[Guide] More Piles, Stonepiles Mod and 1.21 from 1.20.12

[Brandon Bachman]

Preface
Hello, I hope this information receives you well. As a small-time server op for a 1.20.12 instance itching to upgrade for the latest release, if you're anything like myself and the friends I hang out with, you love to mod the stuffing out of your game and add in features to fill in perceived deficieneies of its standard content.

With the release of 1.21, things are a little funny, but with a bit of effort, you should be able to upgrade your instance at 1.21.0 before long, other mods notwithstanding.

Behaviours
In 1.20.12, More Piles, alongside with Stonepiles Mod interact well-enough with each other; no errors, no issues, no externally-presented problems: everything as-expected. The trouble begins with Tyron and ends with you; 1.21 provides native stone piles, which precludes the need for Stonepiles Mod, but if you remove Stonepiles Mod, everything will be converted to useless default blocks with missing texture. Of course this is very bad for anyone managing a world where these two mods were used extensively because the latest (as-of-this-writing) release of More Piles for 1.21 print errors in the server log about More Piles having no patch definitions for Stonepiles Mod. All of this, because (and rightfully so) the game now has a means of creating stone piles natively, which doesn't use the fuel-stacking logic of coal, anthracite or coke.

Resolution
The "Fix" for this is simple; after upgrading all mods which have been updated for 1.21, keep Stonepiles Mod. It'll print the error in logs, of course, but you won't encounter the issues described above. Default behaviour will override Stonepiles Mod, and new piles will be made vanilla-style, but at least, until the mod is removed, all existing Stonepiles Mod-made stone (and mineral) piles will be kept.

Removing the Stonepiles Mod archive from your mods directory will irrevocably alter the behaviour of existing blocks when the world is re-loaded, with it formerly removed, when restored. Do not remove this mod until you are certain no previously-made piles from 1.20.12 exist.

Edited September 4, 2025 by Brandon Bachman

[Brandon Bachman]

I should had responded with this earlier; handbook crashes every client when observed in 1.21, with a specific suite of mods I yet to know what does it. Stonepiles Mod quit crashing everybody's gae the moment I removed it from play, which means if you've yet to do this, then either remove the mod prior, or tell all players they have a week to remove their piles, to accept the reality that there will be broken blocks in the game world regardless.

Either don't upgrade, or be ready to fix your world in-situ.

Edited September 16, 2025 by Brandon Bachman