Minecraft: Bedrock Edition 1.17.40 patch update officially releases with fixes across the board

What you need to know

• Mojang Studios is preparing to release 1.18 'Caves and Cliffs Update' Part Two before the end of the year.
• Laying the groundwork for the upcoming content update is Minecraft: Bedrock Edition patch update 1.17.40.
• The update is rolling out to all players everywhere with a wealth of bug fixes, improvements, and optimizations.

As the Minecraft community recovers from all the news and announcements during Minecraft Live 2021, Mojang Studios is releasing Minecraft: Bedrock Edition 1.17.40, a patch update that includes a ton of bug fixes and general changes across every platform Minecraft is available. The update is now rolling out to everyone, and continues to polish and stabilize Minecraft ahead of a new content update arriving later this year.

1.18 Caves and Cliffs Update Part Two is slated to release before the end of the year, and will bring massive alterations to world generation and plenty of brand-new features to Minecraft when it does. The 1.17.40 is building the foundation upon which the 1.18 content update will release on, and as such focuses primarily on bug fixes and polish for one of the best Xbox games around.

Even before we have the second half of the Caves and Cliffs Update in our hands, Mojang has already announced what's coming next. The Wild Update is arriving at some point in 2022 with its own batch of features, but we'll have to wait a while yet before we see any sign of that release, and the new Minecraft toys and gifts that will inevitably arrive with it.

In the meantime, Minecraft: Bedrock Edition patch update 1.17.40 is now available, so be sure to download and install it as soon as possible for the best Minecraft experience. In case you missed it, Minecraft is also heading to Xbox Game Pass for PC as part of a new bundle, making it even easier to play the game wherever you want.

The full changelog for Minecraft: Bedrock Edition patch update 1.17.40 includes:

Experimental features

• Added new world / cave generation when upgrading saved chunks below "Y=0" using the Caves & Cliffs experimental toggle
  • Chunks previously upgraded with Bedrock underneath will not see this change
• Added a new mountain biome: Stony Peaks!
  • This is a variant of lofty / snow-capped peaks that uses stone and gravel instead of snow and ice, and is used to avoid temperature clashes such as a snow-capped peak sticking up from a jungle
• Corrected vegetation in Mountain Meadows
• Dripstone Clusters can now only be found in the Dripstone biome
• Dripstone features now only generate in Dripstone biome
• Mountain biomes now have correct feature places to match the Java Edition side-snapshot
• Infested Stone can be found under new mountains
• Tweaked ore distribution to match the Java Edition side-snapshot
• Clouds are now at Y level 192
• Tweaked biome placement, river size, and terrain shapes for a better overworld experience
• Tweaked mob spawning in mountain and cave biomes to match the Java Edition side-snapshot
• Trees in swamps can now generate slightly deeper when in water
• Deepslate now generates at lower depths
• Dripstone features now generate at Deepslate depths
• The placement logic of Small Dripstone feature has been refactored so frequency is similar but exact positions will differ
• Copper Ore now generates up to y=96 instead of y=64
• Flat worlds with the Caves & Cliffs experimental toggle enabled will properly upgrade to use the new dimension heights
• Upgrades older flat worlds to the new extended heights available with the Caves & Cliffs experimental toggle
• New flat worlds using the Caves & Cliffs experimental toggle will generate starting at "y=-64"
• Maps now correctly show the colors of blocks below a Y level of zero
• Vines now generate in Lush Caves instead of generating above the surface
• Vines can now grow down below zero height
• Villages now generate in the style of the biome they are located in

Changes

• New achievements screens are now available on Windows 10 ARM-based PCs

Fixes

Performance & stability

• Fixed a crash that could occur when using Character Creator
• Fixed a softlock that could occur when on the Realms world slots screen and the internet connection was lost

General

• Fixed an issue causing Marketplace downloads on Nintendo Switch to fail after entering and leaving a world
• World settings are now carried over on to Realms when replacing worlds

Gameplay

• Fixed a most unfortunate issue that caused players to be set on fire upon changing dimensions if there was Lava underneath the Nether Portal
• Improved world visibility culling for underground situations to eliminate seeing sky at the end of tunnels / stairs
• Players can no longer eat food at full hunger in Survival mode
• Amethyst geodes are now much less likely to generate in Strongholds, and if they do they will not destroy End Portals
• Dungeons are no longer misplaced or missing outside of the Caves & Cliffs experimental toggle
• Vanilla Parity: Players are now able to activate Elytra gliding while moving upward

Mobs

• Tropical Fish no longer lose their colors upon grabbing them with a Water Bucket and then releasing them
• Bees now spawn properly in the world
• Mobs no longer casually stroll into open flames
• Villagers can no longer spam doors open and closed
• Cartographers now more consistently give new maps on all platforms
• Improved mob pathing around partial blocks
• Armor no longer renders on Pillagers and Vindicators, but the mobs are still granted armor effects
• Fixed an issue with mob rendering that caused Vindicator Axes to be visible even when they're not attacking on older Resource Packs
• More mobs will now spawn underground in the Overworld
• Fixed failure to render Leads when attached to mobs out of view
• Iron Golems now spawn only on solid blocks

Blocks

• Falling Stalactites are now offset properly to avoid interacting with entities outside their intended hitbox
• Beehives now generate in the world facing South
• Trapdoors now rotate correctly when loaded from a Structure Block
• Powder Snow no longer disappears when looking at it from a distance
• Sea Grass no longer spawns under Lily Pads during world generation to avoid breaking them
• Holding Top Snow in hand while hovering over Grass Blocks no longer causes incorrect behavior

User interface

• Riding an animal now displays the correct button prompt when playing with non-touch controls
• Using Dye on Signs that contain formatted color text will now overwrite the formatted color text
• Fixed text on Signs losing their formatting when new lines or word-wrapping are encountered. Formatting will now persist until the reset code or an overriding code is found. This is not retroactive and previously created Signs will not be changed
• Altered the message that is displayed when players change skins in-game
• Fixed an issue where the D-pad and directional keys could not be used to navigate in certain parts of the user interface
• Fixed an issue where an error message could be shown after suspending the game on the Achievements screens with Screen Animations disabled
• Fixed an issue where an obscure game rule was added to Settings
• The sign-in text on the main menu no longer overlaps the Marketplace button
• Added space between tab title and the word 'Tab' for text-to-speech on Settings screen
• Added a "More Info" button to the sign-in error screen

Realms

• All changes to settings made on new worlds before creation are now transferred to the world after creation

Character creator

• In Character Creator, tweaked color tint for the default Steve skin to match default Steve
• Back appearance pieces will no longer cover the left and right arrows in the profile screen
• Sidebar no longer opens upon expanding any of the classic skin packs in the Dressing Room
• Improved the navigation flow for Character Creator so that it always switches to the selected Character Creator profile
• Skins that are equipped from Marketplace while in-game now apply to the player's character

Commands

• Education Edition items are no longer shown as an option when using @e[type=]
• Command Blocks with Needs Redstone and a non-zero Delay in Ticks will now execute only if they remain powered for the delay duration
• Fixed alignment of the sidebar display from the /scoreboard command when text length changes
• Fixed the ability to summon experience orbs via the /summon command

Technical updates

Updated add-on template packs

• Updated Add-On templates for 1.17.40 are available for download with new resources, behaviors, and documentation

Fixes

• Fixed display only entity destruction in chunk discard scenarios
• Fixed a bug that caused animations to be restarted when changing render controllers

Data-driven blocks

• Updated documentation for the Block Rotation component
• Updated documentation for BlockExplosionResistance
• Added required toggles to documentation and to content error for block components

Graphical

• Added a content error for using a material but not providing the required number of textures to the render controller

Molang

• Fixed item_remaining_use_duration having improperly scaled or inverted results (This fix is a Versioned Change as of engine version 1.17.30)
• Add new compile errors for expressions like  text + 3, which were previously ignored (This is a Versioned Change as of engine version 1.17.40)
• Molang expressions that contain capital letters are properly evaluated now
• query.get_equipped_item_name will now recognize Sea Lanterns
• Added new compile errors for expressions like 1 + (9 10), which were previously ignored (This is a Versioned Change as of engine version 1.17.40)

GameTest Framework (Experimental)

• Renamed method succeedWhenBlockTypePresent to succeedWhenBlockPresent
• Fixed a bug where property id would return "Unknown" for custom entities
• Identifier strings returned from property id now include the item's namespace
• Updated the GameTest Framework interface and added a new SimulatedPlayer capability:
• Added 'SimulatedPlayer'class to GameTest. This class enables GameTest to simulate a variety of player behaviors such as movement, using items, and interacting with blocks and entities
  • Added function spawnSimulatedPlayer(blockLocation: BlockLocation, name: string): SimulatedPlayer
  • Added function removeSimulatedPlayer(simulatedPlayer: SimulatedPlayer): void
  • mojang-gametest.Test type
  • Changed signature of function assertEntityInstancePresent(entity: Entity, blockLocation: BlockLocation, isPresent: boolean = true)
  • mojang-minecraft components
  • Component inventory now works with Player inventories

GameTestSequence

• Removed method thenWaitWithDelay
• Added method thenWaitAfter(delayTicks: number, callback: () => undefined) — After a delay, executes the given callback every tick until it succeeds. Exceptions thrown within the callback will end sequence execution

Player

• Fixed a bug where the location property would return an incorrect height for players
• Added property id

Block

• Replaced method getLocation with property location
• Replaced method getPermutation with property permutation
• Replaced method getType with property type
• Replaced methods isWaterlogged and setWaterlogged with property isWaterlogged
• Replaced method getBlockData with property permutation
• Replaced method isEmpty with property isEmpty
• Removed property canBeWaterlogged

BlockType

• Replaced method getName with property id
• Replaced method canBeWaterlogged with property canBeWaterlogged

BlockPermutation

• Replaced method getType with property type