Minecraft 26.1 Pre-Release 2: Baby Mobs Get Fixed and Fullscreen Gets Options

Pre-releases don't usually get people too excited, but 26.1 Pre-Release 2 actually brings some quality-of-life improvements worth talking about. This batch of fixes targets the Tiny Takeover content that shipped recently, smoothing out rough edges before the full release.

Baby Animal Sizing Finally Makes Sense

If you've been running a server with the latest updates, you might've noticed baby horses looked slightly off. Turns out they were scaled up a bit more than intended. Baby cats had the opposite problem, appearing smaller than baby ocelots despite being the same creature type.

Mojang fixed both issues in this pre-release. Baby cats now match baby ocelots in size, and baby horses lost their weird scaling boost. Small details, sure, but parity between Java and Bedrock matters for cross-play servers. Players shouldn't see different mob sizes depending on which version they're using.

Fullscreen Mode Gets Smarter

Here's something server owners might care about when testing or running client-side: a new "Exclusive Fullscreen" toggle in display options. It controls whether fullscreen mode completely hijacks your monitor or plays nice with other windows.

The setting defaults to off (non-exclusive mode), which is actually the better choice for most people. Exclusive fullscreen can boost FPS slightly on older hardware, but it also breaks alt-tabbing and can interfere with input methods. The change only applies after restarting the game, so you won't accidentally mess up your setup mid-session.

Players using IME (input method editors) for CJK languages should probably keep this disabled. Exclusive mode has been known to cause input issues.

The Despawning Leash Bug Is Dead

This one's been annoying server communities for years. Multiple mob types would randomly despawn even when attached to leads, completely defeating the point of using leads in the first place. Dolphins, squids, hoglins, zoglins, trader llamas... the list goes on.

All fixed now. Your carefully curated mob collections won't vanish overnight anymore. If you've been avoiding certain mob farms or decorative setups because of this bug, you can finally build them properly.

Other Notable Fixes

• Witches can actually hit targets at close range now instead of missing constantly. Makes witch farms slightly more dangerous if you're AFK.
• Ender pearl stasis chambers work correctly again. The sponge trick was deleting pearls entirely, breaking some technical builds.
• Golden dandelions won't forcibly remove persistence from baby animals when you age them up. Your named animals stay put.
• Item entities take damage more consistently from cacti. Weird niche fix, but it matters for item disposal systems.

Trade Rebalancing Gets a Librarian Buff

If you're running the villager trade rebalance experiment on your server, master librarians now guarantee three available trades. This ensures you always get at least one enchanted book option, fixing a regression where librarians sometimes offered nothing useful at max level.

Not a huge change, but it makes the experimental trading system more viable for survival gameplay. Players won't get stuck with useless master villagers anymore.

Technical Stuff for Plugin Devs

There's a change to how server status messages (MotD) handle component nesting. Anything nested deeper than 16 levels gets discarded and replaced with an ellipsis. Probably won't affect most servers unless you're doing something extremely fancy with your MotD formatting.

The full patch notes list about 30 bug fixes total. Most are minor edge cases (ender dragons with specific NBT values, chat restriction warnings ignoring width settings, that sort of thing). You can check the complete list on Minecraft.net if you want every detail.

What This Means for Servers

Pre-releases sit in that awkward space where they're stable enough for testing but not quite ready for production. If you're running a public server, wait for the full 26.1 release. But if you're testing the Tiny Takeover content on a private server or want to prep for the update, this version is solid.

Several long-standing bugs got squashed here, particularly around mob persistence. That alone makes it worth keeping an eye on.

The baby mob scaling fixes matter more than you'd think. Cross-play servers deal with enough inconsistencies between Java and Bedrock without visual differences adding to player confusion. Getting these details right keeps the experience consistent.