Create a creative world with this seed:
1191961552361
go to the nether:
/setblock ~ ~ ~ minecraft:nether_portal
go to this location:
/tp 725.01 57.00 -1071.62
then run this:
/locate fortress
In 1.18 it seems to find:
/tp @s 48 ~ -992
which is 681 blocks away
whereas in my 1.17.1 world it found:
/tp @s 960 ~ -1696
which is 666 blocks away
But the actual closest fortress is:
/tp @s 1008 ~ -1168
which is 299 blocks away
If you get closer, locate will eventually start finding this nether fortress
Thank you for your report!
We're tracking this issue in MC-138887, so this ticket is being resolved and linked as a duplicate.
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