Hostile Mobs Stopped Spawning

[LyteWing]

I am not sure if this is the exact right place to post this but I hope someone can help me.

A friend and I have a server we play on that is currently running the Big Dig mod collection (wonderful collection BTW). All was well for a few weeks....we could barely go out at night due to the onslaught of zombies, skeletons, creepers, and spiders. Recently, however, this has stopped being the case. Unless we find a dungeon with a mob spawner there is nothing other than cows, chickens, and pigs. We can literally walk into the darkest of caves or forests in the middle of the night in the pitch dark and be 100% safe. We have checked the server properties file just to make certain nothing changes there but it is still set to survival mode, the difficulty is set to normal, and mob spawning is set to true.

To be clear, we do not feel this is a problem with the mod pack since this has happened to us with other packs as well...even Voltz and Tekkit. The nether does not seem to be effected as far as I can tell...going there is always a zombie pigman party with ghasts invited. If anyone can shine a light on how we might solve this issue I would be greatly appreciative. Right now I want to make a blast furnace but that is hard to do when no mobs spawn and you can get slime to make the magma creams.

Thanks in advance.

[fooshftw]

Hello,

I also have this same issue so I will share my efforts so far; hopefully we can think of a solution together! To add one additional factor outside your setup, I downloaded Thaumcraft 3.0.3 for my server as well.

So far, I have verified the difficulty, mob spawning is true, and game is set to survival mode. Additionally, I spun up a new Big Dig server and pushed my world data into it to try and rule out mod configuration as the possible issue. As expected, there were still no mobs. I also read that view distance could be culprit, and found mine to be set to 10. I set mine to 7, and then back to 10 just in case. Still no mobs. I can only guess that somehow the world data itself is bugged (consistent with your experience that this happens regardless of mods/packs) , but I have no idea how to fix that. I was thinking of possibly using something like this to add commands to the server to kill groups or all mobs: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1592223-wip-alphaforgeessentials-permissions-protection-logging-more-for-forge-based-servers/ However, the mobcap doesn't really seem to be the issue.

The F3 debug screen indicates that where I'm currently standing is not mobcapped. Check out this documentation for a primer on reading the screen: http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Debug_screen

"E (second row) Number of rendered entities over total entities"

Mine currently reads 19/55, not indicating a mob cap issue.

OR possibly find a Forge compatible mod that provide some mob spawn tweaking options. Other than that options seem to be make a new a world. Obviously that's not ideal as we'd have to start over, and the issue could likely happen again.

This video seems to have an interesting solution as well:

- I plan on trying this next, will post again if I find a fix.

[fooshftw]

Update:

I realized this is treating the symptom, rather than the cause :http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1553186-15forgemodloader-mob-spawn-controls-control-spawning-increase-spawncaps-spawn-attempts-mocreaturesextrabiomes-support-updated/

This worked for me, and was rather quick and easy to install. I set the monster spawn limit to 200 from 70, and creatures to 50. Hope this helps you as well.

[LyteWing]

Thanks for responding, Fooshftw.

I have seen the information about the view distance and actually tried it earlier today. My friend had the view distance set to 7 but I read that a view distance of 10 should correct the spawn problem. I took the server down, changed the view distance and restarted the server. Guess what? Mobs started spawning again! The only problem is that it seemed to be only a temporary fix. For some reason after an hour or so mobs started to be rare again....not completely gone like they were before, but they seemed to be getting less and less. So while the view distance does certainly seem to be part of the solution, it is not the whole thing.

How is the mob spawn control mod you linked in your last post working out for you? If it is working well could you please tell me what you had to do on the server and client side to get it to work? I ask because I have never added a mod to a custom mod pack like Big Dig and don't want to screw things up worse. Plus I have to explain it to up to 5 other people that play on the server so I need to make it as easy as possible for a couple of.....shall we say less that computer competent players.

If I find anything else out about the issue I will share it here. Thanks for responding again, I was about to think nobody would even try to help. This is obviously a wide spread problem and probably even a long standing bug in Minecraft......I just find it so hard to believe there is so little solid info on it!

[fooshftw]

Hello Lytewing,

I was glad to help, as this bug is incredibly frustrating to deal with. In my opinion the game is boring, if not broken entirely without the hostile mobs and their drops.

The Mob Spawn Controls mod has been working beautifully since I installed it this weekend:

http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1553186-15forgemodloader-mob-spawn-controls-control-spawning-increase-spawncaps-spawn-attempts-mocreaturesextrabiomes-support-updated/

The installation is rather easy, since I'm fairly certain you only need to install it server side. In our case with Big Dig, download the .zip for v1.4.6.2 for Minecraft 1.4.6 / 1.4.7 and put the .zip itself in the mods folder of your server. As with making any server changes - Back it up first! Once the mod is in place, restart the server to generate the configuration files. Now under your world folder there should be a SpawnConfiguration.txt. Here are my values that I found worked well:

SpawnCap.monster:300

SpawnCap.creature:50

SpawnCap.water:5

SpawnCap.ambient:15

#

Creatures.SpawnFrequency:200

#

AutoSave:true

CanEdit:true

MasterEnabled:false

The CanEdit value allows you to press F6 in game to access the majority of the mod settings. You may also have to adjust your mob cap settings in this menu to get them to take properly. I used biome controls, which control mob spawn by biome - the defaults are very good. Master controls just enable a particular mob for all biomes.

I found that mobs spawn fairly aggressively with these settings. We ended up loving the extra mobs though, and even enabled a few of the extra zombie types for extra fun. Once you have everything configured to your liking just make sure CanEdit is turned off so people don't get curious and turn ghasts or blazes on in the overworld biomes .

Cheers

[LyteWing]

Thanks for the info. So nothing is needed on the client side? I looked over it and it looked like it was two part (client/server) but if it only needs to be on the server then that should be no problem for the other people playing.

I hate that this seems to be the best/only solution to the issue.....as you said, it is a band-aid to treat the symptom and not the true cure to the problem. But at this time it seems our only "fix". I have to agree that the game is much less fun without mobs and I would also agree that it is partially broken without their drops...I need to make a blast furnace and without slime to make magma creams this is impossible......unless I hunt and happen to find enough magma cubes in the nether. Of course that raises the other curious part of this problem....mob spawns in the nether seem to be unaffected so far.

Oh well...thanks for the info!