Missing textures and models

Minecraft makes use of missing textures and missing models to handle potential errors present in the game's resources as well as resource packs.

The missing texture is a dynamic placeholder texture used by Minecraft for handling cases where a suitable texture cannot be found. Outside of its use in missing models, this is almost always due to a texture being referenced which simply does not exist under that name.

The texture uses a prominent black
 #000000 and magenta
 #f800f8 checkerboard in Java Edition or a black
 #000000 and magenta
 #fc00ff checkerboard in Bedrock Edition, in order to stand out as much as possible in most cases. Using bright colors to indicate missing textures is industry standard. The black and magenta combination is most typically employed by games developed using the Source video game engine,^[1] although Minecraft itself does not use the engine.

While internally referred to as missingno, there is no file for the missing texture in Java Edition, and it therefore cannot be changed under intended mechanics. It is possible to overwrite the copies of it which appear in texture atlases with another texture using atlas json files,^[2] although this is presumably not intended.

In Bedrock Edition, among other unknown occurrences, the missing texture is rendered as HDR panorama for a brief moment while loading or quitting a world locked in an older version with Vibrant Visuals enabled.

As of Java Edition 1.21.9 Pre-Release 1, there are eleven main ways in which the missing texture can appear without using a resource pack, all of which require commands.

The missing texture used in these versions would be generated differently depending on the operating system and Java version.^[6]

In an analogous fashion to the missing texture being used for instances where no texture is defined, the missing model is use in cases where no model is defined, or the model is invalid.

By default, the missing model is a full 16×16 cube which uses the missing texture on all six faces. These faces are culled accordingly where possible. Only two faces will have the same color at each vertex, rather than the three one may expect; Mojang has decided to not fix this.^[43]

The missing model is obviously also never intended to appear in standard gameplay, and uses the missing texture again to appear prominent and highlight errors to fix.

Contrary to popular belief, no central "missing texture block" has ever existed in the game; all cases of blocks which use this model are due to another block simply having no assigned texture or model.

As of Java Edition 24w36a, there is one main way in which the missing model can appear without using a resource pack, which requires commands.

GUI

Ground

Fixed

On shelf

Held, first person

Held, third person/other entity

On head

Much like for missing textures and missing models, Minecraft also uses a graphic for rendering Unicode characters when it cannot find a valid texture. This appears as a hollow rectangle, sometimes referred to as "tofu".

Generally, in fonts, the .notdef glyph is used for this purpose, and is defined per-font. However, Minecraft's missing font character is hardcoded and cannot be configured by resource packs.

The missing font character is most often seen when trying to render a character for which no fonts currently define a glyph; this most often affects Private Use Area characters such as , as well as unassigned or recently assigned code points which are not covered by GNU Unifont.

It can also be seen when the game attempts to render a character with an invalid texture, such as one whose dimensions exceed 256 pixels on one or both axes. In this case, the horizontal width of the character will still be used, causing either large gaps in text or the missing glyph to intersect the next character, a bug which Mojang has decided not to fix.^[50] There is also no error produced in the log.^[51]

Specifying an invalid atlas for a text object will also result in this glyph appearing, however Mojang have chosen not to fix this specific issue.^[52]

Missing and misconfigured sounds are not played at all. Errors are still logged in the game output when attempting to play a sound event with no assigned sound, for example. There exists a special material type used for handling block sounds for water, lava and bubble columns that points to a sound event called intentionally_empty, however it is not known if other sounds which could not be played are redirected to this event as well.

Missing post shaders (at least in 1.13's development phase) do not appear to load at all, and the view is normal without the expected modifications by the shader.

Translation strings which are not specified in any used lang files will display as they are.

The term "missingno" was used in previous versions for some cases where text could not be loaded, specifically for splash texts from Alpha v1.0.12 up to 19w12b, for items with a CanDestroy NBT tag from 14w02a to 24w07a, and for items with a CanPlaceOn NBT tag from 14w06a to 24w07a. All of these cases have since been removed in 19w13a and 24w09a respectively, and the term "missingno" is no longer used in-game in any known cases, besides when referring to missing texture and model assets.

• 👁 The "missingno" splash test
  
  The "missingno" splash test
• 👁 "missingno" on an item with CanDestroy NBT
  
  "missingno" on an item with CanDestroy NBT
• 👁 "missingno" on an item with CanPlaceOn NBT
  
  "missingno" on an item with CanPlaceOn NBT

By definition, any block which does not use a model does not use the cubic missing model. If a model is still not defined for the block, however, this will likely still reflect in the block's particles.

The vast majority of entity models are also completely hardcoded. There are two notable exceptions in the item frame and glow item frame, which do in fact have customizable models. Therefore, the item frame and glow item frame are the only two entities which are capable of using the missing model; all other entities may lose their texture, but retain the same model shape.

Entities that exist to extend the behavior of blocks, such as falling sand and primed TNT, reference block models, and therefore will use the missing model if required. In addition, other entities that incorporate block models, such as mooshrooms, endermen holding blocks, and minecarts containing blocks, will use the missing model for the part that references the block model, but the entity model itself will remain intact.

Horses are a particularly interesting example of an entity which are discussed further in a later section. In multiple version ranges, certain invalid horses can either appear completely invisible or have a solid white texture, neither of which are the missing model.

From 13w47a^[verify] up to 19w38b, there existed a remarkable visual bug where missing models associated with blocks that used translucent rendering (such as ice, stained glass, stained glass panes and slime blocks) would interact anomalously with the rendering of transparent blocks in the world, as well as of entities, including the holder. Unlike normal missing models, translucent blocks and other entities would render in front of such a model when held, even if they were physically farther away from the camera. However, this only applies if the distant entity or transparent block in question is not first occluded by the player model. As a result, the held translucent block can form a player-shaped silhouette around the player model in front of a background made of entities (such as paintings) or translucent blocks.

This effect can be seen without the use of resource packs up to 17w46a simply by holding ice, stained glass, stained glass panes or slime blocks of an invalid data value. For versions 17w47a up to 19w38b a resource pack is required to break the model of an existing translucent item, and from 19w39a the bug is no longer present at all.

This only appears to affect items that are either equipped on an entity's head or held in their hand (in the case of the player, only in third person). This would not affect things held in first person, dropped on the ground, or in an item frame.

While observable in any version from 13w47a onward, changes in 14w25a resulted in item forms of transparent blocks rendering their interior faces instead of just their exterior faces, which resulted in the visibly bizarre geometry seen in practice with missing item models.

This effect also happened to particles and certain other objects in-game from 13w41a onwards.

If a sufficiently broken resource pack is loaded, the game will catch such resource packs and unload them automatically if errors were detected. From 17w43a up to the full release of 1.13, this also included the default resources, meaning that applying a flawed resource pack would result in all assets being unloaded, and as such the missing error assets appearing everywhere.

From 18w30a onwards, the game was made to unload all resource packs except the default resources in cases like these.^[60]

As textures-atlas becomes 16×16 (its minimum possible size), the enchantment glint looks much different from what may be expected otherwise. A table is provided on said page.

Layered textures

Certain game objects do not use textures in the standard way, instead layering them on top of each other. Horses use these for their pattern variants, and banners for each banner pattern. When there is no texture to pick from, these instead appear completely white. If the textures in question have already been loaded into the game, it is not possible to unload them even if all other textures are unloaded.

As shields use an item model, even though said item model points to an entity model, it appears as a missing model even though it makes use of texture layering.

Tropical fish, despite also using composite textures to distinguish variants, do not turn white if a texture cannot be loaded, and instead use the usual checkerboard (which is tinted in certain cases).

The screenshots below also demonstrate that player skins, despite not being layer-based, are also not unloaded due to not being resource pack dependent.

Main menu

It is interesting to note how this bug highlights different changes to parts of the game through 1.13's development. Focusing on the main menu, for example, reveals multiple details:

• From 17w43a up to 18w22c, the menu appears as in the first image. The panorama cube is clearly visible, with each square replaced with the missing texture.
• From 1.13-pre1 up to 1.13-pre5, the main menu background is now a large missing texture itself, obscuring the view of the panorama cube. This is likely due to the introduction of the panorama_overlay.png texture file in this version, which is responsible for the whitish gradient effect visible above the panorama; previously the gradient was hardcoded and unable to be changed with resource packs.
• In 1.13-pre6, the font does not seem to load at all.
• In 1.13-pre7 and 1.13-pre8, the newly-implemented missing font character is used for all non-space glyphs; in versions before 1.13-pre6, they instead used colors from the missing texture, implying that the font was reading from the missing texture itself as though it were a font texture file.
• From 1.13-pre9 up to the full release of 1.13, due to the missing font character visually changing, this also manifests visually; the interior is black rather than transparent.

Font character sizes are variable in 1.13-pre5 and earlier, and appear to be inherited from whatever resource pack was active previously.

In 1.8 snapshots 14w07a and 14w08a, in some cases, missing models would cause nearby blocks to display the missing texture. This could also affect the player's held item. Why exactly this happens is unknown, as it appears to be positional, and is somewhat unstable; placing some blocks such as ladders or vines nearby can nullify the effect entirely.

Blocks known to be affected include oak and iron doors, oak and iron trapdoors, pumpkin stems and melon stems, beds, tripwire, lily pads, flower pots and their contents, and cakes. In some cases, wooden slabs have been seen to be affected, however reproducibility of this case has not been achieved, and it is not known if slabs made of stone-like materials are also subject to this.

The following screenshots are triggered by a cocoa pod with metadata 12:

• 14w04b is the last Java Edition version in which the missing texture cannot be encountered in the vanilla game without resource packs:
  • From 14w05a through 14w21b inclusive, the end portal item uses the missing texture.
  • In 14w25a, the version directly following 14w21b, the end portal item is removed, but all invalid data value items use the missing item model.
    • In addition, this is the first version that allows the use of the /particle command to generate block particles, which includes particles for invalid blocks such as air. This functionality is temporarily removed in later snapshots and the full release of 1.8, but returns soon after, and the missing texture can still be seen via invalid data value items.
  • In 17w47a, invalid data value items are effectively removed, however it is still possible to generate missing texture particles if the air item is specified. From 24w09a, this could crash the game, and from 1.20.5 Pre-Release 1, is now forbidden.
  • Since 21w42a, it has been possible to create block_marker particles which use the missing texture by referencing air, cave air or void air. This continues to the latest version.
• The missing texture can be seen in the official version banners for 14w10a and 17w47a, and is also referenced by the banner for 13w24a.
• Minecraft Earth used Bedrock Edition's missing texture.^[61] However, it is unknown if Minecraft Dungeons, Minecraft Legends, Minecraft Blast or either release of Minecraft Story Mode used a missing texture.
• It seems unlikely that the missing texture existed in the legacy console editions; the game appears to instead fail to load if certain graphics cannot be found.

• 👁 The 2019 Classic remake also has a missing texture.
  
  The 2019 Classic remake also has a missing texture.
• 👁 The missing HDR panorama texture.
  
  The missing HDR panorama texture.

• 👁 13w24a's release banner, which references the texture
  
  13w24a's release banner, which references the texture
• 👁 14w10a's release banner
  
  14w10a's release banner
• 👁 17w47a's release banner
  
  17w47a's release banner
• 👁 A screenshot by Dinnerbone with no rain texture
  
  A screenshot by Dinnerbone with no rain texture
• 👁 A screenshot by Searge with no written book model
  
  A screenshot by Searge with no written book model
• 👁 A screenshot by jeb with no phantom texture
  
  A screenshot by jeb with no phantom texture
• 👁 Blaze3D UI rendering. Missing texture can be seen as part of the blocks.png-atlas.
  
  Blaze3D UI rendering. Missing texture can be seen as part of the blocks.png-atlas.

Lists of relevant IDs for commands listed in previous sections.