Minecraft – getting an ‘unexpected token’ error with this Minecraft /give command

minecraft-commandsminecraft-java-edition

I'm trying to make a sign that you can right click and it will clear cacti from your inventory, then give you 18 cookies named "$100 Cookie" with the lore "$100". But when I put it in a command block and power it, the command block says this:

[04:23:51] Data tag parsing failed: Unexpected token '$' at: $100 Cookie\",Lore:[$100]}}\"}}",Text3:"{\"text\":\"iIiIiIi\",\"color\":\"light_purple\",\"strikethrough\":true,\"obfuscated\":true}",Text4:"{\"text\":\"[Sell]\",\"color\":\"dark_purple\",\"bold\":true}"

The command I'm using is:

/give @p sign 1 0 {BlockEntityTag:{Text1:"{\"text\":\"[Sell]\",\"color\":\"dark_purple\",\"bold\":true,\"clickEvent\":{\"action\":\"run_command\",\"value\":\"clear @p[name=rainbowlack,r=3] cactus 0 2304\"}}",Text2:"{\"text\":\"2304 Cacti\",\"color\":\"red\",\"clickEvent\":{\"action\":\"run_command\",\"value\":\"give @p[name=rainbowlack,r=3] minecraft:cookie 18 0 {display:{Name:\"$100 Cookie\",Lore:[$100]}}\"}}",Text3:"{\"text\":\"iIiIiIi\",\"color\":\"light_purple\",\"strikethrough\":true,\"obfuscated\":true}",Text4:"{\"text\":\"[Sell]\",\"color\":\"dark_purple\",\"bold\":true}"},display:{Name:"Custom Sign"}}

What's wrong with this command? I've tried backslashes and stuff. Can you please try to fix the command and test out your potential fix in-game? Thank you!

You'll have to change the [name=rainbowlack,r=3] parts to whatever your username is (example: [name=playerplayer123,r=3]).

Best Answer

You need to add more escape characters to deeper-nested quotation marks. You open the Text1 tag with a ", thus the very next " character closes it. You open the value tag for the click event with \", meaning the next \" you use will close it, which occurs in your nested /give command's NBT data (specifically just after the Name tag). That it what's causing your issue.

The formula to determine the number of backslashes required is: 2n+1, where n is the number of current backslashes. For the nested NBT data, you need 3 backslashes per quotation mark (\\\").

Fixed command:

/give @p sign 1 0 {BlockEntityTag:{Text1:"{\"text\":\"[Sell]\",\"color\":\"dark_purple\",\"bold\":true,\"clickEvent\":{\"action\":\"run_command\",\"value\":\"clear @p[name=rainbowlack,r=3] cactus 0 2304\"}}",Text2:"{\"text\":\"2304 Cacti\",\"color\":\"red\",\"clickEvent\":{\"action\":\"run_command\",\"value\":\"give @p[name=rainbowlack,r=3] minecraft:cookie 18 0 {display:{Name:\\\"$100 Cookie\\\",Lore:[$100]}}\"}}",Text3:"{\"text\":\"iIiIiIi\",\"color\":\"light_purple\",\"strikethrough\":true,\"obfuscated\":true}",Text4:"{\"text\":\"[Sell]\",\"color\":\"dark_purple\",\"bold\":true}"},display:{Name:"Custom Sign"}}

Related Solutions

Minecraft – Why are the quotation marks causing an “unexpected token” error with this command

Look at this particular part, which is causing the first error:

Text1:"{"text

Minecraft reads Text:, and is expecting a string (surrounded with quotation marks) to follow
Minecraft reads ", so starts reading the string to go with Text1 (the key)
Minecraft reads { as the string
Minecraft reads ", so stops reading the string, and is now expecting a comma to start the next key-value pair, e.g: Text1:"Hello",Text2:"World"
Minecraft finds t instead, so throws the unexpected token error

To fix this, you need to escape (put a backslash before) quotation marks that are part of the JSON. \" tells Minecraft to read " just as another character in the string, rather than stopping reading the string, as the " is part of the JSON rather than the top-level NBTData.

Even more confusing is when you have a tellraw command, requiring JSON, within the sign's text JSON. You now need to escape the backslash itself (\\) before the quotation mark (\") so that it's not read as NBTData, nor as the sign's text JSON, but as part of a string within the sign's text JSON.

Fully fixed command:

/give @p sign 1 0 {BlockEntityTag:{Text1:"{\"text\":\"[MF2]\",\"color\":\"gold\",\"clickEvent\":{\"action\":\"run_command\",\"value\":\"tellraw @a [{\\\"text\\\":\\\"[MF2] \\\",\\\"color\\\":\\\"gold\\\"},{\\\"selector\\\":\\\"@p\\\",\\\"color\\\":\\\"dark_aqua\\\"},{\\\"text\\\":\\\" is now an admin of the server!\\\",\\\"color\\\":\\\"white\\\"}]\"}}",Text3:"{\"text\":\"Click to join Admin\",\"color\":\"dark_aqua\",\"clickEvent\":{\"action\":\"run_command\",\"value\":\"scoreboard teams join admin @p\"}}"},display:{Name:"Custom Sign"}}

In the future, use a generator, or use a trigger/scoreboard command to set off the tellraw command, as this can get pretty confusing and annoying to find errors in.

Minecraft – Why doesn’t this Minecraft “/give” command work

A compound tag surrounds its data in curly brackets, while a list tag surrounds its data in square brackets. All tags except for those directly within a list must have a name.

The ench tag is a list, yet you have declared it as a compound because it's opened using curly brackets:

ench:{[],[],[]}

And within those curly brackets you have unnamed lists, which breaks syntax. The ench tag is instead a list of compounds:

ench:[{},{},{}]

You have also declared the id and lvl tags as strings by using quotation marks, when they are supposed to be numerical (specifically a short; a number between -32,768 and 32,767).

The game will not auto-correct any tag-types within item data, so by declaring it as an integer (number between -2,147,483,648 and 2,147,483,647) it will remain an integer and not the standard short. The game will still recognize that it's a numerical value even in that case. To declare a short, you append a numerical value with an "s". To declare an integer, you simply use a numerical value.

The Lore list must be placed within the display compound.

Fixed command, using the correct tag-types for enchantments:

/give x_xstolasx_x diamond_sword 1 0 {display:{Name:"Hellbringer",Lore:["Guilty."]},ench:[{id:20s,lvl:2s},{id:16s,lvl:10s},{id:19s,lvl:2s}]}

Alternative, using integers to show that the game will accept it:

/give x_xstolasx_x diamond_sword 1 0 {display:{Name:"Hellbringer",Lore:["Guilty."]},ench:[{id:20,lvl:2},{id:16,lvl:10},{id:19,lvl:2}]}

It is recommended to declare correct tag-types for the sake of consistency, since enchantments applied through normal means will be shorts.