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Comment by mjs7231 | Hacker News Reader

Through terrible process and QA on their end, MS essentially stole a copy of the game back from me with this change.

My son got an email saying he needed to migrate our Mojang account to an MS account and he clicked through like the email said. Problem was the Microsoft account he migrated to already had a Minecraft purchase. Now I essentially lost a copy of the game because we technically have two Minecraft accounts with the same email. We can only log into one of them.

I contact MS with the best link I could find but it was not actually linking me up to a MS employee, but cycled me through four different "experts", each of which I had to re-explain the issue, and each said they didn't know how to help me before bouncing me to another expert. It was a terrible experience and still unresolved.

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My kids are unable to use their game because Microsoft is sending password reset to email that no longer exists.

And that's is all that Microsoft support is willing to do to help - send a code to non-existing email address. It does not matter that we have proof of purchase or activation code.

Simiar story, already posted it last time this came up. Bought a gift code for a 13yo 10 years ago. They lost their email address from back then, as in, don't even remember what it was. But well, I wasn't really The sharpest tool in the shed either at 13. The FAQ say if you have the PayPal transaction id, you get the account back.

Support replied after a week saying they lost PayPal transaction IDs for that time period and unless I can provide the email address the account is registered as, it's a "no can do".

To be fair, it sounds like you didn't the email it was sent to, the PayPal id (receipt), and it was never chased in as an account... What does support even have to go off of then?

He has the PP ID it sounds like - MS lost the PayPal IDs on their end, so they cannot corroborate the veracity of what he provided.

Was this before MS bought Mojang?

Yes, 10 years ago it was still Mojang only. I contacted them about a year ago, when that now 23yo got nostalgic and wanted to play again.

wow I thought it was just me with the problem!

I've been torn because I really want to play the game after almost a decade, but out of principle have not wanted to pay them twice.

> Problem was the Microsoft account he migrated to already had a Minecraft purchase.

When I specifically tried to do this, the migration page said "Sorry, this account already has already been migrated".

Reminder that there are two Minecraft licenses - one for bedrock/"Minecraft for Windows"/Windows 10 Edition[0], and one for the "Java edition" of the game[1]; you only needed to migrate Mojang->Microsoft to keep access to your Java Edition purchase via a Microsoft account. The Windows edition has always been a pure Microsoft Store license.

0: https://www.xbox.com/en-us/games/store/minecraft/9nblggh537b...

1: https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/store/minecraft-java-edition

I had endless trouble with Microsoft phone support telling me they'd successfully cancelled my Xbox Live Gold member ship only to get another bill the next month. Turns out there were two Xbox accounts linked to the same Gmail account, one with a "." and one without.

This is the "gmail fullstop" problem.

This is a massive security oversight and has already made its rounds already.

Xbox accounts have been compromised, but really, anything can, if you own first.last@gmail.com, you better be careful about everything you do.

People who know your email know your name, and can cause services to email you things, using two accounts, one your's the other, not.

Indeed. What made it harder to detect was I'd made them myself at some point in the long history of xbox live, so all the account details were identical between the two.

At least you've cost MS more money through four experts than them giving you the game back directly. So there's that, I guess.

Now I wonder if fixing such edge cases would be more expensive for them than making users go through these "experts" again and again...

Someone should automate the cycling process so the user's time isn't wasted as well. Some audio recordings and a chatbot might actually be enough given how formulaic such interactions are.

Yeah it’s a mess, when you’re on Linux you buy Java initially without caring much, then you are in for a surprise and some interesting reads when the kids want to play with friends… I don’t understand why I can’t just have both on the same account, prevent the unpleasant surprises. I mean it’s the same game (from the outside).

Well, if your kids are slightly older, you have the opposite problem: everyone older than 12-13 tends to want to play on Java. My oldest is right on the cusp where his friend group is split down the middle.

It's super dumb.

I have had Bedrock kids over and they crossplayed with my Java kids using GeyserMC [0] on my server, which tickles the inner nerd, but there are always minor glitches.

[0]: https://geysermc.org/

We currently use the linux minecraft launcher which has worked pretty well up to now running bedrock on linux. It's the best bedrock experience, but this change is concerning.

So I just got the message that I’m getting bedrock for free with Java, that’s nice! What launcher are you using exactly?

This [1] here. Sadly, the maintainer has had enough. It still works for the latest minecraft I think. It runs so nicely on linux - far more processor efficient than the java version, and runs even better than bedrock on Win10. I'll be sad when it stops working, but will probably just 'hold' on an old minecraft version at that point.

[1] https://mcpelauncher.readthedocs.io/en/latest/getting_starte...

Why would they suddenly want to play on Java? Is it the mods?

Mods is part of it, but the biggest reason my 12 year-old insisted on switching to Java is because he says redstone behaves differently.

He'd try to recreate a cool build he saw in a book or online, and get super frustrated when it just wouldn't work in Bedrock edition.

However, I feel that also highlights the importance of network effects. There's a huge amount of content in guide books, wikis, online tutorials, YouTube channels, etc., and the majority of it is targeted at Java edition.

Probably because the older version is Java, so if you grew up being intrroduced by people older than you, the Java would have more staying power.

Wait - it's not Java anymore? Can people still self-host servers?

I checked out of Minecraft in like 2012.

You can host Bedrock servers, in fact, it is a single argument in my docker-compose.yaml to flip between a Java or a Bedrock server [0]. Not sure about the plug-in situation.

[0]: https://github.com/itzg/docker-minecraft-server

The cross platform (as in consoles) Version is written in C++ called bedrock edition, but they are both still actively developed on.

Sounds typical of modern support. Nobody knows how anything works and even if they did they are not actually empowered to help you anyway. Best way to get results is to complain loudly in public (Twitter) and hope someone at MS is annoyed by a barrage of retweeted negative mentions.

If there’s a good way to reach you (add email in your bio maybe?) I can give you a phone number for someone who can help.

Do you have an email address I can reach out to you at?

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