 found that 6/24 (25%) of discontinued players consider downgrading cheating)
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