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Minecraft modding on Bedrock is being suppressed by a recent update, and it’s bad.



Minecraft modding on Bedrock is being suppressed by a recent update, and it’s bad.

okay I’m going to start this video with a bit of an apology over the last several weeks I’ve received emails from a lot of people from the Bedrock community that I have somewhat not taken as seriously as I should have the reason is because I reply to them saying that it was an inevitable situation it really isn’t it a little bit crass of me but now there’s a picture of a salmon in front of you now before I get into the meat of this topic excuse the pun let me scroll over to this feedback page here so this is a page that I almost always knock off as important but it feels like I should put more weight into this now this is a feedback page titled request to continue providing pdb files in future BDS versions that seems like a bit of a mouthful for a lot of you I will clarify everything as I get into it now the person here who is anonymous but I think I know who it is actually I found out who wrote it has written a plea to moang which really is the plea to Microsoft I think to restore access to a pdb file here they say that historically they’ have been crucial for debugging which is true and maintaining plug-in loaders which is also true now before I explain all of this to you guys what I want you guys to do just to make up for my shortcoming my error as a forementioned the best thing you can probably do right now is to vote on this if this affects you if this is something that you guys feel is important to you leave a comment vote on this I’m sure it does something okay so this is quite clearly a salmon because it looks like the Minecraft salmon that’s just just flopping on the ground quite possibly about to die what I’m going to do now is apply a pixelation filter over it now it is an 8 and 1/2 pixel mess and you don’t really know what it is you can show this to a lot of people and they won’t know what they’re looking at luckily when Minecraft was compiled and made public they provided what is known as a pdb file salmon. DB basically like a program database which provid Ides deobfuscation of certain functions in the game so this is crucial because what that allows moders to do is look up certain things like this salmon for example and say oh I know this is a salmon and it does salmon things without this file this remains a mystery or you can see this and be like what am I looking at this can do one of 10 million different things these pdb files are critical to modding there are fears that Java Edition will be affected it’s like impossible for Java mods to ever disappear this is all available you can see everything is still legible via class structure in C++ you don’t really have that so they relied on pdb files and here’s an example of a pdb file I actually found this back in 2019 it’s actually kind of strange that players even have access to this pdb files are normally removed and not publicized because of security reasons for some reason the Bedrock Community has access to this and it’s a luxury and they’ve used this to their advantage and as they should because it prevents hacking patching exploits myang haven’t even found themselves now about a week and a half ago Microsoft decided that they were no longer going to give players access to this file they going to change it and in exchange give something else there is a discussion here dated June 8 on Twitter brinkmanship who’s director of the Minecraft partner program which is the marketplace this is kind of their intended Direction here which is to remove PD files with uh improved protocol documentation which a lot of the authorities in the community are basically trashing cuz they don’t want that so the outcries I think it’s pretty safe to say you shouldn’t be flippant about this a very quick simple search of this issue on the feedback page already speaks volumes about how critical this is for everyone involved do give this a vote and comment on it before this video I don’t even know a lot of you guys realized that Bedrock servers exist even beyond the ones that you see here here the hive cubecraft Enchanted dragons galaxite mville Lifeboat you can add your own service here right so those are the ones that are more vulnerable now because hackers can bypass any existing protocol that they had that is no longer supported by this change I guess that does explain why I was a bit dismissive about the emails cuz I was a bit defeatist about all this I know that when Microsoft makes a change it’s very difficult for them to deviate from this purpose all I can really ask you guys to do is vote on this I’m sure the discussion will continue in the comments if you’re worried that this is going to affect Java Edition it will not and I kind of just want to leave off with this please stop providing offis map in view of the recent removal of the Bedrock editions pdb in order to improve the security of Minecraft is recommended to remove the Java editions confiscation map and then everyone’s just like yeah that’s really cool you guys did this to bedrock do this to Java Edition let me know what you guys think it’s kind of kind of sucks let see what we can do to remedy this

Vote here: https://feedback.minecraft.net/hc/en-us/community/posts/27425253557389-Request-to-Continue-Providing-PDB-Files-in-Future-BDS-Versions

Cervaaa’s video: https://youtu.be/wd33PONkOgA

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View 42 Comments

42 Comments

  1. @WackoMcGoose on

    To elaborate: Java modding can never be prevented, due to the very nature of the Java programming language itself. It's trivial to decompile and guaranteed to byte-for-byte recompile back into existing code, and even when obfuscated, you just have to cross-reference blocks of code in newer and older versions, be like "hey, abc:foo() has the same structure in 1.21 that BlockRendererFactory:cullHiddenFaces() does in 1.20, so it's probably named the same", like a giant crossword puzzle. In fact, this is how Java Edition modding has always been since the very beginning, having "deobfuscation maps" just makes the process easier. If they double down and remove deobf maps, Java modders will be like "Oh no! Anyway…" and go back to the old method of manually solving. Mods will take longer to be updated due to needing to wait for the deobf group (Minecraft Coder Pack, back in the Beta days) to fully "solve" the names, but it'll still be business as usual. There is nothing that Mojang Redmond (Microsoft) can order Mojang Sweden (OG Mojang) to do to Java Edition that will make modding "impossible" (laughs in deleting META-INF), Java itself guarantees there's a way.

    That isn't the case for Bedrock Edition. As anyone who's watched a video about Nintendo 64 decomps is aware, decompiling C++ into a functional recompileable (and moddable!) form is a significant pain in the mushrooms. You need to give the decompiler notes about which chunks of machine code mean what and where they are, for it to spit out anything remotely functional (let alone readable as C++ instead of massive barf-blobs of assembly). That is what PDB maps are for, in this context. It's possible to go without them, but it's a massive pain, and even if you don't deliberately modify anything, what you recompile is not guaranteed to work the same as the original (again, look how much effort it took to get Mario 64 to byte-for-byte recompile back into the original ROM).

  3. @Argus223 on

    Just a reminder that these are not the same thing to bedrock addons. Addons act differently, and are used for different things. This affects things like server plugins, which are very different and do not affect the marketplace.

  6. @lycanthropyhamerworth515 on

    I doubt would remove modding from minecraft because the moment they announce that they would do that there would be a riot about half as bad as the George Floyd riots but still pretty bad. That or a boycott with a ruined reputation like helldivers 2.

  11. @jacobocardonaaddonermcbe7587 on

    Something to add, the mods in minecraft Bedrock AREN'T the same as Add-on, they're different, so Minecraft is not actually deleting the competence to the marketplace, add-ons are completely safe and this community won't be affected. The mods in Bedrock are more complicated and you probably haven't seen one cuz they are pretty rare, also the plugins are being affected and well that's bad , but yeah no minecraft bedrock add-ons are being affected and you can get this content online free as always.

  12. @shen1891 on

    Love it when java features are made worse for "parity" but then microsoft/mojang goes around and does stuff like this to bedrock

  16. @JacobTheCroc on

    Mojang doesn't have the final say in any of this, they are mearly executing what Microsoft higherups want them to do which in fact is just actual depressing stuff. Sitting and listening to the corporate meetings is still the worst thing to do yet someone has to do. All I can say is that it's very VERY horrible what these companies think people want and rarely listen to the feedback, unless it makes them suffer monetary gain.
    So yes, the only way to stop this nonsense is to also stop buying minecoins.

  20. @ShiaraMoon on

    This sucks. I voted and commented on the post, shared it and this video with Minecraft friends, then liked and commented on the video. Hope this issue gets the attention it needs.

  21. @kamo7293 on

    it's always shitty when mods are targeted.
    judging by the comments this is feeling a lot like Bethesda and their creation club bs.
    edit: wait they're both owned by Microsoft.
    not surprised then

  26. @ezBlu. on

    Bedrock removing mods was already a topic talked about way back when they started dumb monetization methods (like paid skins). Remember, Microsoft didnt buy mojang for $2.5 billion out of good will.

  28. @DarthLiam-gd1wc on

    Mojang really came out and said "In order to ensure our security and continuing stability, the PDB files will be removed and reorganized into the first Galactic Marketplace, for a safe and secure society." TL;DR Mojang pulled a palpatine

  31. @averagezing on

    For even more context: A few years ago (Bedrock 1.13, in 2019 as you mentioned), debug symbols were removed from Android. You can find this by searching for "1.13, debug symbols and the titanic pmmp" and you'll see dktapps' post on debug symbols.
    Dylan has been the maintainer of PocketmIne, which is the 3rd party server client that's existed since long before BDS and that was founded by shoghi — who is now a mojang dev. All of the featured servers run on Pocketmine, and Dylan's post explains what happens without debug symbols.
    AT THE TIME, the developers of BDS explicitly said that they understood the challenge and were going to keep(/add?) debug symbols into BDS for this exact reason — to make them less accessible than the android app, but maintain access for mods.
    With these gone, the BDS and Marketplace teams both saying they're not coming back, mods and servers are screwed. Not dead, but screwed, by being caught in the crossfire of trying to make hackers lives' more difficult (Despite nothing, really, realistically, ever stopping hackers).

  32. @gilly_5695 on

    I play bedrock exclusively. Just because it's the better version of the game but I could not care less about any of these changes what so ever. Just give me back my games setting section of settings & stop removing my eyes whenever I put on a helmet

  34. @AKuld on

    Trying to sign in on the feedback page just signs you out of your Microsoft account so you can't vote. They really be trying to suppress this.

  38. @1lots on

    If I feel bad then someone else should also feel bad is the dumbest argument ever. We should help each other, not destroy each other 🤦🏼

  41. @Malware_Magic on

    I love how they want equality by removing the Java obfuscation 😂, but personally, I don't necessarily have a problem with this since I ain't a modder nor a bedrock mod user, or a server enjoyer. However, since I did start as a bedrock user, I am inclined to stand with bedrock, so instead of returning the pdb files they could allow for modding support on bedrock if possible, if not then they should return the pdb files.

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