The condition bar
A toast tells you something happened and then goes away. That is fine for confirming what you just did, and useless for something that is still true five minutes later.
So anything that is still true and still wants an answer goes into a bar above the page instead, and stays there until it is answered or dismissed. One at a time, worst first.
The order it picks from, worst first: a held start, then the three errors, a failed world save, a failed backup and a crash, then the two warnings, an update running and a plugin that did not install, then the three notices, a BakaLoader update, mods with updates and a restart pending.
A held start comes first because nothing else matters while the server is refusing to come up. The errors outrank the update row on purpose: a world that failed to save is worth more of your attention than a download you can watch later.
The bar follows you across every screen, so a held start is not something you only see if you happen to be on the Dashboard.
Title Updating. Shown while a Valheim server update is running. The message names the phase, with a real progress bar when the size is known and a working bar when it is not.
Backing up worlds, Asking Steam to download the update, Steam is downloading: 412 of 848 MB, Running steamcmd, Verifying the install.
Stop waiting appears only while BakaLoader is waiting on the Steam client. It stops the watching, not the download. In every other phase the button is disabled and reads Updating, and the service refuses the stop outright, so a steamcmd run, a worlds backup and the verify pass cannot be called off. A half written install is worse than a slow one.
Stopping the wait is quiet. The row goes back to whatever stood before the update and one toast says "Update stopped. Steam keeps downloading on its own." No red row, because nothing failed.
Hide hides the row. Nothing is cancelled.
Full detail in Server updates and the launch guard.
Title Update waiting or Build changed. This is the launch guard's question when nobody was at the keyboard to answer the dialog: an automatic start, a scheduled restart, an empty server restart or a crash relaunch.
The message is the same text the dialog would have shown. The buttons are the same choices: Update server, or Open Steam when BakaLoader cannot do the update itself, or Back up worlds and start for a build change, plus Start anyway or Start without backup.
Not now leaves it: "Left as it is · the server stays down until you start it."
If an update was tried from here and failed, the failure is written across the same row and the actions come back:
Title A plugin did not install. Severity warning. One of the small plugins BakaLoader puts beside the server could not be written, usually because the file was locked or the folder is read only.
The message names the first one in full, then counts the rest: "And 2 more plugins did not install." Open the log goes to the Log screen, which has every one of them.
The server still starts. The feature that plugin powers is off, and BakaLoader tries again at the next start. The same names also appear on the Mods screen, in a line that cannot be dismissed, because the gap is still there after the bar has been waved away.
Title World save failed. Severity error. The server reported a failed save.
The server could not write the world to disk (4200ms). Everything played since the last good save is only in memory. Check free disk space, and whether anything else has the world files open.
This one deserves attention immediately. Everything since the last good save is only in RAM, and a crash or a hard kill loses it. The usual causes are a full disk, a backup tool holding the files, or antivirus scanning the save folder.
Open the log goes to the log.
Title Backup failed. Severity error. The pre-launch or pre-update copy aside did not work, so the server was not started.
The worlds could not be copied aside, so the server was not started.
Backups opens the Barrow. See Worlds, backups and restore.
The server staying down is the point. A backup that quietly copied nothing used to let the start through. It does not any more.
Title Server crashed. Severity error.
The server process stopped on its own. BakaLoader is relaunching it.
or, with Restart on Crash off:
The server process stopped on its own. It stays down until you start it.
Open the log goes to the log, where the reason usually is.
Title BakaLoader update. Severity information. New in 1.0.1: this appears when a newer release exists.
The row names the version and then says what will actually happen. Rewritten in 1.0.7, because what can happen turns on whether a world is up as much as on the two Upkeep switches, and the old wording promised an install that could not run.
With both switches on:
BakaLoader 1.0.9 is available. It installs the next time you close the app.
With update checking on, installing off, and a server up:
BakaLoader 1.0.9 is available. It will not install while a world is up. Open Update BakaLoader to set it for the next restart, or turn auto-update on in Upkeep.
With update checking on, installing off, and nothing running:
BakaLoader 1.0.9 is available. It will not install on its own. Install it now with Update BakaLoader, or turn auto-update on in Upkeep and it goes in the next time you close the app.
With update checking off:
BakaLoader 1.0.9 is available. Update checking is off in Upkeep, so nothing installs itself until you turn it back on.
Update BakaLoader opens the update dialog, which says what installing would cost before it does anything, offers the release notes, and offers the one thing you can safely do about the release from where you are standing. Before 1.0.7 this button read See what changed and went straight to a browser, which skipped the part where you find out that installing closes the app and takes the server with it.
Upkeep settings goes straight to the switches. Dismiss hides the row.
The row is redrawn whenever the answer behind it changes: on every server start and stop, when either Upkeep switch is flipped, and after the dialog's own actions. When a later check finds nothing newer, it is cleared outright.
The whole of it, including what the dialog offers in each state, is on Updating BakaLoader.
Title Mod updates. Severity information.
2 mods have newer versions on Thunderstore. New versions load the next time the server starts.
Review in Mods goes to the Mods screen.
Title Restart pending. Severity information. New in 1.0.8, and the lowest priority row of them all, so it never stands in front of anything that matters more.
Saved settings differ from what the running server started with. They apply at the next restart.
Valheim reads its whole configuration off the command line when it launches, so a running server keeps what it started with no matter what is on disk. The change you saved is real, it is written, and it is simply not in force yet. This row is where you find that out, instead of wondering why the world plays the same as it did before you saved.
Restart is the same warned restart the Hearth button runs, not a bare stop. It refuses while a server update is running, asks the launch guard, and then counts down with warnings to the players in game. An empty server restarts straight away.
BakaLoader builds the command line the profile would launch with right now, from the settings saved on disk, and compares it flag by flag with the one the live server is actually running. Order does not count, because two sets of modifiers in a different order launch the same server and saying otherwise would ask you to restart for nothing. The comparison is made for each server against its own profile, so a background realm is judged on its own settings rather than on whichever one you happen to be looking at.
Anything it cannot read or cannot compare is answered as no difference. A restart you did not need turns everyone on the server out for nothing, so the doubt falls that way.
The command line carries your server password, so what travels to the page is a short fingerprint of it and never the line itself.
It covers the server name, port, world name, visibility, save folder, save interval, the three backup values, the password, crossplay, the world preset or the five modifier dials, world keys, and any extra launch arguments.
It does not cover anything that never reaches the command line: RCON and its port and password, Restart on Crash and its delay, Empty-Server Restart and its delay, Scheduled Restart and its interval, writing server logs to file, the server executable path, and the password validation switch. Change one of those while the server is up and no row appears. The restart still picks them up, because a relaunch reads the whole profile again. It is only the noticing that is limited to the command line.
A stopped server is never pending. Its next start reads the profile anyway.
Dismissal is keyed to the settings themselves, not to the row. Wave it away and that exact saved set stays quiet. Save a different change and the row comes back, because it is news again. It also comes back on a page reload, and it clears itself when the server stops, when a restart takes the settings in, or when you put the settings back the way they were. Switching to another server clears it too, because the settings you waved away belonged to that realm.
See Settings (World) and Running the server.
Every condition has a dismiss button, usually labelled Dismiss, sometimes something more specific like Hide or Not now.
Dismissing hides the row. It does not fix anything and it does not cancel anything. A held start that you dismiss leaves the server down. An update that you hide keeps updating. A plugin failure you dismiss comes back as news if the same plugin fails again with a different error.
Two rows remember what you waved away rather than simply hiding. A dismissed BakaLoader update is not raised again by the checks that keep running every few hours, because a version is announced once per run: only a newer release asks again. A dismissed Restart pending is keyed to that exact set of saved settings, so the next change you save raises it again. Both come back on a page reload, because nothing about a dismissal is written to disk.
Only one shows at a time. What about the others? They are queued by severity. Deal with the one showing and the next appears.
The bar pushed my page down. By design. It sits above the page rather than over it, so it never covers a button you were about to press.
Can I turn it off? No. Every condition in it is something that needs an answer. Dismiss the individual ones you have read.