EssentialsX 2.18.1 is here! This release features full 1.16.2 support, as well as a few bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements.

Thanks to @JRoy, @pop4959, @triagonal and all our other contributors who contributed to this release!

In addition, thanks to our donors, in particular our Hero tier supporters on Patreon:

• AKP
• Wasted Ticks
• and 1 anonymous Hero

If you'd like to support the hard work that goes into EssentialsX, you can join our Patreon to support on a monthly basis, or make a one-off donation on Ko-fi. We'd appreciate any donations, especially if your server makes money - all donations enable us to continue spending hours of our free time working on and improving EssentialsX for everyone.




Supported server versions
EssentialsX officially supports the CraftBukkit, Spigot and Paper server software. Specifically, EssentialsX is designed to work on the following Minecraft versions:

• ✅ 1.15.2 and 1.16.2 - EssentialsX actively develops against and supports these versions.
• ⚠️ 1.8.8, 1.9.4, 1.10.2, 1.11.2, 1.12.2, 1.13.2 and 1.14.4 - these versions are still supported, but are not a priority for us, and may be dropped in a future release.

EssentialsX does not support the following Minecraft versions and server software:

• 1.7.x or below - we do not provide support for these versions.
• Cauldron, Thermos, Magma, CatServer, or any other Forge/Bukkit hybrid server software - EssentialsX is built for the Bukkit API, which does not properly support mods, and so we do not provide support for these hybrid servers. For modded servers, use SpongeForge and Nucleus, or an alternative mod for Forge or Fabric.

We recommend using the latest version of Paper, as it includes several performance enhancements over Spigot. EssentialsX 2.18+ includes significant improvements which are only effective on Paper, most notably asynchronous chunk loading which reduces lag spikes during player teleports.


Upgrading to 2.18.1
If you're upgrading from 2.18.0, you don't need to update your EssentialsX config. However, 2.18.1 adds a couple of new options which you may want to configure, and to do so you'll need to either update your config or add the new settings to your existing config. Read on for a list of changes and new config options.

Upgrading from older versions of EssentialsX? See the previous update changelogs.


Known issues
Anchor charges deplete on Spigot even when EssentialsX Spawn overrides the spawn location
On CraftBukkit and Spigot, anchor charges will deplete regardless of the respawn-at-anchor setting due to an unfixed bug in CraftBukkit. This bug has been patched in Paper.

Other known issues
These bugs will be fixed in 2.18.2. They may already be fixed in dev builds - if these affect you, you should download a dev build.

• /time set and /time add do not work from the console. (#3621)
• When players exit AFK mode, their prefix/suffix might be missing from the tab list. (#3606)

Important changes
/tpr no longer caches locations on startup by default (#3496)
In 2.18.0, EssentialsX would generate and cache locations for the /tpr command when the server started up. However, on CraftBukkit and Spigot this resulted in several sync chunk loads during startup, which significantly slowed down startup on these server implementations. As a countermeasure, /tpr no longer caches locations on startup by default, though it will still cache locations after the /tpr command has been used once after startup.

If you're using Paper, or if you're using Spigot and are willing to tolerate the slow startup, you can re-enable this by adding pre-cache: true on a new line inside plugins/Essentials/tpr.yml.

EssentialsX Protect: protect.prevent.creeper-explosion no longer cancels player damage (#3604)
Previously, disabling creeper explosion block damage with the protect.prevent.creeper-explosion setting would also prevent players taking damage from the explosion. This has now been changed to match the other protect.prevent.<type>-explosion settings, and this allows you to prevent block damage while allowing players to take damage from creeper explosions. As before, you should use protect.prevent.creeper-playerdamage to prevent players taking damage from creeper explosions.

Teleportation safety now respects the world border (#3499, #3536)
EssentialsX's teleport safety mechanism will now prevent you teleporting outside the vanilla world border, instead placing you safely inside the world border. This prevents players taking damage when using /tpr if you didn't manually set a maximum range for /tpr locations.

Note that this won't apply if you are in creative mode or god mode, as teleport safety is disabled if you're invulnerable. If you'd like to disable teleport safety entirely, you can do so using the teleport-safety and/or force-disable-teleport-safety options in config.yml.


New features
EssentialsX Spawn now supports respawn anchors (#3498)
You can now use the respawn-at-anchor config option (disabled by default) to configure EssentialsX Spawn to respect respawn anchors set by players, instead of teleporting players to their home/bed:

/editsign now tab-completes existing sign contents (#3497)
If you attempt to edit a line that already has text on it, /editsign will now suggest the existing text in tab completion, including any formatting codes. This makes it even easier to update existing signs!



New amplifier:<value> attribute for potion item meta (#3614)
When defining custom potion effects in kits, /potion, /give and /item, you can now use amplifier:<value> in place of power:<value> to specify a potion strength value as a "raw" Mojang strength value. The difference between amplifier:<value> and the existing power:<value> is that amplifier always uses the value that Mojang stores in NBT rather than the strength displayed in tooltips, whereas power adjusts inputs of 1-3 to match tooltips, which prevents spawning level IV (strength 3) potions.

TL;DR: you can now use amplifier:3 to spawn in level IV custom potions.

/spawner delays now work correctly (#3239)
You can now use /spawner <mob> [delay] to set a custom delay for a mob spawner. While this feature may have worked in the past, it has been reimplemented to use Bukkit API where possible and NMS as a fallback, which enables it to work on newer versions of Minecraft.

Other additions

• EssentialsX now supports sign functionality on crimson and warped signs. (#3487)
• Internal command code has now been refactored for improved readability. (#3336, #3337)
• The /skull command now pulls player skin data asynchronously. (#3579, #3337)
• /paytoggle is now a standard toggle command, allowing admins to toggle payment status for other players and use wildcards. (#3087, #3337)

Bug fixes
Bugs fixed from 2.18.0 and older versions

• The minimum range setting for /tpr now correctly excludes a square shape in the centre of the world. (#3480)
• /togglejail no longer teleports jailed players back to their previous location when they are unjailed if teleport-back-when-freed-from-jail is set to false. (#3522)
• Fixed a rare stacktrace when players disconnect that was caused by an internal CraftBukkit change. (ab545dc)
• Fixed a regression in /tpaccept where accepting a teleport request wouldn't always clear pending teleport requests if a teleport failed. (#3567)
• Fixed a regression in teleport commands where players would be charged twice for teleports with a command cost. (#3601)
• /tree and /bigtree now work on 1.12.2 and prior versions. (#3569)
• Teleport safety no longer allows teleporting into lava on older versions of Minecraft. (#3537)
• /list's tab completion no longer reveals the online presence of groups where all the online members are vanished. (#3616)
• /eco take ** <percentage> now works properly. (#3547, #3337)
• AntiBuild: Blocks in the piston blacklist can no longer be pulled by a sticky piston. (#3610)
• GeoIP: Now shows a better message when GeoIP hasn't been configured. (#3568)
• Protect: protect.prevent.creeper-explosion no longer cancels player damage (#3623)
• Spawn: /setspawn and /spawn now correctly check permissions for tab completion. (#3339, #3337)

Regressions fixed from 2.18.0.x dev builds

• Fixed a regression in /gamemode which prevented the console changing players' gamemodes. (#3590)
• Fixed a regression in /time where /time set did not correctly check the essentials.time.set permission. (#3616)

For a full commit log, click here.