[MC-311071] You can softlock yourself out of the game by binding certain actions to certain inputs

By binding specific inputs to specific actions, it is possible to softlock yourself out of the game, such that you must manually edit options.txt to be able to play again.

To reproduce

Go the the Key Binds screen while not in a world
Bind Toggle Fullscreen to Enter
Bind Friends Screen to Space
Bind Take Screenshot to Left Button
Press Esc several times to return to the main menu (where the Friends List hotkey is active)
Attempt to rebind the controls you’ve just bound, or to perform any other action besides those three
❌ It’s impossible
Quit the game (hopefully you had Quit Shortcuts turned on if you’re in the latest snapshot– if not, you must send a quit or terminate signal externally)
In the Minecraft Launcher, go to the Installations tab and click the folder icon next to the installation in question
Open options.txt in your preferred text editor
Delete or manually specify new bindings for the key_key.screenshot, key_key.fullscreen and key_key.friends lines
Save and close the file

Linked issues

clones 1

MC-308834 Clicking toggles fullscreen on Macbook Pro Resolved

relates to 1

MC-300293 Debug Options screen (F3 + F6) can't be opened if certain key binds are bound to F6 Open

Attachments

Comments 5

Automation for Jira 2026-08-14T20:50:01Z

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Mintstorm 2026-08-14T20:51:04Z

The only fix to this is downloading Minecraft 1.0 on the Launcher is launching it and closing it and re-opening the latest snapshot.

clamlol 2026-08-16T08:41:03Z

Can confirm this behavior, but you can rebind the button by navigating the menus with the arrow keys/esc/enter so it’s not really a big deal. I’ve updated the description to be more accurate.

This behavior has actually been reported before, albeit in a different context: see MC-308834. The cause is likely the same as for MC-300293.

clamlol 2026-08-16T17:24:40Z

Actually, it is possible to softlock yourself if you go a little further. I hope you don’t mind that I’ve commandeered this report a bit.

[Mojang] Triage Team 2026-08-21T09:45:37Z

Thank you for your report!
After consideration, the issue is being closed as Won't Fix.

Please note that this is not the same as Working as Intended, as this bug report correctly describes behavior in the game that might not be the intended or desirable behavior, but it will not be fixed right now. Sometimes, this is because the issue reported is minor and/or impossible to change without large architectural changes to the code base.

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