NeoTab

1.4.2 is a stability and performance update for NeoTab's stable 1.4.x release line.

The goal of this release is to improve runtime reliability, configuration safety and performance without changing the existing configuration format or requiring any migration.

NeoTab continues to use a single shared JAR for Paper, Spigot and CraftBukkit with Minecraft 1.20.6+ and Java 21+.

Existing configurations, commands and permissions remain compatible.

🛡️ Safer configuration handling

NeoTab now handles invalid or missing configuration files more safely.

Both config.yml and regions.yml are validated before a reload is applied.

If either file contains invalid YAML or is missing, the reload is rejected and the last valid configuration remains active instead of being replaced.

The affected file is temporarily protected from persistent changes until it has been repaired and successfully reloaded.

This prevents later GUI or command changes from accidentally overwriting a damaged configuration with defaults or incomplete data.

Additional improvements include:

Protection against writes to invalid configuration files Validation of region mapping structures Dedicated English and German error messages Safer behaviour during initial plugin startup Recovery through /tab reload after the file has been repaired

🌍 Region and movement handling

Region profiles now update correctly after more types of player movement.

NeoTab now explicitly handles:

Teleports Portals World changes Normal player movement

Successful teleports and portals trigger a fresh region check, while cancelled events are ignored.

Changing worlds also forces NeoTab to recalculate the active region profile immediately.

This fixes cases where the tablist or scoreboard could temporarily continue using the profile from the previous region or world.

⚡ Nearest-player performance

Nearest-player searches received a significant internal rewrite.

Player positions are now captured once per search pass and geometrically irrelevant players are rejected before more expensive visibility checks are performed.

Large searches are also spread across multiple server ticks instead of allowing a single update to perform unlimited work.

NeoTab currently limits these searches to:

4,096 candidate inspections per tick 64 completed player searches per tick

Before a result is used, the player's visibility, connection state, world and distance are checked again to prevent stale results.

In a deterministic test with 1,000 visible players at the same coordinates:

NeoTab 1.4.1 required:

1,001,000 position reads 999,000 visibility checks

NeoTab 1.4.2 required:

3,000 position reads 2,000 visibility checks

These numbers represent synthetic operation counts and should not be interpreted as measured TPS or MSPT improvements.

The main goal of the change is to reduce unnecessary work and keep larger searches bounded across server ticks.

⏱️ Timer and stopwatch accuracy

Timers and stopwatches now use their own monotonic timing source.

This improves accuracy when the server is under load and fixes several timing edge cases.

Improvements include:

New sessions no longer inherit the timing phase of an existing scheduler task Pause and resume preserve fractional seconds Elapsed time remains accurate when server ticks are delayed

Visual updates still follow the Minecraft server scheduler, meaning the display may update late during a lag spike before catching up to the correct measured time.

🖱️ Chat input and GUI lifecycle

Chat-based input and GUI actions are now more resistant to race conditions.

Delayed chat responses and timeout callbacks are tied to the exact input session that created them.

This prevents an older callback from interfering with a newer prompt.

GUI click actions are now scheduled safely for the next server tick and validated before they execute.

Actions are discarded if:

The player closes or switches the menu The player disconnects NeoTab reloads NeoTab stops The original GUI is no longer active

This helps prevent delayed actions from affecting outdated menus or plugin state.

🔧 Stability improvements

Several smaller lifecycle and runtime issues were also addressed throughout NeoTab.

This release includes fixes and additional safeguards for:

Configuration recovery Region updates Nearest-player calculations Timer lifecycle handling Chat input sessions GUI click scheduling Plugin reloads and shutdowns

The focus of 1.4.2 is not adding new user-facing features, but making the existing NeoTab 1.4.x feature set safer and more predictable during real server use.

🧪 Validation

NeoTab 1.4.2 was validated using:

65 automated tests 14 new regression tests added specifically for this release Java 21 build verification Cross-platform compatibility checks Server startup and reload smoke tests Manual visual testing

Smoke tests were successfully completed on:

Paper 1.20.6 Paper 1.21.11 Spigot 1.21.11 CraftBukkit 1.20.6 Paper 26.2 development build

The test scenarios covered:

Plugin enablement Configuration reloads Region persistence Invalid YAML handling Write protection after failed reloads Configuration recovery after repair Nearest-player settings Clean plugin shutdown

LuckPerms 5.5.53 and PlaceholderAPI 2.12.2 were also successfully tested together with NeoTab on Paper 1.21.11.

A final manual visual test was completed on Paper 1.21.11 using an existing server configuration.

The final release JAR is byte-identical to the artifact used during the server and visual tests.

⚠️ Compatibility notes

PlaceholderAPI 2.12.2 currently fails independently while parsing the version string of the tested Paper 26.2 development build (26.2.build.10-alpha).

NeoTab itself continues to run, but PlaceholderAPI integration should not currently be considered validated on that specific development build.

Large-player-count TPS and MSPT performance was not benchmarked for this release.

The nearest-player improvements are supported by automated regression tests and operation counts rather than a formal server performance benchmark.

📦 Updating

Before updating, creating a backup of the existing plugins/NeoTab folder is recommended.

Then:

Replace the previous NeoTab JAR with NeoTab-1.4.2.jar Perform a full server restart

No configuration migration is required.

🐙 GitHub

For the complete release notes and full technical changelog, visit the NeoTab GitHub release:

https://github.com/DasEtwa/NeoTab/releases/tag/v1.4.2

If you encounter a bug, unexpected behaviour or compatibility issue, please report it through GitHub Issues:

https://github.com/DasEtwa/NeoTab/issues

When reporting an issue, please include your server platform, Minecraft version, NeoTab version, relevant log output and the affected configuration section where possible.

Please remove any private server information before posting logs or configuration files.

❤️ Thank you

Thank you to everyone using NeoTab and helping test the stable 1.4.x releases.

Bug reports and suggestions are always appreciated and help make NeoTab more reliable with every update.