On October 20, 2026, Chinese third-party Minecraft launchers including PCL and HMCL began removing or restricting their download features.
The explanation circulating at the time was that minors had spent money on an unofficial private Minecraft server, their parents had complained to regulators, and the resulting pressure had reached the launchers. That sequence remains unconfirmed; it should be treated as a reported explanation, rather than an established account of a regulatory order.
What the official announcements confirm
PCL's 2.99.0.0 release says its Minecraft download feature was removed for compliance with relevant laws and regulations.
HMCL's merged pull request #7017 explicitly restricts game downloads in mainland China. That geographic scope matters to readers using HMCL elsewhere. The official material confirms the feature changes, but does not establish the full story about the alleged complaint.
The older PCL setting mentioned in the original post
If you still have an older PCL build that has not updated, the original post describes changing its update setting before launching it. With PCL closed, locate Setup.ini in the PCL subfolder beside the launcher executable, and change the existing entry to:
SystemSystemUpdate:3
If the entry is absent, the notice shown above says to add it as a new line.
In PCL's settings interface, value 3 corresponds to turning off launcher update notifications. This leaves updates to you, including checking for important fixes. The setting is intended to keep an older build from updating automatically; it does not restore a download feature already removed from a newer build.
The original post suggests returning to an earlier version if the launcher has already updated. Check the project's official releases for version details; retaining an older build is not a guarantee that downloads will continue to work.
It's frustrating to see games and the internet repeatedly blamed for failures in parenting. That is my reaction to the situation; the precise cause of this suspension still needs confirmation.
The original post also references this Bilibili discussion in Chinese.
Adapted from the original Chinese article, published on October 20, 2026. Official project links and the clarification of HMCL's regional scope were added for this edition.
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