We all know that there are a ton of things you can do with commands in Minecraft, and they require a lot of game and, dare I say, programming knowledge to execute and to be able to work with them. To most, they are rocket science, but to a select few, they are a source of infinite power. You can use them to create fun mini-games, enhance your builds, and more. So, what if you, for example, wanted to summon moving arrows aimed at mobs in Minecraft? How would one do that?

Unfortunately, summoning moving arrows aimed at mobs in Minecraft is either impossible to do or requires a true expert to pull off. The only way I was able to pull it off was to enter this command into a repeating command block /execute as @e[type=zombie] at @s run summon minecraft:arrow ^ ^ ^1.0 {Motion:[0.0,0.0,0.0],Tags:["aimed_arrow"],CustomName:'[{"text":"Targeted Arrow"}]',UUIDLeast:1,UUIDMost:1,PersistenceRequired:1} which shoots the arrow in the general direction of the mob but never aims it at them and damages them.

Since there’s no easy way, or a way at all, to summon moving arrows aimed at mobs, throughout the rest of this article, I’ll aim to provide you with all the commands I tried to execute to solve the issue and explain every one by sectioning them. By the end of the article, you might find your own answer to the question.

Explaining the command

Since the command is pretty long, to perhaps try and make adjustments on your own, we need to make sure you understand the command completely. I’ll explain the command section by section:

/execute as – The execute command, as the name would suggest, executes commands but allows you to change who is executing it. The ‘as’ and what follows determines who is executing the command.

@e[type=minecraft:zombie] – the @e defines that an entity will be executing the command. Mobs are entities, so we further defined that only a zombie will execute the command. If you wanted to aim arrows at other mobs, you’d change the ‘minecraft:zombie’ part of the command.

at @s – This portion of the command tells the game to execute the command at the location of the @e(in this case, zombie)

run summon minecraft:arrow ^ ^ ^1.0 – This is where it gets complicated. The first bit tells the game to summon an arrow at the specified location, while the second bit communicates where the relative position of the entity being targeted. The 1.0 bit will make the arrow shoot one block in front of the zombie. This is also the first part of why the command can’t shoot the zombie since the zombie’s position is ever-changing.

Tags:[“aimed_arrow”] – the tag specifies which type of arrow is used to target the specific entity. This is necessary if you want a chance to pull the command off.

CustomName:'[{“text”:”Targeted Arrow”}] and CustomNameVisible:1 – These two parts of the command are completely unnecessary. The first line gives each arrow summoned a name. In our case, when the command is executed, each arrow will be named ‘targeted arrow’. The second part makes the name of the arrow visible above it.

UUIDLeast:1,UUIDMost:1 – Every entity in the game has a unique identifier that helps the game recognize them. In the case of arrows, both Universally Unique Identifiers are set to 1, which tells the game that we’re talking about arrows. This part of the command helps separate each arrow summoned so that we can interact which each arrow separately if needed.

PersistenceRequired:1 – If persistence is set to one, this ensures that the arrow doesn’t despawn naturally, but rather, the player has full control over what will happen to it.

Arrow motion

Now that we removed the command let’s see what else is required for the command to work. Spawning an arrow using the above command will only spawn it; the arrow won’t have motion, so we need to add another set of commands to update its motion continuously. The command is:

/execute as @e[type=arrow,tag=aimed_arrow] at @s run data modify entity @s Motion set from entity @e[type=zombie,sort=nearest,limit=1] Pos[0]
/execute as @e[type=arrow,tag=aimed_arrow] at @s run data modify entity @s Motion[1] set from entity @e[type=zombie,sort=nearest,limit=1] Pos[1]
/execute as @e[type=arrow,tag=aimed_arrow] at @s run data modify entity @s Motion[2] set from entity @e[type=zombie,sort=nearest,limit=1] Pos[2]

The command will continuously update the arrow’s motion to appear like it’s moving. This command should be added to a repeating redstone circuit and typed into a command block.

Problems you might run into trying to make the command work

The most obvious problem is that the arrow will never shoot at the mob. Still, probably the biggest one is that the command does not specify which entity (in this case zombie) you want the arrow to shoot, which means that there will be a lot of lag since it’ll try and shoot every zombie currently in your loaded chunks.

The only way to fight this lag is to destroy the command block running it. I could also stop it by killing all zombies in my world and summoning one zombie.

This means that the command might work in your custom world where you have no mob, only a specified amount of mobs in a certain area, but that’s me just being optimistic about the chances of this command working.

I also tried running this command.’execute as at @s run summon minecraft:arrow ^ ^ ^1 {Motion:[0.0,0.0,0.0],Tags:["moving_arrow"],Pickup:0b,Life:100s,Damage:2.0f,ShotFromCrossbow:1b,CustomPotionEffects:[{Id:"minecraft:instant_damage",Amplifier:0b,Duration:100}]}‘ but unfortunately, the command doesn’t work at all or works in random intervals. My guess with this command is that I didn’t manage to write it correctly, according to the 1.19.4 rules, which is where I was trying to make the command work.

What are your thoughts on this specific problem? Do you know where we went wrong and if making the command work is possible? Let us know in the comments.

Errors in Minecraft are something every Java Edition player has gotten used to over the years. The problem isn’t that these errors are hard to fix but rather that one error can be caused by multiple different issues, making the root problem harder to identify. What about the ‘No Java executable found’ in Minecraft? How do you solve it?

By far, the most common reason for the ‘No Java executable found’ error in Minecraft is that you might not have Java installed on your computer. Another common reason is that you have an incompatible Java version installed, in which case you only need to update to a more recent version.

Now that you know the most common reasons for the error, I want to dig into the less common reasons why this error might occur and provide you with a solution to each and every one. I’ll also explain why Minecraft requires Java and much more in this article.

Explaining what Java Executables are

Without getting too much into the tech side of things, java executables are basically applications used to launch programs, in this case, Minecraft. The Java executables are binary files that contain code used to interpret and execute Minecraft’s code. Any Java file with the .exe at the end is a Java executable file.

So basically, if you don’t have a Java executable or there’s something wrong with how the game and the executable communicate, you won’t be able to play the game. Of course, the error is specific to Minecraft Java Edition since every other game version was coded in C++ and doesn’t need a java.exe to run.

Java Enviroment variables

Now that I’ve explained Java executables let’s get into another important part that’ll help you understand everything better. The first thing you should know about Java environment variables is that they are pieces of information your computer refers to when it needs to do something, usually configured.

Now about Java variables, they are used to work with Java programs, including Minecraft. They’ll usually provide information about the location of Java so that Minecraft can easily find and use Java to run.

The path variable and the Java home variable are the most common variables. The first one helps your PC find the java.exe file, while the second one will tell your PC when Java is installed so that it can be used.

Of course, this is irrelevant without Java, but when you download Java, these settings will be set up automatically. Of course, it might happen that it hasn’t been done correctly or at all, so you’ll need to set up the path for these variables manually. Let’s check how you can do that to help run Minecraft next.

First, you’ll want to check the Java path variable on your computer; I’ll show you how you can set the Java path in your Minecraft launcher:

1. Open your start menu and search for ‘environment variables.’ A menu from the Control panel should appear named ‘edit the system environment variables, click on it.
2. Then, a window should pop up, click on the ‘environment variables’ button located all the way at the bottom.
3. You want to take a look at the system variables. Search for the variable called ‘path’, click on it, and edit to see it. The installation should look something like this: C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_291\bin.
4. You don’t have to worry if it’s not exactly like mine; the important thing is that it’s there.

Now, onto how you can change the Java path in the Minecraft launcher:

1. Head on over to your Minecraft launcher and head to the ‘Installations’ tab.
2. Then, choose the profile you’re currently using or make a new one if you want to.
3. Then, make sure to enable the JVM arguments.
4. Finally, in the JVM arguments field, you’ll need to add the full path to your java.exe.
5. Once you’re done, you’ll have to restart Minecraft.

Easier solutions to the problem

Of course, not everyone will have to execute the solutions mentioned above to the problem. Sometimes, the answer is far simpler than we make it out to be. One option you have is to reinstall Java completely. You’ll have to go into your control panel and deinstall and reinstall Java from there.

You might not even need to do that, though, because you can also try to update Java by, again, going into your ‘Control Panel, clicking on the Java icon, and going into the update tab. Then, it’s just clicking the ‘Update Now’ button, and you’re done.

Why Minecraft requires Java to run

When coding the game, the developer used Java to code it because it offered several advantages, or perhaps it was just a spur-of-the-moment decision that led to Notch coding the game in Java in just seven days. One thing to note is that because the game was coded in Java, it can run on multiple OSs without major modifications.

We are not to confuse other iterations of the game with the Java Edition since every other game Edition that falls under the broad category of Minecraft Bedrock was coded in C++, including the Windows 10 Edition released a few years back.