Hexerei: Willow Vines Fix
Few things are as frustrating in modded Minecraft as swinging your shears at a vine and watching it vanish into thin air. If you run Hexerei on NeoForge 1.21.1, that is exactly what happens with willow vines. The Hexerei: Willow Vines Fix add-on exists for one reason: to make those vines drop Willow Vines the way they always should have. It is small, it is safe, and it solves a problem that has annoyed players since Hexerei 0.5.0.3 landed.
Why Willow Vines Drop Nothing
In Hexerei 0.5.0.3, the loot table for willow vines uses a condition that only vanilla Forge recognises. NeoForge 1.21.1 does not understand that condition, so the table fails to load entirely. When a loot table fails, the game does not fall back to a default. It simply drops nothing. Your log will show an error along the lines of "Couldn't parse element ... hexerei:blocks/willow_vines", which is the telltale sign of this exact bug.
There is a second half to the problem. The hanging body block of the vine has no loot table at all in the base mod. Even if the main table loaded correctly, that section of the vine would still produce nothing when broken. Together, these two issues make willow vines feel completely broken on NeoForge, which is why a dedicated fix pack was needed.
What the Fix Actually Changes
The add-on is a data pack, not a mod. It contains no code, no new blocks, and no new items. It edits exactly two loot tables and nothing else.
- It rewrites the willow vines loot table to use NeoForge's own shears condition, so the table loads correctly on 1.21.1.
- It adds the missing loot table for the hanging body block, so every part of the vine behaves consistently.
Once installed, left-click a willow vine with shears and it drops Willow Vines, just like vanilla vines and leaves. That is the entire point of the pack, and it delivers it cleanly.
Good to Know Before You Install
A few behaviours are worth understanding so you do not mistake them for bugs. Mining willow vines by hand still drops nothing, and that is intentional. The original table was designed to require shears, and this fix preserves that design choice rather than overriding it.
Right-clicking with shears also does nothing. Hexerei does not implement right-click harvesting for these blocks, and the fix does not add new mechanics. Only left-click mining with shears produces drops. If you were hoping for a full vine overhaul, this is not that. It is a targeted repair.
If you prefer a launcher that handles add-ons without folder juggling, the foxygame.net launcher offers a curated catalog where you can grab Hexerei: Willow Vines Fix and let the client manage version matching and updates for you.
Supported Versions and Requirements
This add-on targets a narrow, specific setup, and that is deliberate. It is built for Minecraft 1.21.1 running on NeoForge, and it requires Hexerei 0.5.0.3 to be installed. Because the fix patches Hexerei's own files, running it without the mod present will do nothing useful.
If you play on Forge rather than NeoForge, you likely do not need this pack at all, since the original loot table condition works there. The bug is specific to how NeoForge parses loot conditions, which is why the fix is scoped so tightly.
How to Install
Installation is straightforward and takes under a minute. Follow these steps:
- Download Hexerei: Willow Vines Fix and keep the file as a zip.
- Drop the zip into your world's
datapacksfolder. - Run
/reloadin-game, or restart the world. - If you use a modpack, you can instead place it in
config/paxi/datapacksthrough Paxi.
After reloading, test it by shearing a willow vine. You should see Willow Vines appear in your inventory immediately. If nothing drops, double-check that you are on NeoForge 1.21.1 with Hexerei 0.5.0.3 and that the pack shows up under /datapack list.
Removing the Fix Later
This pack is designed to be temporary. Once Hexerei corrects these loot tables in a future release, you can delete the zip and reload your world. Leaving it installed alongside a fixed version of Hexerei is harmless, but there is no reason to keep it once the upstream mod catches up.
The bug was already reported to the Hexerei developer, so an official resolution may arrive in a later update. Until then, this add-on keeps willow vines functional for NeoForge players.
Final Thoughts
Hexerei: Willow Vines Fix is exactly what a good patch should be: focused, transparent, and easy to remove. It does not try to redesign Hexerei's vine system or add features nobody asked for. It repairs two broken loot tables so that shears work as expected on Minecraft 1.21.1 with NeoForge. If willow vines have been silently eating your tools and giving nothing back, download Hexerei: Willow Vines Fix, drop it in your datapacks folder, and enjoy the loot you were always supposed to get.