CraftersBan v2.9 — Premium Edition

Release Date: October 2026
Compatibility: Spigot / Paper / Purpur 1.13–1.21+ | BungeeCord / Velocity

Overview

CraftersBan v2.9 introduces a major internal restructuring of punishment tracking and identification, improved startup reliability and database initialization, comprehensive fixes for Adventure and MiniMessage formatting, and a new set of global and player-specific statistics placeholders.

This release also improves optional PlaceholderAPI integration, dependency isolation, error reporting, and compatibility across supported server platforms.

🚀 What's New

1. Independent Sequential Punishment IDs

Punishment IDs are now tracked using independent sequential counters for each punishment category, making identification more consistent and organized.

• Permanent Bans (/ban): Independent counter for permanent bans (#1, #2, etc.).
• Temporary Bans (/tempban or /ban <duration>): Independent counter for temporary bans.
• IP Bans (/ipban): Dedicated counter for IP bans.
• Mutes and IP Mutes (/mute, /ipmute): Separate counters for player mutes and IP mutes.
• Kicks and Warnings (/kick, /warn): Independent sequential counters.

Technical improvements:

• Added the getNextTypeId method to PunishmentRepository, SqlPunishmentRepository, and CachedPunishmentRepository.
• Updated CraftersBanAPIImpl#dispatchPunishment to automatically assign the appropriate sequential type_id before inserting a punishment into the database.
• Updated BanCommand, IpBanCommand, MuteCommand, IpMuteCommand, WarnCommand, and KickCommand to support the new ID assignment system.

2. New Statistics and Placeholders

New placeholders allow server administrators to display punishment statistics in messages, kick screens, and other supported integrations.

Server-Wide Message Placeholders

Available in messages.yml and kick screen messages:

• %craftersban_total_sanctions% — Total number of recorded sanctions, including bans, mutes, kicks, and warnings.
• %craftersban_total_permanent_bans% — Total number of permanent bans.
• %craftersban_total_temporary_bans% — Total number of temporary bans.
• %craftersban_total_ip_bans% — Total number of IP bans.

PlaceholderAPI — Global Statistics

The following placeholders are available without requiring a target player:

• %craftersban_total_punishments% / %craftersban_total_sanctions% — Total number of recorded punishments.
• %craftersban_total_permanent_bans% / %craftersban_total_perm_bans% — Total number of permanent bans.
• %craftersban_total_temporary_bans% / %craftersban_total_temp_bans% — Total number of temporary bans.
• %craftersban_total_ip_bans% / %craftersban_total_ipbans% — Total number of IP bans.

PlaceholderAPI — Player-Specific Statistics

These placeholders provide historical punishment statistics for an individual player:

• %craftersban_player_total_sanctions% / %craftersban_player_total_punishments% — Total number of punishments recorded for the player.
• %craftersban_player_permanent_bans% — Total number of permanent bans received by the player.
• %craftersban_player_temporary_bans% — Total number of temporary bans received by the player.
• %craftersban_player_ip_bans% — Total number of IP-related punishments associated with the player.

3. MiniMessage, Adventure, and Color Formatting Fixes

Fixed issues that caused gradients and other formatting styles in the [CraftersBan] prefix to be lost during message rendering.

• Removed legacy LegacyComponentSerializer re-serialization from MessageManager#send(), which could break MiniMessage gradients such as <gradient:#ff4b4b:#aa0000>.
• Updated send() to delegate directly to sendComponent(), preserving native Adventure components when sending messages to players and the console.
• Updated PlayerCommandListener to use sendComponent() for lockdown notifications and restrictions involving muted commands.
• Fixed mute and IP mute messages in PlayerChatListener to correctly parse prefixes and colors.
• Updated blocked-word filtering in AsyncPlayerChatListener to use sendComponent().
• Standardized component-based message delivery in LockdownCommand, MuteChatCommand, and LastUuidCommand.

4. Improved Startup Reliability and Database Initialization

Improved the plugin's startup process to prevent configuration-related database connection failures.

• Fixed database credential loading during onEnable().
• Connection settings (host, port, name, username, and password) are now correctly retrieved from settings/database.yml through typed ConfigManager accessors.
• Reduced the risk of accidental plugin disablement caused by incorrectly loaded database settings.
• Added detailed connection initialization error logging, including full stack traces at Level.SEVERE, when HikariCP, MySQL, or H2 initialization fails.

5. Packaging and Dependency Improvements

• Improved Guice and MaxMind dependency shading and relocation.
• Relocated library packages under dev.xunknown.craftersban.libs.* to reduce the risk of class conflicts with other plugins.
• Verified the Maven build pipeline and unified deployment workflow through CircleCI for supported Paper 1.20+ and 1.21+ environments.

6. Safer Optional PlaceholderAPI Integration

PlaceholderAPI is now handled more safely when it is not installed on the server.

• Removed the static reference and import of CraftersBanPlaceholderExpansion from CraftersBanModule, preventing the JVM from attempting to load PlaceholderAPI classes when the dependency is absent.
• Prevented the java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError previously caused by attempting to load me.clip.placeholderapi.expansion.PlaceholderExpansion without PlaceholderAPI installed.
• CraftersBan now starts normally without PlaceholderAPI.
• Added a clear and concise console notice explaining that PlaceholderAPI must be installed to enable %craftersban_...% placeholders, including a download link.

📌 Compatibility

• Minecraft Servers: Spigot, Paper, and Purpur 1.13–1.21+
• Proxy Platforms: BungeeCord and Velocity
• Database Support: MySQL and H2
• Optional Integration: PlaceholderAPI

📝 Notes

PlaceholderAPI is optional. CraftersBan can run without it, but PlaceholderAPI-dependent placeholders will require the integration to be installed.

CraftersBan v2.9 focuses on more reliable punishment tracking, improved message rendering, safer dependency handling, and expanded statistics for server administrators.