Switched from Spigot to PaperMC which has resolved issues described. Also has better render distance. Still running 1.14.4
Posts by Frio
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In the thread low render distance in 1.14.4 it was claimed that render distance had no effect on mob spawn rates.
After tests I've been conducting with bukkit & spigot in 1.14.4 & 1.14.2 I believe the two are correlated. Mobs despawn at a distance of 128 blocks (https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Despawn).
With the server render distance being 8 chunks this sits on the 128 block boundry. Therefore mobs do not despawn and instead enter stasis until the chunk is loaded again.
This means players eventually notice no new spawns in an area because the mobs will be concentrated in a particular area they've not cleared out. I.e. Unless a mob is killed it does not disappear and remains part of the spawn limit forever. Usually with a render distance of 12 the chunks stay loaded long enough for the despawn process to occur.
The mob spawn issue isn't being seen by players on 1.14.2 because the render distance is not high enough.
It would be very much appreciated if aternos would increase the distance just slightly to put this theory to the test.
Further evidence in support of this claim: