The issue:
For abut a week now, I have been running a small 1.8.1 vanilla server for myself, my wife, and my in-laws. When I say Vanilla, I mean Vanilla. We each have texture packs and optifine, but no other mods. After a couple of days (I think 4 or 5), we noticed that the hostile mobs stopped spawning entirely. They're just gone, and won't come back.
I'm not 100% sure when it happened, or what had been done before the issue started, but I have some ideas. It started around the time that we found our first creature spawner (Zombies), and covered it up with a torch. It also happened roughly right after I gave an 8 year old in-law OP status for just long enough for him to abuse it, setting himself into creative mode. It also happened right around the second or third time that I booted it up after having lost internet connection on the wifi, meaning that I don't recall it happening in the middle of the server running. We booted it up, and the issue was present.
Things I've checked include, but are not limited to:
Checking to see if "spawn-monsters" is set to "true". - It is set to true.
Making sure that everyone is set to survival mode (Even those that haven't logged on in a while). - They all are set to survival.
Changed "force-gamemode" to "true". - It is now true.
Checked the difficulty as suggested, and found it to be set to 1. - I will try setting it to 0, then back to 1 to see if that'll reset it somehow.
Things I still need to try:
Delete the server and start over with just the world, character stats, and inventories. - A 100% clean restart isn't an option at this point.
Going back into that maze of a cave to find and uncover the above mentioned Zombie spawner. - It'll be hard to find, as it was in my wife's mine. She doesn't map things in her head well, but she does dig like a champ. It's massive and well lit, but unknown even to her.
Whatever has been suggested here since I was logged on to post this originally. - I'm eager to sort this out, and get back to a properly dangerous world.
Okay, I went and checked that. It's already set to "difficulty=1". That was a good idea, but it looks like it's a no-go. I'm going to set it to 0, then back to 1 to see if it'll reset somehow, but I doubt it. We never messed with that setting.
Do you have any other ideas I could check?
By the way, as of now I still haven't deleted and recreated the world yet, or looked for the Zombie spawner. I'll be doing that after the Difficulty setting thing. The problem is that the other players are growing bored with the challenge gone, so my guinea pigs are all on hiatus. I'll check it all out this evening, I think.
Okay, this has been silly. When the issue arose, it was because I went out to map the area around our great hall, and didn't see even one enemy. To check again, I went into a nearby dark cave, and explored it while lighting it up. There wasn't a single enemy in the cave, which was extensive. So I asked my wife if she had "seen any monsters". Somehow she thought I meant Skeletons and Zombies specifically. She has, apparently, dealt with Creepers all day long, and also did see a single Zombie recently that she forgot about because she just blocked that part of the cave off.
Basically what I'm saying is, FALSE ALARM! turns out we lit up such a massive area around our home, and by sheer coincidence I never saw a monster when I was exploring and should have.
That being said, I did set the difficulty to 0, then back to 1 just now, right before I went out looking for more monsters. I found a Spider and said "Oh, look, a Spider!" to which my wife said "Oh, I've seen those and some creepers", and I face-palmed. It's still possible that the difficulty thing did fix the issue, and that she is now remembering wrong. But I think it was just a false alarm.
For abut a week now, I have been running a small 1.8.1 vanilla server for myself, my wife, and my in-laws. When I say Vanilla, I mean Vanilla. We each have texture packs and optifine, but no other mods. After a couple of days (I think 4 or 5), we noticed that the hostile mobs stopped spawning entirely. They're just gone, and won't come back.
I'm not 100% sure when it happened, or what had been done before the issue started, but I have some ideas. It started around the time that we found our first creature spawner (Zombies), and covered it up with a torch. It also happened roughly right after I gave an 8 year old in-law OP status for just long enough for him to abuse it, setting himself into creative mode. It also happened right around the second or third time that I booted it up after having lost internet connection on the wifi, meaning that I don't recall it happening in the middle of the server running. We booted it up, and the issue was present.
Things I've checked include, but are not limited to:
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Okay, I went and checked that. It's already set to "difficulty=1". That was a good idea, but it looks like it's a no-go. I'm going to set it to 0, then back to 1 to see if it'll reset somehow, but I doubt it. We never messed with that setting.
Do you have any other ideas I could check?
By the way, as of now I still haven't deleted and recreated the world yet, or looked for the Zombie spawner. I'll be doing that after the Difficulty setting thing. The problem is that the other players are growing bored with the challenge gone, so my guinea pigs are all on hiatus. I'll check it all out this evening, I think.
Basically what I'm saying is, FALSE ALARM! turns out we lit up such a massive area around our home, and by sheer coincidence I never saw a monster when I was exploring and should have.
That being said, I did set the difficulty to 0, then back to 1 just now, right before I went out looking for more monsters. I found a Spider and said "Oh, look, a Spider!" to which my wife said "Oh, I've seen those and some creepers", and I face-palmed. It's still possible that the difficulty thing did fix the issue, and that she is now remembering wrong. But I think it was just a false alarm.
Setting this thread to "Resolved".