Minecraft: Hopper Won’t Connect to Chest? Here’s How To Solve It

Minecraft features a massive arrangement of handy items that players can use for various purposes, ranging from simple contraptions to sophisticated mechanisms. Many players enjoy using hoppers for convenience in Minecraft, but they can be finicky in practice, leaving quite a few players wondering why their hopper won’t connect to a chest in Minecraft, as well as how to solve it.

Hopper won’t connect to chest in Minecraft (fixes)

Minecraft has a bunch of awesome items that players can use for various purposes, many of which make storage far simpler. Hoppers have become super popular for countless Minecraft players since they can drastically alter the way you store and organize your resources, items, gear, food, and much more.

Hoppers collect items that drop into them, after which they can transfer the items into a chest, or they can even pull items out of chests, depending on how they are designed. Of course, this is only applicable when the chest is actually connected to the hopper properly – otherwise, the hopper will not transfer the items as intended and will simply act as storage themselves.

It can be understandably frustrating to have designed a neat and tidy hopper and chest system only to find out that it’s dysfunctional. Thankfully, there are quite a few simple and easy-to-resolve causes for hoppers not working in the game.

1. Hopper disconnected from chest

Most cases of hoppers not working revolve around the placement of the hopper in relation to the chest – which some players thought to be a bug. The hopper will need to be attached in a way where the funnel section directly leads into the chest.

In most cases, players will simply need to place down the hopper in the same way as they would place down any other item or block in the game – which applies to PC/Mac, mobile, as well as consoles such as PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch. Although, you may need to figure out which keys are suited to the platform you’re using – depending on how you want to set up your hoppers and chests.

Things are slightly different if the player wants to place a connected hopper above a chest in Minecraft. This is because simply ‘placing’ a hopper on a chest would have the same key as opening the chest – players will have to hold down the crouch or sneak key while placing down the hopper in order to connect it to a chest.

But, the sneak or crouch key will differ for players, depending on the platform and version. Below are the different sneak/ crouch keys for the various platforms players might use when playing Minecraft:

When placing down a hopper on the ground, players should be able to see that the funnel section leads directly downwards. In order to check if your hopper is properly connected to the chest you want it to work with, you’ll need to have a close look at the funnel section of the hopper.

Regardless of how you place the hopper in relation to the chest, the funnel section should appear to connect with the chest itself. If the funnel section is not connecting, the hopper will not work with the chest and will simply act as storage instead, irrespective of how you place the chest.

The only exception to this rule is when hoppers are placed above or below hoppers since they will feed into each other no matter how they are attached to the surrounding blocks. So, before going ahead and checking for any of the other reasons for hoppers not working properly in your Minecraft world, double-check that the hopper is actually connected.

2. Hoppers do not work with Redstone

An interesting fact about hoppers in Minecraft is that they completely stop working if they are near any type of Redstone material or piece of technology in the game. As a result, the hopper will not work if there is a Redstone block directly next to it, in addition to Redstone-powered buttons, levers, or any other type of Redstone item that creates a positive Redstone signal.

Similarly, hoppers might not work properly if there is a Redstone signal going to the chest. Since the function of a hopper is to push items into and pull items from chests, Redstone signals to chests will naturally lock the connected hopper.

3. Stacking hoppers & chests

If you are trying to design a system where hoppers and chests are lined up vertically, you may have some issues due to the basic rules of how hoppers work. Even if each of the vertically stacked hoppers is clearly connected to a chest right beside it, the hoppers will automatically pull down from one another since this pull is prioritized over the push to storage space.

This is not a major issue, since all players will need to do is switch up the positions of the hoppers or block the vertical hoppers’ connections using other blocks or spaces. In these cases, the hoppers will simply ignore all other chests except the final chest, resulting in all of the hoppers’ items being pushed down into the bottom chest.

4. Minecraft hopper bugs

The worst-case scenario would be that you may be one of the few people experiencing known bugs related to hoppers in Minecraft. There is s of a commonly known hopper-related bug that Mojang has reported, as seen below:

However, this bug has reportedly been resolved, and players who have experienced the bug claim that they can work around it by placing the hopper on a dirt block then deleting the block and putting down a chest instead. If you feel you have encountered a bug, it’s always encouraged to report it to the developers – hopefully, they can work on the bug and resolve it if it’s found to be an issue from their end.

While it may feel as if hoppers involve tons of rules and limitations, hoppers actually allow plenty of room for customization and unique designs. Check out the video below by AnimusJ Tutorials for a detailed guide on some of the different ways you can use hoppers in Minecraft:

Having issues with your sophisticated storage systems can be extremely frustrating, especially if you’re trying to load up on materials, gear, tools, and resources. Although there are a few bugs and errors that can cause hoppers to act up in Minecraft, most cases are due to simpler causes and involve some pretty easy fixes.

Have something to add? Let us know in the comments below!