Minecraft devs fix a bug that’s been there for eight years

The new Minecraft snapshots continue to come in at a rapid rate ahead of the 1.17 release date (which maybe should be plural now). Today’s preview build is made up mostly of minor tweaks to some of the new mobs and ore generation features in Caves and Cliffs, but there’s one notable thing in the update notes: a fix for a bug that’s nearly a decade old.

When you use an anvil for the last time before it breaks, the item you’re using gets spit onto the floor. That’s a bug – the item is supposed to go straight back into your inventory. A bug report was filed way back on November 21, 2012 on the official Minecraft issue tracker, and the glitch has persisted ever since. Until this week’s snapshot, that is.

Snapshot 21w18a more broadly makes screaming goats more likely to ram you, changes ore distribution, tweaks the new ore veins, adjusts the generation of noodle caves, removes deepslate blobs, and reduces the spawn rate for all that Minecraft copper.

You can get the full notes on the official site, or a more detailed breakdown in the video below.