Make Console Make Sense (MCMS)

Your server console is a dumpster fire of Java exceptions and cryptic warnings. MCMS fixes that.

Every error message gets translated into plain English (with a bit of sarcasm). No more googling java.net.SocketException: Connection reset at 2am. No more staring at a 40-line stack trace trying to find what actually went wrong.

Before vs After

Before:

[WARN]: java.net.SocketException: Connection reset
[ERROR]: java.lang.NullPointerException
[WARN]: Can't keep up! Is the server overloaded? Running 2034ms or 40 ticks behind
[WARN]: Skipping BlockEntity with id mysticmod:magic_chest

After:

[WARN]: A player ragequit so hard they broke TCP. Respect. RIP connection.
[ERROR]: [MCMS] WHAT: Something was null that really shouldn't have been. Classic developer blunder.
[ERROR]: [MCMS] WHERE: MyPlugin.java:42 in com.example.MyPlugin.doThing()
[WARN]: ALERT: Server is gasping for air! Running 2034ms (40 ticks) behind. Turn off the 500-hopper contraptions, please.
[WARN]: Found a mysterious block entity 'mysticmod:magic_chest'. Probably from a mod someone installed, loved for a week, and uninstalled.

Same information. Actually readable. Slightly sarcastic.

What gets transformed?

• Network errors — SocketException, timeout, broken pipe → plain disconnect messages
• Server lag — "Can't keep up!" with exact ms and tick count
• Plugin errors — enable/disable failures, deprecated API, wrong-thread calls
• Java exceptions — NullPointerException, StackOverflow, ClassCast, OutOfMemory, and 20+ more
• World/Chunks — unknown block entities, duplicate UUIDs, chunk failures
• Player events — joins, disconnects, illegal movement, unknown commands
• Mojang auth — authentication failures, session servers down
• YAML/config errors — parse errors with line numbers
• Startup/shutdown — version info, world loading, save messages

70+ patterns total. And for exceptions, instead of the full stack trace flooding your console, you get:

[ERROR]: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ERROR]: [MCMS] WHAT: Something was null that really shouldn't have been.
[ERROR]: [MCMS] TYPE: java.lang.NullPointerException
[ERROR]: [MCMS] WHERE: MyPlugin.java:42 in com.example.MyPlugin.doThing()
[ERROR]: [MCMS] Full stack trace follows:
[ERROR]: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The full trace still follows — nothing is hidden. You just get the important part first.

Features

• Drop-in install — zero configuration required
• Colored startup banner (on supported terminals)
• Update checker — notifies you in the console when a new version is out, with a link
• /mcms stats — see how many messages have been transformed this session
• Works on Paper, Purpur, Spigot, Bukkit, Folia, and all Paper forks

Installation

1. Download MCMS.jar
2. Drop it in your plugins/ folder
3. Restart
4. That's it

Commands

| Command | Permission | Description |
|---------|-----------|-------------|
| /mcms stats | mcms.use | Show transformation stats |
| /mcms update | mcms.admin | Manually check for updates |
| /mcms reload | mcms.admin | Reload config |
| /mcms help | mcms.use | Show help |

All permissions default to OP only.

Requirements

• Minecraft: 1.18 or newer
• Java: 25 or newer
• Server: Bukkit / Spigot / Paper / Purpur / Folia (any Bukkit-based server)