Minecraft: Education Chromebook Beta (Version 1.14) Mega feedback thread
Thank you for coming to the official Minecraft: Education Edition Chromebook Beta feedback thread!
It's users like you that help us deliver awesome experiences to educators all over the world.
Please share any feedback, issues or observations you have in general about our most recent Beta. Be sure to include information about your hardware and operating system
If you are not familiar with the Beta and want to learn about how to get started please head here:
If you want to speak with us directly please submit a ticket here
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Hi everyone,
Unfortunately, the thread with all of your replies got lost in a technical issue, but I'll try and piece back together as much as I can.Thanks so much for taking the time to submit feedback. We really appreciate it and despite the technical issue, we haven't lost track of any of the items you have submitted thus far.
To the 3 people who were asking about the lack of access in the Admin Console, we heard back from Google that the Admin Console does not support early access releases. We've requested for this to be supported for future releases, but for this release it means you will need to use an unmanaged account and device to successfully install the beta on a Chromebook. Once we have a production release, the application will start appearing in EMM and Google Admin Console interfaces.
To Andrew Forgrave, we are testing Chromebook + Tynker today (specifically the different sign in states as that sounded like a likely cause from your message) and will hopefully have an understanding of the cause later this week.
Slayde Kerner, I had a copy of all of my replies saved on my computer:Thanks again for writing such detailed and thoughtful feedback! We really appreciate and value community members like you who take the time to provide feedback and I can assure you, we are reading it and incorporating it into future updates (both for this release and for future releases).
1. (BUG) You guys forgot to remove the "View In Store" button under global resources when you click a resource pack. This brings you to a loading page that fails.
[Response]: Thanks for finding this. We are looking into it now and it will be removed before the release.
2. (BUG) Although it is still possible to Copy, Paste and Cut all text in the game there is no indicator it is working. If you hit CTRL A on windows to highlight all, it doesn't show highlighted even though it is. Helpful with command blocks.
[Response]: This (along with other issues with text input) are long-time pain-points of content creators and world builders. We have regular conversations with the team in Minecraft responsible for text entry and they are aware of this, but they are also looking at a number of other issues as well. I unfortunately can’t offer any timelines on when they may be able to address this.
3. (BUG) Holding space then pressing ESC or using any menu keeps you infinitely jumping.
[Response]: I was able to see this as well. I have filed the bug.
4. (BUG) The exploits with border blocks that I opened a private bug post about a while ago still work. This is still causing issues in our classrooms and I don't want to post them on the forum because it would cause other teachers chaos if students see it.
[Response]: I looked at your ticket and can confirm that many of the ways you described are still possible. Border blocks were designed to assist world builders in limiting where players can go in the world, but they work in conjunction with level design to be effective and unfortunately they will never be able to completely stop an enterprising player in creative mode from escaping outside of them. There are other, more powerful tools to completely enforce world boundaries that we can discuss if that is what you need. That said, some of the ways you mentioned can be resolved and I have replied back to you directly in the private ticket.
5. (BUG) When installing, Sometimes the admin prompt shows up minimized.
[Response]: Unfortunately, this can happen to any application on Windows and it's caught me by surprise many times in various apps as well - where the User Account Control prompt can appear minimized or behind other windows. I will pass along the feedback to the Windows team.
6. (BUG)For the past couple versions this is still not fixed. Full screen still does not work properly on first toggle. When turned on, the windows taskbar does not hide and Minecraft's aspect ratio gets all screwed up.
[Response]: I'm sorry about this one. We did fix this bug but I think we may have fixed it incompletely or subsequently broken it again. When I tested this today, I was able to see it happen once but could never get it to occur again even after installing/uninstalling. I've opened a new bug for us to investigate what is happening and try to fix it if we can.
7. (suggestion) I've posted this before, but if there was a way to stop auto loading worlds when double clicking a .mcworld and instead just importing that would be great. It is a terrible pain realizing some setting like code builder is on and cannot be toggled mid game after students already joined.
[Response]: It is possible to package the worlds as a .mctemplate instead of an .mcworld which will import them to the templates folder but not automatically open them. But if I understand your question correctly, I think you may be asking about cancelling the loading of a world once it has started. Unfortunately, this isn't possible today but I can pass along that feedback to the team on Bedrock who manages world loading to see if this is something that could be added to a future update.
8. (suggestion) Please, please add a gamerule or something for the colored names. To this day students still get confused what team they are on when they see others names!
[Response]: Could you help me understand more about what you would like? Do you want them all to be the same color or are you wanting them to be assigned "group" colors or something else?
9. (suggestion) Some of the kids we work with can't read / have a disability, so the "play, Host and Settings" should look different when opening a world.
[Response]: This is a great suggestion. I've filed an investigation item for us to take a look at what we could do here. The buttons are small and we have to consider all platforms (like iPad) but we can look into if we could add icons or colors or something else to help distinguish between the buttons.
10. (suggestion) Replace the Map & Agent from the join codes. Kids who are new get confused what those are in that screen. Maybe use the fox and bee?
[Response]: Thanks for the suggestion! We did do testing when adding these to pick ones that were visually distinct and could be easily communicated in a classroom, but we are always excited to hear this type of feedback to continually improve. I know this won't completely solve the confusion, but one thing the students can do today is hover over the codes to see what they are called. I'll take this feedback back to the designers and see if this is something we should change.
11. (suggestion) Separate teacher skins (That come native with the game)
[Response]: We regularly look at adding new and interesting skins. I'll make a note so that the next time we look at updating skins we can discuss this.
12. (suggestion) Add the ability to use structure blocks to import / export builds! This would help so much with world building.
[Response]: This is a common world builder request and the Bedrock actually did work in their most recent release (version 1.16, the Nether update) to allow saving and loading of structure blocks. Once Education Edition updates to version 1.16 we will also have these features. If you are interested, you can take a look at save and load features of structure blocks in Bedrock version 1.16 and provide feedback on what you think as we may make some improvements when we inherit them and the Bedrock team will likely also make improvements as they get feedback from content creators.
13. (suggestion) Hide the NPC egg for non worldbuilders. I get questions from at least 3 kids every day what it does.
[Response]: Great suggestion! I'll have to check with the engineers to see how feasible this is.
14. (suggestion) Is there anything else that was added to the game not listed in the forum post that are specific to EE? Like the new show controls button at the bottom of the screen? It would be great to have an extensive list of changes!
[Response]: We don't normally publish an exhaustive change log like Bedrock or Java. Since we don't get asked for it frequently and the work involved to keep it up to date and readable is very significant and time consuming, it's not something we have historically offered. I can look and see if there is a way for us to more quickly generate something that would be useful, but until I've looked into it I can't make any promises.
Please let me know if you have any other questions - I'd like to continue the conversation on a number of these issues.
Thanks,Micah
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Thank you so much for your continued follow up with this thread! It is very heartening to receive direct acknowledgement of your attention to these developments in such a timely fashion. There is much that the Minecraft: Education Edition platform and the Minecraft: Education Edition educator community can accomplish through collaboration!
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Hi Kyle,
I have switched to an unmanaged chromebook now and have successfully installed the beta. I am using an ASUS C202SA which is a pretty basic device and it ran smoothly. It did tell me it was reverting to less detail due to low memory on the hour of code world.I would expect this on this device. Perfectly usable. Excellent to have minecraft on Chromebook. Thank You!!
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Andrew Forgrave, your information about Tynker was very useful. We tested and it looks like there are actually problems with using Google sign in for Tynker within M:EE on all platforms (including Win and iPad). Our developers took a look and it looks like we may need Tynkers assistance to fix the issue, so we have contacted them.
John Molloy, that's great to hear! Glad it's working for you! Do you have a screenshot of the "lower memory" error? It may be expected, but I'd like to take a look at that.
Thanks again for submitting all this great feedback!-Micah
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Hi Micah-M !!
So, you were indeed looking at the Tynker login issue yesterday! :-)
I spent some time yesterday trying again from the Chrombook and found that I was able to get it to work -- although I had some questions about what was actually happening!- C to launch Codebuilder
- Selected Tynker
- Selected Join from upper right corner
- Selected Already Have an Account (lower right corner)
- Clicked on Google button icon to hopefully access my existing code
- ---- then somehow authenticated using a Microsoft dialogue -- don't remember putting in a username or password (this is where it got confusing)
- Was able to create a project, save the project, leave Tynker, did the same with MakeCode, then returned to Tynker and my just-created project was there.
- QUESTION -- where exactly was my project being saved and attached to what account? Given that I wasn't able to actually log into my Tyker account -- I couldn't access my existing code.
Then, this morning ---
- C to launch Codebuilder
- Selected Tynker
- Selected Join from upper right corner
- Selected Already Have an Account (lower right corner)
- There is no longer a Google login option.
If I try to us the icon-less Google button on the Join Now page, I still get the 403 error from before.
Side Note: Macintosh
- no longer see Google option on Login with Existing Account viewer.
- the icon-less Google option on the Create Account Tynker viewer DOES let me login via a Google authentication and I can still access my projects that are housed in that account.
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Hi Guys.
I was wondering if it could be possible to indicate the Edition and Protocol version in the Raknet unconnected ping packets. The reason is that it would be useful for multi-edition servers to know what protocol to speak when clients connect. I have an open PR that allows MCEE to connect to Java servers through the excellent Geyser Proxy and presently have players from all editions playing on my 1.16 server. Right now I have MCEE listening on a different port but it would be great to allow it to speak on the same port as the Bedrock proxy.
The way I would suggest is to use the 'Time' field which is an Long. In order to differentiate it from a regular Time field the MSB would be set (unlikely to be set in normal operation) and the rest of the field can be broken up to indicate edition and protocol. I'd suggest 3 bits for edition and the rest for protocol.
Happy to discuss.
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I was one of the 3 that had reported the issue about it not appearing in the Admin Console. Thanks for contacting Google regarding it. Hopefully they change their stance, as it would be nice to be able to easily try it on a couple of devices as all of our devices are managed.
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Some other strange bugs we've noticed
players randomly are stuck in the drawn bow animation without a bow
hotbar bugs out, you can't scroll through them (this is random as well)
players seem desynced at times, such as appear jumping and sprinting through the floor
after armour is /cleared from players it stays on visually to others
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Also Micah-M Thank you so much for the very detailed response! I really appreciate it that you went through each item!
I'm glad to see that these things we report are getting through to you guys! I can't wait for what the future holds.
For the Colored names, when we do team based games having the kids with random colors confuses them. All they see is "Oh his name is Red, he is on Red team!" If there was a way to set the colors, or at the least turn them off that would be amazing.
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Andrew Forgrave we heard back from Tynker, unfortunately this is something that would require pretty significant work on both of us to work correctly (a change to how we do authentication between the two applications). We have added it to the list of work for a future release, but we won't be able to fix this before this release.
Bundabrg Thanks for the suggestion. Since the pandemic started, multiplayer has jumped to our most requested feature. Your asks around setting up custom servers definitely does come up in those conversations as does customers asking for more off the shelf solutions (something like Realms). That said, we are looking at what we can do to make multiplayer better and it represents a big area of work for us, so I can't promise any timeline for when these updates may be available or what the feature may look like (custom server tools vs Realms-like experience).
Mark Hendren after further conversations with Google, we are optimistic about future betas being available to managed devices, but this first one still will not be unfortunately. For the future ones, we will look into it and provide instructions after this release in preparation for subsequent releases.
Slayde Kerner Thanks for reporting these additional issues and for the extra details on the colored names. The last two look good for me to investigate, but could you provide some more details about the first two (bow and hotbar)? Which platform were you using when you saw them? Were there any specific steps to get the issues to occur?
Thanks,Micah
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!Micah Thanks for the reply. I already have a dedicated multiplayer mcee server (possibly the only one in the world) which I use with multiple tenancies and it has been helpful to allow isolated students to remain in contact with their friends (many on my server have expressed how lonely they were feeling before having a regular place to."hang out") so the suggestion was more just to make it easier to coexist with bedrock. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=34GsTNv8DAU
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Hi Micah-M!
I'm following up with regards to your inquiry into the situation with Tynker integration in Codebuilder. Thank you for looking into this. It is unfortunate that it can't be addressed sooner. I think the issue has been on-and-off and/or inconsistent for a while? I am also conscious that the Code.org and Scratch options are not available within Codebuilder. It would be nice to have them available built-in, rather than having to rely on a compatible version of Code Companion.
In looking for alternative options for my kids in managing their projects via MakeCode, I've realized that the SAVE option is not present on the Mac platform! I've seen it in the Windows version, and also in the new Chromebook beta, and I've posted further details about what I've encountered as a comment in the Managing Projects in Code Builder for MakeCode thread. Short story, exporting and importing is helpful when you can't store your code within an account-based cloud repository, but the latter is really something that should be properly implemented.
Thanks again for all that you are doing to help support the educator community! Always forward!1 -
I have been testing 1.14.30 beta for a few weeks and have had many stability issues on Mac OS that were not common on the 1.12 GA release. Not sure if this has been identified yet.
The issue is a Minecraft will freeze and eventually become non-responsive requiring force quit. We found it more common when hosting a multiplayer game but would happen even when not. Same result on both Mojave and Catalina.
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how does it work i already have mincraft so why didn't i get 1.14 update?
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I’ve been scouring the forum to see where I might have read something about the agent now being able to interact with doors and gates in the new release? Was it just my imagination, or is this a new feature?
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Hi Andrew Forgrave - we are working on these features and they should be available later in the fall.
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Benjamin Russell Thank you for reporting the reliability issues. We have fixed some additional reliability and stability issues since the beta began, but I will ask our team to take a look and see if there is anything else that pops up - especially around multiplayer.
@... 1.14.x is in Beta, so if you downloaded from our website or the Microsoft Store or Apple App Store you would have gotten the last full release (1.12.x). The link to install the beta is: Join the Chromebook Beta (1.14)Andrew Forgrave we are looking into ways to make the save experience more consistent and reliable for coding experiences. As you indicated, right now it's done by the IDEs themselves, so the implementation is inconsistent. I don't have any specific details to share, but it is an area that we know needs to be improved. For the agent interaction commands, we did add some new ones, but we aren't broadly communicating them because they aren't implemented by the IDEs yet. We consider them "content creator" features and are currently working on a way to better communicate these features to world builders and content creators without overwhelming everyone with too much information. As Carrie said, we will more broadly communicate this feature later once the IDEs (ie MakeCode/Tynker) support the command. If you want to try it, the syntax for the slash command is "/agent interact [direction]" and it will work on most blocks with single click actions that don't have UI (so for example doors, buttons and levers but not crafting tables, chests or item frames)
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Yes, I appreciate that it will be a bit of a challenge to unify the approaches taken by the various coding interfaces. To be honest, I was surprised to find that there was a Save function in MakeCode because I had never seen it in the Mac interface! For a moment, I thought it was new and that I just needed to do a clean install of 1.14.3 on a new Mac. I can’t quite understand why it would be there for Windows and now the Chromebook edition, but not the Mac version!
I will experiment with the /agent interact command. As I said, I can’t recall where I heard that the feature was coming but it makes sense that it might have been in a contact separate from MakeCode. I ran into a situation a couple weeks back when I wanted the agent to open a gate, and it would be nice to have an answer to that down the road!
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Benjamin Russell we did some extensive testing on Mac in the new version to see if we could reproduce the crashes you mentioned weren't able to find them. If you see these crashes again, could you please submit the crash reports from the Mac and we will investigate them.
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Since updating to the GA release of 1.14 (31 I think was the build #) I have not seen this freezing issue.
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wow nice
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