Patches for Minecraft Earth

This repository contains patches for Minecraft Earth to change various API/service addresses/URLs and to allow the game to continue functioning.

Format notes

These patches are intended to be human-readable for documentation purposes and will not work directly in a patcher script without modification or adaptation.

In some cases, "variables" are used to show where configurable values should be substituted into a patch (e.g. when patching a URL where the replacement URL shall be decided based on the needs of the patcher). Variable names are included in the patch file as ${variablename}. The variables used in each patch are detailed in the patch listing. The "default" values listed are ones that will give the same or most similar behavior to the app without the patch applied.

Due to the lack of a standardised human-readable binary patch format, binary patches are expressed in hexdump format (as produced by the command hexdump -C -v on Linux) against the original filename with .hexdump appended. For example, a patch against lib/arm64-v8a/libgenoa.so is instead expressed as a patch against lib/arm64-v8a/libgenoa.so.hexdump. This is done to produce a human-readable patch file that documents the actual changes to be made, however any patcher script will need to reimplement the application of the changes in an appropriate way (including the substitution of variables into embedded strings - see below).

For text files, the patch files may be applied using patch -p1 as standard after performing variable substitution (if applicable).

Regarding binary patches, strings, and variables

Some binary patches against libgenoa.so add new strings into an area at the end of the file (this is explained in more detail in the patch listing for extend-libgenoa). All of these strings follow a format where the first 4 bytes at the address of the string form a little-endian value giving the length of the string, followed by the character data itself. The character data shall be null-terminated. The length value does not include either the null terminator or the length field itself, only the actual characters.

When substituting variables into such strings, it is necessary to update both the character data and the length field. The data included in the human-readable hexdump patch shows the "template" string to be used for variable substitution (including the length field/value appropriate for said string).

The patch listing includes a list of all addresses where template strings that require variable substitution appear in a given patch.

Patch listing

• allow-http

  Allows HTTP connections/URLs to be used in some parts of the app that don't allow them otherwise. This is a prerequisite for most patches that change an API/service address in the event that the replacement address uses HTTP in place of HTTPS.

• change-locator-address

  Changes the Minecraft Earth API locator address.

  Variables:

  • locatorprotocol The protocol to use for the locator server (http or https). Default value: https
  • locatorhostname The domain or IP address to use for the locator server. This may include a port number if necessary. Default value: locator.mceserv.net

  Template strings:

  • lib/arm64-v8a/libgenoa.so - 0x07000300

  Prerequisites:

  • extend-libgenoa

• change-msa-login-address

  Changes the MSA login service address.

  Variables:

  • liveprotocol The protocol to use for the MSA login service (http or https). Default value: https
  • livehostname The base domain to use for the MSA login service. This may include a port number if necessary. Requests will be made to multiple subdomains of the given domain. Default value: live.com

  Prerequisites:

  • disable-msa-login-signature-validation
  • allow-http if liveprotocol is http

• change-playfab-address

  Changes the PlayFab API address.

  Variables:

  • playfabprotocol The protocol to use for the PlayFab API (http or https). Default value: https
  • playfabhostname The base domain to use for the PlayFab API. This may include a port number if necessary. Requests will be made to multiple subdomains of the given domain. Default value: playfabapi.com

  Template strings:

  • lib/arm64-v8a/libgenoa.so - 0x07000100
  • lib/arm64-v8a/libgenoa.so - 0x07000380

  Prerequisites:

  • extend-libgenoa
  • allow-http if playfabprotocol is http

• change-xboxab-address

  Changes the address for xboxab.com.

  Variables:

  • xboxabprotocol The protocol to use for xboxab.com (http or https). Default value: https
  • xboxabhostname The domain to use in place of xboxab.com. This may include a port number if necessary. Default value: xboxab.com

  Template strings:

  • lib/arm64-v8a/libgenoa.so - 0x07000280

  Prerequisites:

  • extend-libgenoa
  • allow-http if xboxabprotocol is http (unverified)

• change-xboxlive-address-base

  Changes the address for most Xbox Live API requests.

  Variables:

  • xboxliveprotocol The protocol to use for the Xbox Live API (http or https). Default value: https
  • xboxlivehostname The base domain to use for the Xbox Live API. This may include a port number if necessary. Requests will be made to multiple subdomains of the given domain. Default value: xboxlive.com

  Template strings:

  • lib/arm64-v8a/libgenoa.so - 0x07000000
  • lib/arm64-v8a/libgenoa.so - 0x07000080

  Prerequisites:

  • extend-libgenoa
  • allow-http if xboxliveprotocol is http (unverified)

• change-xboxlive-address-extra

  Changes the address for some additional Xbox Live API requests that directly use a full hardcoded request URL rather than being built from the base domain at runtime. This is included as a separate patch for clarity.

  Variables:

  • xboxliveprotocol The protocol to use for the Xbox Live API (http or https). Default value: https
  • xboxlivehostname The base domain to use for the Xbox Live API. This may include a port number if necessary. Requests will be made to multiple subdomains of the given domain. Default value: xboxlive.com

  Template strings:

  • lib/arm64-v8a/libgenoa.so - 0x07000180
  • lib/arm64-v8a/libgenoa.so - 0x07000200

  Prerequisites:

  • extend-libgenoa
  • allow-http if xboxliveprotocol is http

• disable-license-check

  Disables the Google Play license check, allowing the app to function after being removed from the Google Play store. Note: This is not the same patch as the one produced by the Project Earth team as that patch does not work when offline.

• disable-msa-login-signature-validation

  Disables signature validation of MSA login API responses. This is required when using a replacement MSA login service.

• disable-sunset-time-check

  Disables the Minecraft Earth sunset date/time check, which prevents the game from being playable if the device time is set later than June 30th 2021. Note: This is not exactly the same patch as the one produced by the Project Earth team as that patch inverts the date check condition whereas this one removes it entirely, although in most cases this produces no observable difference.

• disable-telemetry

  Disables multiple telemetry/analytics reporters. The following telemetry components are disabled: AppsFlyer, Braze, App Center, Microsoft Vortex. Note that some analytics data is still reported directly to Xbox Live and PlayFab unless these are replaced as well, otherwise this list appears to be exhausitive.

• extend-libgenoa

  Extends the libgenoa.so shared library file to allow new data to be added at the end of the file, avoiding the length limitations of in-place patching of the original data. This is a prerequisite for most of the libgenoa.so patches. Note: The large amount of zeros is necessary as this memory area is used at runtime for static/global variables. The new data area starts at 0x07000000 (beyond the end of the runtime static data area) and is marked with 0xFF.

• fix-official-msa-login-after-signature-change

  Allows MSA login against the official/default MSA login service after changing the app name or signature (which happens during the process of recompiling a patched version of the app). This patch hardcodes the original signature to use when signing requests to the MSA login service and is required unless you are using a replacement MSA login service that does not validate the client signature. Note: This is not exactly the same patch as the one produced by the Project Earth team as that patch contains smali code which is technically invalid, although there is no functional difference.