Bug MC-8959 caused automatic jumping at water edges since 2013. It is now resolved in the latest Java snapshot alongside similar issues, but fresh player reports show new problems with horses and donkeys.
For over a decade Minecraft players have put up with a weird interaction where your character would randomly jump while standing in shallow flowing water next to a block. That behavior is finally gone.
The Bug That Outlived Entire Updates
Tracked as MC-8959, the issue dates back to 2013. The original report described coming back from an interruption to find the player jumping on stairs next to a water bucket without pressing space. It affected armor stands and other entities too.
I was playing around with my water bucket then my teacher called me away and when I came back I was jumping on the stair next to water without pressing space.
The latest Java snapshot cleaned up multiple related water behaviors at once. MC-44560, MC-50749, and several others involving automatic jumps at water or lava edges were closed together. A Japanese gaming site picked up the story today and framed it as a 13-year saga finally ending.
A new bug report filed yesterday documents the regression: donkeys, horses and mules in water can no longer be ridden onto land without partial blocks after the snapshot. The community seems split between celebrating the old fix and testing what else broke.
- MC-8959 opened February 2013 and resolved in 26.4 Snapshot 1
- Japanese coverage today drove renewed discussion
- Related water edge bugs fixed in same batch
- New horse water exit bug reported within 24 hours of release
This is the kind of quiet quality-of-life change that matters to veterans who have muscle memory built around the old behavior. Whether the new issues get addressed quickly will show if Mojang is serious about cleaning up legacy movement quirks or if this was a one-off.
Forum