FAQ

FAQ

Getting started

Do I need a dedicated server to play with friends? No, you can host from the game. A dedicated server means the world runs whether or not you are in it, so friends can drop in when you are not around, and nobody triggers a raid on your base by standing in it while idle.

Do I need Valheim installed on the server machine? No. You need the free Valheim Dedicated Server tool, in the Tools section of your Steam library. You do not need to be logged into Steam while it runs.

What does BakaLoader actually save me? Batch files, hand editing config files, checking Thunderstore for mod updates one at a time, and hoping the world saved before you shut things down.

Does it cost anything? No. It is free and the source is in the repository.

Platforms

Linux? No. It is a Windows desktop app built around the Windows server binary, and it uses a Windows job object to tie the server process to itself. A Linux version would be a rewrite.

Docker? No, for the same reason.

Can I run it on a headless box? It has a window and it wants one. It runs fine on a machine you remote into, and it minimises to the tray, but it is not a service.

Players and joining

Do console players need anything? No. Turn on crossplay and give them the join code. Mods that need a client side part will not work for them.

Do my friends need to install mods? Only the ones that have a client side part. Server only mods need nothing from them.

Can I play on the same machine that runs the server? Yes. Valheim is light on CPU on the server side. RAM is the thing to watch.

Why did spawning items stop working after the Valheim update? Because Valheim 1.0.12 moved a line that BakaLoader's two spawn plugins were built to read, and they had been built before it moved. What you saw was a spawn that half happened: you asked for six meads and one mead appeared, you asked for a two star boar and a plain boar appeared, every item arrived at base quality, and the app said it had worked. The reason was in the server log, a "Field not found" error, once per spawn. 1.0.9 fixes it, and there is nothing to install by hand: the plugins are rebuilt and go into your server the next time it starts. The same release stopped the app counting any reply at all as a success, so a spawn the server turns down now tells you in the server's own words. See Players (Vikings) and Troubleshooting.

A player's name shows as ???, and kicking or teleporting them does nothing. Before 1.1.0 both ends of the RCON channel spoke a form with no room for anything but the basic Latin letters, so a name written in Cyrillic, Japanese or Chinese came into the roster as question marks, and the name BakaLoader then sent back for a kick, a teleport or a spawn was those question marks, which match nobody. Accented Latin letters lost their accents the same way, and a broadcast or restart warning written in one of those alphabets reached the world unreadable. Both ends speak UTF-8 from 1.1.0. Update, then start the server once so the rebuilt Commander plugin goes in, and names arrive as they were written.

Mods

Where does it look for mods? BepInEx\plugins under this profile's server executable, one level of folders deep.

Why does a mod show - in the Latest column? The folder name did not match a Thunderstore package. It has to be Author-ModName. See How mods are matched and updated.

Does it install dependencies? No. Paste each mod's Thunderstore link separately.

Does updating a mod delete my config? No. Configs live in BepInEx\config and the update only touches the mod's own folder in plugins.

Why do all my mods say "possibly outdated"? Almost always because Valheim updated recently. The Possibly outdated column reads Yes for any mod whose newest version on Thunderstore came out before the last game update, so in the days after a patch it flags most of your list, before the authors have had a chance to publish. It is a hint to go and check those mods, not a sign any of them is broken, and plenty of mods keep working with no new release at all. If the column is blank for everything instead, either your mods are up to date against the current game version or BakaLoader could not read when this install last updated. See Possibly outdated.

Can I update just one mod? Yes. Right click it and pick Update mod. It is greyed when that mod is already current.

What happens to the mods that depend on the one I remove? The remove dialog lists them and can take them out with it, off by default, so nothing extra goes unless you tick the box. The list comes from the mods you already have installed, so it never names anything that is not on this server.

Can it update mods on a schedule? Yes. Turn on Update mods at scheduled restarts in the Upkeep card. They are installed during a scheduled restart, and also once the server has sat empty for ten minutes, in the gap while the server is down.

Will it update the mods my players have? No. It only manages the server.

What is Hexium, and should I turn it on? Hexium is a second mod site. Some Valheim mods turn up there before they turn up on Thunderstore and a few only ever turn up there, which is the whole reason the switch exists. What BakaLoader can honestly tell you about it is short: whoever runs the site is not named on it, and its accounts are Discord sign-ins, so an author's name there is not proof of the same person on Thunderstore. With the switch on, your machine contacts hexium.gg about four times an hour while BakaLoader is open, and the site says it keeps request logs for up to ninety days. It is off when you install BakaLoader and off after an upgrade, and while it is off nothing in the app reaches that site at all. If none of the mods you run are on it, leave it off. If you want the ones that are, turn on Also check Hexium in the Upkeep card and read the dialog before you install anything. Hexium has the rest.

Will BakaLoader replace my mods with Hexium versions on its own? No, never. There is no automatic Hexium update of any kind. The blue mark that says Hexium holds a newer version is an offer and it waits for you. A mod you did install from there wears a Hexium chip, sits out Update all, is not counted in the waiting updates, and is never touched by the scheduled restart or the empty server restart. Going back the other way is just as deliberate: if Thunderstore later moves past that copy the row says so, and the menu offers Install the Thunderstore build, which asks before it replaces anything. Mods you installed by hand are outside all of this, because BakaLoader only treats a folder as a Hexium install when it put the files there itself and left its own note inside saying so. See Hexium.

Can I search the mod list? Yes, from 1.1.0. The box is in the Mods header, and / puts the cursor in it from anywhere on that hall. It reads everything the row shows, the name, the author, the folder, the version numbers and the tags, every word you type has to match somewhere, capitals do not matter, and showing 2 of 10 beside the box says how much is out of sight. Escape empties it. It narrows what is on screen and nothing else, so Update all still updates every mod that has an update, not only the ones shown. The config file list has the same box, and the open config file has a find bar of its own that never puts the cursor into the text.

Updates

Does it update Valheim itself? New in 1.0.1, yes, in two of three cases. A standalone install is updated with steamcmd. A Steam library install is handed to Steam, which BakaLoader then watches. An install it cannot identify is not updated, and it says so and offers to open Steam.

Does it update itself? Yes, if Auto-update BakaLoader is on: it installs the next time you close the app. You can also install one yourself from the update dialog, which needs Check for BakaLoader updates on and every server in every window stopped. A running server is never taken down for it. With a world up the dialog's only offer is to set the update for the next restart. See Updating BakaLoader.

How do I know a new BakaLoader is out? Three places tell you, all of them reading the same check. A pill in the Server card on the Dashboard names the new version and glows beside the Valheim Update available pill, the version at the foot of the sidebar glows and names it too, and a BakaLoader update row stands on the condition bar. The pill and the version line open the update dialog, and so does Update BakaLoader on the row. The check runs at launch and then every six hours while the app is open, so a release published while you are hosting turns up the same day. Check for BakaLoader updates in the Upkeep card switches all of it off. See Updating BakaLoader.

Why does it ask before starting after an update? Because starting on a new build upgrades your worlds, and an older server cannot read an upgraded world. It offers to copy them aside first.

Can I start the server while an update is running? No. Every start is refused with "An update is running for this install. Wait for it to finish.", including the scheduled and crash restarts. Starting out of a folder that is being rewritten gives you a broken server.

Can I stop an update part way? Only while it is waiting on the Steam client. Once steamcmd is writing files, or a backup or verify is running, the stop is refused, because a half written install is worse than a slow one. Stopping the wait is quiet: Steam keeps downloading on its own.

Settings and restarts

I changed a setting while the server was running and it did not apply. Nothing on the Settings screen reaches a server that is already up. From 1.0.8, every restart comes back on what is saved on disk, so saving and then restarting is enough, and that covers the scheduled restart, the empty server restart, crash recovery, the one that applies mod updates, and the Restart button. Before 1.0.8 only a Stop and then a Start read the file again, so a saved change could sit there through a whole day of restarts doing nothing.

If you are not sure whether the running server is behind what you saved, look for the Restart pending row on the condition bar. It appears when the two differ, and its button runs a restart with the usual warning in game. A few settings never reach the server's command line, which is what the row compares: RCON, the restart rules, writing server logs to file and the server executable path raise no row, though a restart does pick them up. See Running the server and The condition bar.

World difficulty

I died on Hard and lost my food and arrows but kept my armor, is that a bug? No, that is exactly what Death penalty Hard does. What you were wearing goes into a tombstone you can recover, and everything else in your inventory is deleted on the spot and never reaches the tombstone. Skill loss is one and a half times normal on top of that. Normal is the option that puts your whole inventory in the tombstone. Hover the ? beside the dial before you pick an option and it tells you this in advance. See World modifiers.

I switched Death penalty back to Normal but people still lose their inventory. Valheim keeps the difficulty in the world rather than in the launch command, so before 1.0.6 turning a setting down did not remove what the old setting had written. Hard had put deathdeleteunequipped into the world and it stayed there, still deleting inventories, whatever the dial said afterwards. On 1.0.6 every start clears those keys and reapplies your dials, so one start puts it right. On an older version nothing removes the key, so the fix is to update and start the server once.

What does each difficulty option actually do? Hover the ? next to any World Modifier dial. The panel lists every option that dial has, what it does in plain words, and the game settings it applies underneath each one. The same panel is in the "Found a new realm" dialog when you make a server. Every option is written out on World modifiers as well.

Do difficulty changes made in the game console stick? No. BakaLoader clears the difficulty keys and writes your dials back on every start, so a console change lasts until the next restart and then it is gone. Change it on the Settings screen instead and it holds.

Worlds and backups

Where are my worlds? %USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\IronGate\Valheim\worlds_local unless you pointed the profile elsewhere.

Does it delete anything? Only what you tell it to. Deleting a backup layer and deleting a profile with its files are both explicit and both confirmed.

Can I go back to an old save? Yes, from the backup manager. It copies the live world aside first, so a restore is itself undoable.

How do I reset the statistics? Reset statistics in the page head on the Statistics screen. It asks first, clears every counter for every server, and renames the old journal to analytics.json.bak-<stamp> beside itself. One backup is kept, so a second reset replaces the first.

How do I delete a world? Delete world, beside Backups in the World Saves dialog and in the Barrow's panel for that world. You have to type the world's name exactly to confirm, and Also delete its backups is off by default so the layers stay behind unless you say otherwise. It is refused while a server is running that world, and while any realm still selects it: point that realm at another world first. See Deleting a world.

I deleted a world. Can I get it back? If its backup layers are still on disk, yes. They show under Backups without a world at the bottom of the backup manager, and restoring one brings the world back under its own name.

What is the pre-1.0 original in my backup list? Valheim 1.0 changed the save format. When it converts an old world, it renames the old files aside. Those are the ones. See World file formats.

Can I still run a converted world on an old server? Not the converted one. You can restore the pre-1.0 layer and run that, but everything played since the conversion is in the new format.

Performance

How much RAM does a server use? A fresh world is around 2 GB. An old world with a lot built on it and ten players can reach 10 to 12 GB.

How much CPU? Not much. Valheim makes whichever client is in a zone the host for that zone, so the dedicated server does less than you might expect.

Can I run several servers on one machine? Yes. Count in RAM. See Multiple servers.

My save times are getting slower. The world is growing. The bar chart on the World saves card is there to show you exactly that.

Safety and privacy

What does it send, and to whom? Thunderstore for mods, GitHub for its own updates, ipify for your public address, Steam or Valve for a server update, your own Discord webhook if you set one up, DNS for the domain check, and a three field anonymous heartbeat you can turn off. From 1.1.0, hexium.gg joins that list while Also check Hexium is on, and only while it is on: the switch is off until you move it. Full detail on Privacy and network.

Are my passwords stored safely? They are in plain text in userprefs.json. There is no encryption. That is worth knowing before you decide where to install it.

Is RCON exposed? It binds to 127.0.0.1, so it is only reachable from that machine. Nothing needs forwarding for it.

Why does SmartScreen warn me? The release is not code signed. A certificate costs money every year and this is free.

The app

Can I turn off the Norse names? Yes, Show Norse names in the Upkeep card on the Dashboard.

Can I change the theme? The main screen is dark and has no light mode.

Is there a keyboard shortcut for anything? Ctrl+K opens the command palette, which reaches almost everything. See Command palette and shortcuts.

Why did Configs move in the sidebar? Because it belongs beside Mods. Fitting a mod out means installing it, starting the server once so it writes its config, then editing that config, and the two halls that go with those steps had Settings and Map sitting between them. Somebody asked for this on the Discussions board. From 1.1.0 Configs sits directly under Mods, and Settings and Map each moved down one. Nothing was renamed and no link changed. The entry simply moved.

Where do I report a bug? An issue on the repository with the relevant log lines, or the Discussions board.

Can I contribute code? No, it is a solo project and does not take code contributions. Issues with a Thunderstore link, and bug reports with logs, are genuinely useful. See For mod authors.