Release Notes - MC Data Bridge 1.21.10.3
This is a key performance and stability patch. This update refactors both the player saving and loading processes to be more robust, performant, and secure.

⚡ Performance Improvements

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  [] Fully Asynchronous Player Saving: The entire player data save process, including NBT item serialization and JSON conversion, has been moved off the main server thread and onto an asynchronous task.
  
  [] Reduced Main-Thread Work (on Quit): This change prevents the PlayerQuitEvent from performing heavy serialization operations. This solves potential server lag spikes that could occur during events with mass player logouts (e.g., during a server restart).
  

✅ Stability & Robustness

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  [] Player Data Pre-loading (Login Gate): Player data is now loaded and validated synchronously during the PlayerLoginEvent (before the player enters the world). This is a critical data-integrity fix that prevents players from joining with empty data while their real data is still being loaded.
  
  [] Robust Pre-Join Kicking: Because data is loaded pre-join, players with locked data (from switching servers too fast) or corrupt data (deserialization errors) are now safely kicked before they ever enter the world.
  
  [] Database Startup Guard: A new safety check has been added. The plugin will now safely disable itself on startup if it fails to create or update the required player_data tables, preventing it from running in a broken state.
  
  [] Improved Deserialization Handling: Refactored the data loading logic to use a custom ItemDeserializationException. This makes the error-handling logic cleaner and more reliable.
  

⚙️ Internal Refactoring & Configuration

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  [] SSL & Custom JDBC Support: Added support for high-security database connections, including those requiring SSL. The database connection no longer uses hardcoded URL parameters (like useSSL=false). You can now specify any custom JDBC properties under the new database.properties section in config.yml to meet your host's requirements.
  
  [] Centralized Gson Instance: Consolidated the Gson instance into a single static object within the main plugin class for better code management.
  
  [] Code Cleanup: Removed unused classes (PluginManager.java, Utils.java) to streamline the codebase.
  

⚠️ Important Notes for Upgrading

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  [] Configuration Change: A new database.properties section has been added to config.yml to support custom JDBC settings. Your existing config file will be updated automatically with the new settings. No manual changes are required unless you need to customize your connection (e.g., to enable SSL for a secure database).
  
• This version is a drop-in replacement for v1.21.10.2.