Nonstop issues on macOS
Today my daughter finished her homework so I told her we would play Minecraft Education together: me on macOS and she on her iPad.
I can’t complain about the iPad version, but I have never once had a successful launch on macOS. Here was today’s fiasco which is completely normal:
- Launch Minecraft Education on my macOS MacBook. It freezes immediately.
- Restart MacBook. Relaunch Minecraft. Asks me to sign-in, but after 5 seconds clouds stop floating and freeze. Have to force-quit the app.
- Relaunch Minecraft. Asks me to sign-in but after 5 seconds clouds stop floating and it’s frozen.
- Repeat step 3
- Repeat step 3
- Repeat step 3
- Redownload Minecraft from this website. Replace
- Launch Minecraft. Freezes. Force-quit.
- Relaunch. Somehow it runs this time.
- Open our shared world, Host it.
- Give her the share code. Connection times out.
- Try again. Times out.
- Try again. She enters!
- We play for 3 minutes.
- She’s booted out.
- Disable hosting, re-enable hosting.
- She tries to connect; can’t connect to me.
- We give up and go play Multicraft instead.
I cannot stress enough that this is not a one-time issue whatsoever. This is every single time I have tried to use Minecraft Education since purchasing our two licenses a few months ago. In total I would say we’ve racked up 50 hours or so of gameplay, on top of 200 hours of struggle and hardship. That’s not an exaggeration. To play just one hour together takes two hours of trouble-shooting, re-installation, cache clearing, re-logging in, router restarts, you name it.
You cannot legitimately say that Minecraft Education works on macOS. I scan these forums and find nothing but complains, all similar to mine, people having major issues, people who have been Mac education specialists for years, all struggling with these streams of issues.
I am so immensely disappointed with this experience that I cannot recommend it to anyone, either professionally or personally. If you use Windows or mobile devices only, you will be fine. This seems to be a problem for macOS only.
I’m writing this after yet another failed attempt at gameplay. I have tried so many hacky workarounds listed in the forums here, which sometimes work, often don’t, usually some combination that you never can be sure about.
The freezing clouds are the #1 issue facing me, routinely, but as I mentioned there is simply a host of other issues. “I have a technical problem” is not really correct: this game has a technical problem. It needs a proper Apple Silicon build. Running a shoddy Intel version when we’ve already reached Sequoia is probably the main culprit.
I’d ask for advice but honestly unless someone out there has figured out a magic trick (like downgrading the macOS system), I don’t expect much help at this point.
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Hey Richard,
I hate to hear that you've had such a bad experience with the MacOS version of the app.
We'd love to work with you directly in a support ticket to try and get you, and your daughter, up and running. If you'd like to proceed with this please let me know and I can get one created for you. We may be able to grab logs, or see if theres a network issue, causing you issues.
Otherwise, here's a few things that might help.
You mentioned the freezing on launch issue. We are aware this is a bug present in 1.21.06 and below. However, we believe we have this fixed in the latest version, 1.21.10. Would you be able to test this version and see if the issue persist? You'll need to download the latest version from https://aka.ms/download as the MacOS client doesn't currently support auto-updates.
We have also noted these types of issues when running certain AV programs. You might try temporarily disabling your AV and seeing if the issue persist. If that works, you'll want to be sure to set Minecraft Education as a safe app.
I'd also love to hear more about the other issues you're facing so we can look into them deeper to create a better experience for both you and daughter, and potential current and future users.
Let us know if you have any additional questions, or concerns!
Thank you!0 -
Hi, yeah honestly the 1.21.10 update does so far seem to have addressed the first set of issues regarding the macOS version. Good news.
For my kid on the iPad though, still getting booted with network error after around 1 minute of multiplayer gameplay each time. I originally thought it was related to Screen Time’s Content Controls but even with those disabled now, it still boots her constantly. We have a Family friendly DNS on our home router, but as the macOS version is working on the same router I assume that’s not what is influencing the iPad version.
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Hey there!
Glad to hear one thing is looking better!
As for the iPad, does the issue replicate on another network?
Were you able to backup worlds, uninstall and reinstall to see if that helps the issue?
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Hi again, I wanted to post a follow-up as I think I’ve solved it.
My issue was that “Local Network” access for Minecraft Education was disabled on the MacBook. I didn’t think this permission would be necessary since Minecraft runs through the internet. But after coming across a Reddit comment, I discovered that it seems to be the case that when you host a server on the computer, and an iPad on the same wi-fi network joins it, it “speeds up” the connection by routing through the local network directly.
So, re-enabling Local Network access for M.C.E. in the MacBook settings fixed the issue.
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Oh perfect! Great to hear, and thanks for following up! \o/
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