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Java Edition:Understacked Items

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For the opposite, see Overstacked Items.
This article is about items with a negative stack count. For items with negative durability, see Negative Durability.

Understacked items are items with a count below one. Understacked items are available from Indev 0.31 20100125-1[1] through 15w40b (1.9 snapshot). This is a deleted discontinued feature because all will vanish when updating to 16w32a (1.11 snapshot) or later, meaning 1.10.2 is the last version understacked items can be kept in.

Obtaining

TNT + Chest Method

From Indev 0.31 20100125-1 to 15w40b (1.9 Snapshot), the player could obtain understacked items by blowing up a chest while taking the items out of the chest. The first method works from Indev 0.31 20100125-1 to Alpha v1.2.6 and can be accomplished by blowing up a chest while inside the chests inventory, once the chest has been blown up the items inside it can be removed and they become zero stack items. The second method works from Beta 1.0 to 15w40b and is accomplished by pulling the items out of the chest after it is blown up but before the chest GUI disappears, which gives the player a 1 tick window before it is blown up. This is stated to be a 1 tick window (about 0.05 seconds or 50 milliseconds) to grab the items from the chest before the GUI disappears.

This theoretically works in Indev 0.31 20100124 but that version is missing. The real items from the first variant (left on the ground after the chest is blown up) will cause the held understacked items to revert back to normal if they are picked up. From 15w38b (1.9 Snapshot) and onwards, if this method is attempted it will only result in a 0 Stacked Item and must be in the players hotbar or offhand inventory slots. This is due to understacked items no-longer being able to be moved within the inventory, and prior to 14w33a (1.8 Snapshot) the item stack will display as if the item was single item instead of 0 or negative number.

This method also creates an item duplication method, these understacked items can be picked up while inside an inventory and when right clicked outside the inventory true items will be dropped and the understacked items will still be held by the mouse.

Signs on Non-opaque Blocks Method

Barrier.png
Warning: Game Crash 
This feature can crash the game. Perform at your own risk.

In Infdev 20100607 you could obtain 0 item count signs by placing 2 signs adjacent to each other on top any of the following blocks glass, leaves, torches, smooth stone slabs, flowers, and mushrooms. When performed correctly the game will crash and after reloading the world the player will have a 0 stack of signs.

Close Inventory Method

In Alpha v1.0.17_02, there was a glitch where if you had a stack in your cursor and then closed your inventory, the stack would drop, but when you opened your inventory again, the stack would still be hovering in your inventory. This remaining stack is a zero stack. This will only occur in Singleplayer.

Damaged Tools Method

Dropping damaged durability tools in Beta 1.6 creates a 0 item count.

Furnace State Change Method

Items in any slot in a furnace during b1.6tb3-b1.6.2 can be made into zero stacks by having it change state from unlit to lit or vice versa. This causes the items to be dropped out of the furnace as if it was broken, but leaves 0 count items in the slots due to the tile entity not being cleared. This can be done by smelting items in a furnace or depriving the furnace of a fuel source and waiting for it to un-light.

Portal Crafting Table Method

From Beta 1.6 Test Build 3 to 12w04a, singleplayer allowed one to create zero stacks. One must do is construct a nether portal, have a method of pushing the player into the portal without player interaction (a delayed piston or water stream works well), and a crafting table in reach. Jump into your player pusher of choice, and before reaching the portal, place the items you wish to zero stack into the 3x3 crafting grid. Once the player reaches the portal, the item will drop twice, once as the full stack that was placed into the table, and the second as a zero stack.

Drop Method

This method works on Beta 1.0 to Beta 1.0_01 servers (multiplayer only), these servers have the PVN 7 which allows any client from Beta 1.0 to Beta 1.1_01 to connect to them. The method occurs randomly whenever the player throws an item, sometimes the item will be a zero stack. The quickest method to get to this zero stack is to looks straight down and spam the drop button (Q by default) until you pick up the zero stack. The zero stack will then act as a 256 stack since when it reaches -128, it will go back up to 127.

Crafting Table Quit Method

In Beta 1.8 Pre-release (both uploads), quitting out of the crafting table while there is a stack inside of crafting GUI will drop that stack along with a zero stack of that item. This does not work in multiplayer.

Hopper

This method works in 13w01b. Throwing a stack of items onto 2 hoppers will fill them all up. After picking up the stack that was thrown one of the 64 stacks in hoppers will be replaced with zero stack.

Broken Furnace Inventory Method

In the 1.8 snapshot 14w34a, the furnace did not properly handle items placed within[2], resulting in either their deletion or transformation to zero stacks. The easiest method to obtain a zero stack can be achieved by placing an item into the top furnace slot, and picking it back up into the player's inventory. Upon closing the furnace GUI, the client will be updated on the stack's actual size.

Book Copying Method

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From 1.8.1-pre4 to 16w02a (1.9 snapshot), book copying had a bug[3] that could modify the count of the book being copied. This can result to the creation of zero stacks and duplication in a variety of ways. The easiest[test] way to achieve a zero stack is to place a stack of two written books and two book and quills into a crafting grid, which will result in the written books being stacked to zero.

0 Durability Bow Method

From 15w31a (1.9 snapshot) to 15w36d, shooting from a bow that has 0 durability causes the bow to become a 0 stack. This was semi-patched in 15w37a[4], but with the addition of the ability to shoot the bow from the offhand in this version, it can instead be done in the offhand to create a 0 stack. The offhand method was patched in 16w32a (1.11 snapshot)[5].

Thorns Method

Up to 1.10[test] getting damaged from a mob while player has an armor with Thorns enchantment causes the armor to become a 0 stack.

Off Hand Feeding Method

From 15w31a [test]to 15w32c feeding an animal while the food is in off hand slot can decrement it to 0.

Crafting Shears and Map Method

From 15w44a to 15w44b by crafting shears and map together it would give you a 0 stack shear which you could move to your hotbar using a number key.

Depleting Item Stack Method

Barrier.png
Warning: Game Crash 
This feature can crash the game. Perform at your own risk.

In 15w49a depleting an item stack yields a 0 count item.[6]

Item Frame Method

In 15w49a, placing a single item into an item frame leaves a 0 count item.[7]

Downgrading

In 24w09a (1.20.5 snapshot), the item format was changed from NBT to Components, meaning that any item downgraded before 24w09a will not be recognized by the game, therefore being deleted. By downgrading any item[8] from 24w09a through 24w38a (present), down to 14w03a[test]

Behavior

Methods of Subtraction

Right-clicking an understacked item into any inventory will decrease its count by 1. This method is removed in 1.6[test], and attempting it past 1.6[test] with a zero stack will result in the item's deletion. Negative stacks <= -1 will not be deleted, but will not produce a separate item and will not decrease in size. This would become impossible in 15w38b, as picking up understacked items with the cursor deletes them.

Right-clicking an understacked item to the side of the inventory screen will decrease its count by 1. Attempting it in 1.5[test] will result in no items being dropped despite decreasing the stack size, but items dropping are restored in 1.6[test]. This would become impossible in 15w38b, as picking up understacked items with the cursor deletes them.

Dispensers and droppers could drop or insert zero or negative stacks, and doing so would decrease their count by 1, from their respective introductions until 1.8.3. In 1.8.4, a private issue was fixed, resulting in dispensers or droppers that tried to drop or insert zero or negative stacks deleting the remaining understacked stack after dropping or inserting 1 item.[9]

Stack Underflow

If the item count goes under -128, it can underflow and become a overstacked item upon saving to disk. To determine the exact number that will be produced from the cast of integer to byte is to divide the integer count by 256, and take the remainder. If the remainder is between -1 and -127, the resulting stack will be negative, if between -128 and -255, the stack will be positive, and if the remainder is 0, then the resulting stack will be a zero stack.

Understacked Item Entities

Understacked item entities have some strange behavior. When the player enters the pickup range of an underflowed item, if the stack is negative, the stack will be picked up, but the item entity will not be destroyed. Instead, the item entity remains as a zero stack, which can also be picked up. To pick up a zero stacked item from an item entity, one cannot have any other of the item on the ground in their inventory, if it is stackable. For unstackables, the item will be picked up every tick until the player is out of inventory space.

Hoppers do not interact with understacked item entities.

Moving the Item Stack

Understacked items could be moved freely in the inventory in nearly any way in the past, except for a few specific exceptions. Past 1.4.7[test], attempting to drop a zero stack to the side of the inventory screen will delete it. In some 1.5 versions[test], attempting to drop items from a negative stack or the negative stack itself to the side of the inventory screen will delete any dropped items. Past 1.6[test], trying to drop a single item off of a zero stack with right click into a slot will result in its deletion.

Understacked items cannot be moved with shift-click in any version.

After 15w38b, understacked items can only be moved with the number keys into the player's hotbar. Attempting to move them out of the hotbar, or in any other way, results in their deletion.

Uses

Duplication

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When putting zero-stack items into dropper or dispenser and powering it, the dropper/dispenser will drop unlimited amount of that item.

Overstacked Items

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Gallery

See Also

References

  1. It is actually speculated the start version is Indev 0.31 20100124 but that version is missing and therefore there is no way to confirm this
  2. MC-67981. bugs.mojang.com.
  3. MC-74392. bugs.mojang.com.
  4. MC-87851. bugs.mojang.com.
  5. MC-101441. bugs.mojang.com.
  6. MC-93597. bugs.mojang.com.
  7. MC-93597. bugs.mojang.com.
  8. That existed at the time and did not have its ID changed in 16w32a (1.11 snapshot).
  9. MC-78495. bugs.mojang.com.