What's New in the Mobile, Multiplayer, & More update (version 1.18.45)

Welcome to the Mobile, Multiplayer & More update (version 1.18.45)!

Minecraft Education is now available for iPhones and Android phones and tablets! In addition to mobile availability, the new update offers an improved multiplayer experience, updates to in-game coding with Code Builder, and brings the mountain and cave biomes of Caves and Cliffs: Part II to Minecraft Education.

Update 01/17/23 - Hotfix & Rebrand (version 1.18.45)

• Minecraft: Education Edition will be known as Minecraft Education going forward. New name, new logo, new app icons. 
• (Screen hanging/crashing on Red Mojang screen) - Chromebook fix 

Update 10/25/22 - Hotfix (version 1.18.42)

Our hotfix contains the following changes:

• Multiplayer Improvements
  • Improved proxy support for multiplayer services
  • Greater connection reliability in multiplayer sessions 
• Searching content across our entire in-game Library is easier than ever with our new Library Search Bar
• Coding window now defaults to full screen on mobile devices
• Various bug fixes in addition to performance and stability improvements

From the Caves and Cliffs Part 2 Update

Version 1.18 brings some exciting features and changes to worlds. Here are the highlights:

• Expanded world height (-64 to 320)
• New cave generation with new areas (aquifers, lush caves, dripstone caves, amethyst geodes)
• Taller mountains with new biomes (meadows, groves, snowy slopes, jagged peaks, frozen peaks, stony peaks)
• Pre-1.18 worlds updated to blend old and new chunks and support deeper caves

Mobile Support

• Minecraft Education is now available on mobile devices, including iOS phones and Android phones and tablets!
• We’ve made updates to how some windows and pages are displayed to make them easier to use on smaller mobile screens
• You can adjust where Minecraft displays on the screen so it doesn’t appear in the notch of mobile devices
• View the System Requirements article for the minimum required specs for mobile devices

Improved Multiplayer Experience

• Joining multiplayer worlds should now be easier, requiring less network configuration to successfully connect
• Join by IP Address has been replaced with Join by Connection Id. We still recommend using join codes or sharing a join link as the easiest way to join a multiplayer session. 
• View the URL Allow List article for important configuration information required to use the new multiplayer experience
• Our multiplayer connections now utilize UDP connections (port 3478) 

New NPC Skins

• 20 new skins for nonplayable characters (NPCs) have been added to the game to help spice up your worlds. This update includes skins for agriculture, business mobs, everyday business, and kiosks & robots.
• Learn more about using NPCs with the Tutorial 6. NPCs lesson and the Adding Non-Player Characters (NPCs)

Improved Graphics Performance (technical)  

• The new Minecraft rendering engine, RenderDragon, is now included in Minecraft Education
• This technical update shouldn't impact gameplay, but you should see improved performance  

Coding and WebSocket updates (technical) 

• JSON format for events sent from websocket server and Code Builder APIs have been updated to the hierarchical JSON format.  
• Less useful properties removed. Block and item IDs switched to name-based format instead of numerical format. 
• Agent commands in websockets moved to new "action:agent" format. All commands are queued and include unique ids to correlate responses. 
• Any future breaking changes to websocket and Code Builder APIs will now result in the "protocolVersion" being incremented.  

Known Issues 

Some users may encounter these issues. If you do, reach out to our support team and we can help.  

Coding: 

• Code Builder may have unexpected shapes, blocks and discoloration over the coding window on the latest versions of Chromebook

Mobile: 

• If Minecraft isn't displaying well on your mobile device, you can first try changing the "safe area" by going to Settings > Video > Change Screen Safe Area and adjusting the size of the playable area. This control lets you define the space in which Minecraft will draw interactive elements of the game.
• Even after changing your screen safe area, there may be some on-screen buttons or windows that just don’t display correctly on smaller phone screens and tablets. If you see anything strange or unusable, please take a picture and report it to us.

Content:

The 1.18 release included updates which require corresponding key content updates in our computer science subject kit and Hour of Code 2019, 2020 and 2021. We are currently addressing these changes and hope to minimize any disruption or impact. The updated content is anticipated to be available soon.

Impacted content:

• HOC19
• HOC20
• HOC21
• Seymour Islands
• Python Islands
• Python Tutorials
• Reference guide

Other: 

• Switching from the beta (1.18.30) back to a previous build (1.17.32) can cause Minecraft to crash when loading a world. Manually deleting the options.txt file in the Minecraft Application Data folder will resolve this. 
  • On Windows, the options.txt can be found at %appdata%\Minecraft Education Edition\games\com.mojang\minecraftpe\options.txt which for most users is "C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\..."

Windows 7 Users: While Minecraft Education version 1.18 supports Windows 7, starting in December 2022, you will need to be using Windows 8 or newer to ensure Minecraft Education works correctly on your Windows device. View our System Requirements article for more info.