Minecraft Bedrock Edition Finally Fixes 8-Year-Old False Pause Bug in Spring Update
After eight long years, Minecraft Bedrock Edition has finally addressed one of its most persistent annoyances – the infamous “false pause” problem. This fix arrived as part of the recent Spring to Life update, which introduced numerous additions and bug fixes to the popular sandbox game.
A Long-Awaited Solution
A Bedrock Edition player recently shared the exciting news that pressing the Esc key will now actually pause the game. Previously, the pause menu accessed by the Esc key was essentially just for show – a “vase” as some players described it – with no actual game-pausing functionality. Players had to use the more obscure F3+Esc key combination to pause gameplay genuinely.
“After waiting for 8 years, the official fix has finally arrived,” the player noted, expressing relief shared by countless Minecraft enthusiasts who had dealt with this quirk since Bedrock Edition’s launch.
Phased Rollout for Stability
According to the official Minecraft blog’s Bedrock Edition 1.21.70 Spring to Life update notes, the true pause function has been added to single-player mode. However, Minecraft developers are implementing a phased approach to the rollout to ensure stability across the massive player base.
The official announcement stated, “The feature will be gradually launched in phases and will be fully available to all players in two weeks. ” This indicates a careful deployment strategy for this seemingly simple but technically complex fix.
Pause Feature in Minecraft
- Single-Player Pause Functionality
A Single Player, when playing alone in your own local world. You can pause the game at that time without worrying about mob attacks or other time-sensitive events.
- Automatic Unpausing with Multiplayer
The game will automatically resume if another player joins your world while you’re paused.
If someone joins you while the game is paused, you will receive a notification, alerting you that your game is now running again. Also, the notification that appears on your game screen, even if you are in the settings, will give you a convenient direct-access button that takes you straight back to gameplay.
The pause feature won’t work in specific multiplayer environments:
- Realms
- External servers
- When friends are connected to your local server
In these situations, the game continues running even when you access menus, maintaining consistent gameplay for all connected players.
Early Signs in Preview Versions
Attentive players may have noticed early indications of this change in previous testing versions. The Minecraft Bedrock Edition Beta Preview 1.21.60.21 had introduced an “Enable game pause” option in the settings menu. This feature allowed the game to pause when the Esc key was indeed pressed.
However, as a preview version, this functionality hasn’t been accessible to the broader Minecraft community until now.
This quality-of-life improvement may seem minor to outsiders. Still, for the dedicated Minecraft community, it represents the resolution of a long-standing inconvenience that has affected gameplay experiences since Bedrock Edition’s introduction.
