Wait, are the ores fake?
If you've been mining on Sunrise SMP and noticed that some ore vanishes the moment you get close — or that real ore only shows up when you're almost on top of it — you're not imagining it, and nothing is broken. This is an intentional anti-X-ray feature working exactly as designed, and your real ores are still there. The blocks that "disappear" were never real ore in the first place, and the real ore that "appears" was hidden until you got near it.
Players regularly wonder about this in chat ("it shows fake ores", "some of the ores are hallucinations"). Here's the honest, complete explanation so you can mine with confidence.
How it works
The survival worlds run Minecraft's built-in server-side anti-X-ray protection in engine mode 2. It does two things at once:
- It hides the real valuable ores — the server sends you common blocks (stone, deepslate, dirt, and the like) in the places where valuable ore actually is.
- It shows fake ore-like blocks scattered through the stone, so someone using an X-ray cheat sees a chaotic mess of "ore" everywhere and can't tell the real deposits from the noise.
The catch for a cheater is that none of it is trustworthy until you actually dig. As you mine, the server reveals the real world within about 2 blocks of you (update-radius: 2): real ore becomes visible right as you approach it, and the fake ore-shaped blocks quietly turn back into ordinary stone. That's why an ore you spotted through a wall can be gone by the time you tunnel to it, and why fresh ore keeps "popping in" as you branch-mine.
This is the server's own built-in protection — it is not a plugin you need to install, and there is nothing to fix on your client. Java and Bedrock (Geyser) players both see the exact same behaviour.
Which ores are hidden
The protection only touches specific valuable blocks, and only up to a height limit.
Overworld — active up to y = 64. Hidden ores: diamond, gold, iron, redstone, lapis, and copper ore (both their stone and deepslate variants). Above y = 64 there's no obfuscation, so ore looks normal up there.
Nether — active up to y = 128. Hidden: ancient debris, nether gold ore, and nether quartz ore.
Anything not on those lists is shown to you normally. In particular, coal and emerald ore are not hidden in the Overworld — the server actually uses them as some of the decoy "replacement" blocks, so if anything you'll see more apparent coal and emerald than is really there, not less. The protection is also off in the End and around spawn, so ore looks completely normal there.
What this means for mining
Practical takeaways so you never second-guess a haul:
- Just dig normally. Branch-mine the way you always would; the real ores reveal themselves as you get close. You don't need to change your technique.
- Don't trust an ore you can only see through a wall — it may be one of the decoys. Break through to it before you get excited (or disappointed).
- Nothing in your inventory is fake or "duped." Once you've actually mined a block and it's in your hands, it's a real item, full stop. The obfuscation only affects what the server shows you before you break the block.
- Bedrock/Geyser players: you'll see the same thing, and it's fine — there's no client setting to toggle and nothing to report.
Still think something's wrong?
If a block genuinely behaves strangely in a way that isn't just "ore appeared or disappeared as I mined" — for example you think an anti-cheat system flagged you by mistake — that's a support matter rather than the anti-X-ray feature. See Anti-Cheat False Positives and Recovery for how those situations are handled and how to recover.
Where to go next
- Resource Worlds and the Wild — where to head out and mine so you're not tearing up the main world.
- Making Money on SMP — turning all that ore into coins once you've dug it up.
- Anti-Cheat False Positives and Recovery — for the other "is this a bug or a feature?" situations.