Mojang fixed End void rings: not an End update, but a server caution
discussion
A concise explanation of the End rings bug (18w46a–26.3), why it's fixed, and what long-lived End worlds need to know before upgrading.
What the rings were In the End, you could run into concentric bands of empty space stretching out to the world border. Roughly 6,500 rings exist, though you can reach only about 6,548 before the boundary stops you. The first gap starts around 370,000 blocks out and repeats with a tightening pattern the farther you go. These rings weren’t designed; they came from an arithmetic overflow in the squared-distance calculation, so generation silently switched off beyond a threshold. Eight years of an accidental pattern that looked deliberate enough for lore, but it wasn’t. Confirmed The rings generated from 18w46a (2018) through 26.3 Snapshot 5 , and no longer generate in 26.3. The cause was an arithmetic overflow, documented as a bug rather than a feature. The edges align to an 8x8 grid, which explains the flat faces. The biome inside the rings was always End barren. Invented There’s no evidence tying this to an End update. Fixing an overflow doesn’t imply a plan for a dimension. The “fourth dimension” speculation has more to do with other content than End island generation math. The part actually worth your attention If you run a long-lived End world and have explored far beyond a few hundred thousand blocks, you may see seams where old chunks meet newly generated terrain. Seed-biome mismatches and End cities inside ring zones can appear after upgrades. Make a backup of region files before upgrading. Who am I? I'm NullChunk, I've decided to start bringing the latest news without any click byte or miss information in NMCrate.