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Troubleshooting
Symptoms, likely causes and what to check. If none of this covers it, the log usually does, and the last section says how to read it.
The condition bar says a start is held. Steam has an update waiting, or the build on disk changed. Answer the question in the bar. See Server updates and the launch guard.
The condition bar says the backup failed. The worlds could not be copied aside, so the start was refused on purpose. Check free disk space and whether anything has the world files open. Then try again.
Nothing happens at all. Check the Settings screen for a path problem. The Server Executable field has to point at a real valheim_server.exe. The Log has the exact reason.
It says a server is already running. BakaLoader found a valheim_server.exe from the same path. Adopt it or kill it. See Running the server.
"An update is running for this install. Wait for it to finish." A Valheim server update is rewriting the install. Start and Restart are refused everywhere until it finishes, including the automatic restarts, because starting out of a folder steamcmd is halfway through replacing produces a broken server. Watch the progress in the condition bar. See Updating the server.
BakaLoader will not close. Same cause: "An update is running. BakaLoader will close when it finishes." It closes by itself when the update is done. A second close click within ten seconds insists, unless steamcmd is writing files right then.
A validation error when you press Save Config. The server name cannot equal the world name, the RCON port cannot equal the game port, the save interval cannot be larger than either backup interval, and the password has rules. The message names the one that failed.
"Incompatible version". Client and server are on different builds. Check the Server card for the version the server is on. Update whichever side is behind, and let Steam finish if it has a download queued.
Everyone is refused as banned, since Valheim 1.0. Your allow list has old style ids. 1.0 only matches Steam ids written as V_<steamid>, so a file of bare numbers stops working. Open the Players screen once and BakaLoader adds the new form, or edit permittedlist.txt and prefix every Steam id with V_.
Friends outside your network cannot connect. Forward UDP 2456 and 2457 to the machine running the server, and allow the server through Windows Firewall. Or turn on crossplay and give them the join code, which needs no forwarding.
Nobody can find it in the browser. Public has to be on in Settings, and it takes a few minutes to list.
Console players cannot join. They need a crossplay server and the join code. Turn on Crossplay and restart. The code appears on the Network card once the server publishes it.
The condition bar says it crashed. Open the log and look at the lines before the exit. A mod is the usual cause. Try starting with the plugins folder emptied to confirm.
It restarts on its own on a schedule. That is Scheduled Restart in Advanced. Turn it off or change the interval.
It restarts when everyone leaves. That is Empty-Server Restart in Advanced.
It restarts and updates mods on its own. That is automatic mod updating on an empty server. It only ever happens with nobody online.
A mod is installed but is not in the list. BakaLoader reads folders one level inside BepInEx\plugins. A loose .dll in plugins itself is invisible to it. Put it in a folder.
A mod shows - in the Latest column. The scanner could not match the folder name to a Thunderstore package. Usually a renamed folder. It has to be Author-ModName. See How mods are matched and updated.
An update failed on a locked file. The server was running and had the DLL open. Stop it and try again.
The mod updated but nothing changed in game. BepInEx loads plugins once, at server start. Restart the server.
A mod keeps loading after I removed it. It is probably a patcher type mod. Some mods ship a second folder under BepInEx\patchers that loads before the plugins do, and a removal before 1.0.6 only took the plugins half, so the patcher stayed behind and went on working. Smoothbrain's StartupAccelerator is the one most people meet. On 1.0.6 a removal takes both folders, and patcher mods appear on the Mods screen with a patcher tag so you can remove them there. For a folder left behind by an older removal, stop the server, open BepInEx\patchers beside this profile's server executable and delete the mod's folder yourself. Leave denikson-BepInExPack_Valheim and ValheimModding-HookGenPatcher where they are: they are the framework itself. On a machine running more than one server, patchers is shared between the isolated installs, so anything taken out of it goes for every server at once.
A mod needs another mod. Dependencies are not installed for you. Paste each one's Thunderstore link.
Some player actions are greyed out. Either the player is not online, in which case the tooltip says so, or the banner on the Players screen names a missing mod. Press Install missing mods, then restart. Kick stays available for a player who is still joining, since it only needs them connected.
Max Players is set above 10 but the server still caps at 10. The plugin refused to patch this build of the game, and BakaLoader raises that as a warning. Filter the Log screen to Warn after a start, or search it for "vanilla limit". The warning reads "Max Players could not be raised on this build of the game, so this server keeps the vanilla limit of 10 players. The number saved in the World hall is not in force for this session." The number on the Settings screen is what you asked for, not what is in force.
Spawning gives one item, or the wrong quality, after a game update. Valheim 1.0.12 moved something the spawn plugins read, and every BakaLoader before 1.0.9 shipped plugins built against where it used to be. The spawn stopped after its first object, so six meads arrived as one mead and a two star boar arrived plain, and everything landed at base quality. The app said it had worked, because it used to take any reply as a success. The real reason is in the server log, a Field not found line, once per spawn. Update BakaLoader and start the server once: the rebuilt plugins are copied in at that start and spawning works again. There is nothing to install by hand. From 1.0.9 the plugins ask the running game rather than assuming, so this shape of game change cannot break them the same way again. See The bundled plugins.
The quality I asked for is not the quality that arrived. Until 1.0.9 the number was thrown away on the way to the server and every item landed at quality 1. Update and it goes through. If it arrives lower than you asked for and the confirmation reads at quality 4 (the most this item allows), that is the item's own ceiling and not a failure. Vanilla equipment stops at 4.
A spawn toast says spawn failed and names a reason. That reason is the server's own first line, printed as it stands. Before 1.0.9 every reply counted as a success, so refusals were silent, which is how a spawn that never worked went on looking cheerful. A prefab the server does not know, a command that threw and the usage line all come back this way. no reply from the server means nothing answered at all: the server is down, RCON is off, or nothing is listening on the port. nothing was chosen to spawn and could not find that viking's position, so nothing was spawned are BakaLoader's own words from before the command went out.
Names with accents show as question marks, and kicking or teleporting those players fails. Both ends of the RCON channel spoke ASCII until 1.1.0, so every letter past the first 128 became a question mark. A player named in Cyrillic, Japanese or Chinese came into the roster as ???, accented Latin names lost their accents, and broadcasts written in those alphabets reached the world unreadable. The actions failed for the same reason: the name BakaLoader sent back was the question marks, and they match nobody. It is fixed in 1.1.0. Update BakaLoader and start the server once, so the Commander plugin 1.3.1 goes in with it, since both ends have to change for it to work. Plain English text was never affected. See Players.
I turned on Also check Hexium and nothing changed. Turning the switch on does not go and look by itself. Scan the mods again, which is what the toast says when you turn it on, and the marks appear on that scan.
Then there is a second reason for an empty looking table, and it is the intended one: a mark only appears where there is something to say. The blue newer on Hexium mark wants Hexium to hold a version higher than both what you have installed and what Thunderstore has, so a site carrying the same version, or an older one, puts nothing on the row. The Hexium chip only appears on a mod BakaLoader itself installed from Hexium. If your mods are current on Thunderstore and you have never installed anything from the second site, a table with no marks on it is the right answer.
Installing from Hexium refuses. The message says which of these it was.
Turn on Also check Hexium in Upkeep to install from Hexium. and Turn on Also check Hexium in Upkeep to open Hexium pages. are the switch being off. Nothing reaches that site while it is off, including opening one of its pages in your browser.
BepInEx plugins folder not found. Set a valid server .exe path first. is the Server Executable path on the Settings screen not pointing at a real server yet. This is checked before your acceptance is spent, so fix the path and the offer is still there to take.
That install was not accepted, or the question has gone stale. Open it again. means the acceptance behind it is gone. One acceptance is good for the exact owner, name and version you were shown, for ten minutes, and for one install. Asking a second question drops the first. Open the offer again and answer it again.
Hexium did not answer. Try again in a little while. is the site being unreachable or slow. Nothing is changed and nothing is lost: a scan that cannot reach Hexium still finishes, and the rows simply keep the marks they already had.
The download did not match the size Hexium listed means the bytes that arrived were not the number the site listed for that file, so the install was abandoned. Nothing was replaced and the copy you already had is exactly as it was.
That download redirected off hexium.gg, so it was stopped. and That download ended up off hexium.gg, so it was stopped. mean the download tried to leave the site partway through. BakaLoader checks the address before the first request, at every redirect and again at the end, and it will not follow one off hexium.gg.
A mod I installed from Hexium is not being updated. That is deliberate and there is nothing to fix. A Hexium install sits out Update all, the waiting updates count, the scheduled restart and the empty server restart. If Thunderstore later moves past it, the row says newer on Thunderstore and the row menu offers Install the Thunderstore build, which asks before it replaces anything and hands the mod back to the ordinary update path.
A world vanished from the list. Its name may match the backup naming test, so it is being shown as a layer under another world. Or a legacy .fwl and .db pair is being shadowed by a 1.0 folder of the same name. Open the save folder and look. See World file formats.
RESTORE is greyed out. The tooltip says why. Either the server is running, or the snapshot is unfinished, or the layer lost its world file.
A backup shows "no world file". Its .db survived and its .fwl did not. It cannot be restored. It can be deleted, and it may be worth deleting since it can be as big as the world.
The save folder is enormous. Six or seven backup layers of a 48 MB world is 300 MB or more per world. Open the backup manager and look at the size column, including the Backups without a world section at the bottom, which is layers left behind by worlds that are gone.
A world I deleted still has backups taking space. They are in Backups without a world at the bottom of the backup manager. Restore one to bring the world back, or delete it to take the space.
A world in the picker vanished after updating to 1.0.1. If its name was Something_20260909180000, it was never a world. The game calls that shape a rolling save and files it under Something. It is now listed as a backup layer of Something instead of being offered as a world you could adopt. See World file formats.
A world is in the old format and I want to keep it that way. Take a copy of the .fwl and .db before the 1.0 server saves. The conversion happens on the first save and goes one way.
"The map could not be drawn. Set a seed or start the server once first." There is no .fwl yet, so there is no seed to render. Start the server once.
Most of the map is grey. Fog of war. Nobody has recorded discoveries on a cartography table. Turn off the fog of war chip.
"The save could not be read: ..." The message names the reason. A version outside the supported range, an oversized file, an unsupported chunk version or a truncated file are the real ones.
The map looks nothing like the world. A world size or biome mod will do that. The toolbar shows a pill when one is detected.
It takes a long time. Bigger renders and Ashlands pixels are slow. Progress shows as a percentage.
The console line is greyed out. The server is not running, or RCON is off, or nothing is answering RCON.
Broadcasts do not reach anyone in game. Same causes. Check the Network card for whether RCON is bound.
The log stopped updating. Scroll to the bottom, or click the ↓ N new pill. It stops following on purpose when you scroll up.
An adopted server logs nothing. BakaLoader can only read the output of a process it started. Stop the server and start it from the app.
The post stopped updating. The webhook was deleted, or the master switch is off. Press Publish now and read the status line.
"Discord says that webhook does not exist." Make a new webhook and paste the fresh URL.
Nothing has ever posted. The master switch, Share this server on Discord, has to be on and there has to be a webhook URL.
SmartScreen warns on first run. The release is not code signed. Check the download against the release page and decide.
It will not update itself. Auto-update BakaLoader in the Upkeep card has to be on, and so does Check for BakaLoader updates above it, since checking is the switch that decides whether the app may reach GitHub at all. With installing off, the notice tells you a new version exists and waits for you. You can still install one yourself from the update dialog, as long as checking is on and nothing is running. See Updating BakaLoader.
Where are the settings kept? %USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\BakaLoader\ValheimBakaLoader\userprefs.json.
It says another BakaLoader is already running. Only one instance can own the server, because closing one would kill it. The dialog offers to close the new window.
The app closed for an update and came back on the old version. The part that swaps the files waits up to two minutes for BakaLoader to close, allows it one more second, and then checks whether the process has really gone. If it is still there it stops and writes nothing at all, which is why you are back on the version you had rather than on half of each. Nothing is damaged and there is nothing to clean up. Check that no BakaLoader window is still open, including one behind another window and one opened by a profile set to start with the app, then open the update dialog again from the pill or the sidebar version and take it again. With Auto-update BakaLoader on, it stages the same update again by itself the next time it looks.
It says a server is still running and I only have one. It counts every server in every window, not the one in front of you, and it counts more than Running: a server that is stopping, one sitting between a restart's stop and its relaunch, a start the launch guard has not answered yet, and a held automatic start with its retry armed. A Valheim server update rewriting any install counts too. Stop what is up, answer whatever the condition bar is asking, then try again.
It says BakaLoader just checked. An update you ask for goes out without waiting for the six hours the automatic checks keep, and there is a sixty second floor under that so it cannot be asked over and over. Wait a minute and press it again. The minute is shared by every window.
It says it could not reach GitHub. The request went out and did not come back. Check the connection and whether anything on the machine blocks the app from reaching GitHub. A failed check stages nothing and changes nothing. Privacy and network lists every address the app uses.
Logs folder on the Log screen opens %USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\BakaLoader\ValheimBakaLoader\logs\.
ApplicationLogs_<date>.txt is BakaLoader's own log, one per day, kept 30 days. This is the one for a problem with the app.
ServerLogs-<profile>-<stamp>.txt is one server session, named for when it started. This is the one for a problem with the server, and the one to attach to an issue about a crash.
Every line is timestamped and tagged with its severity. BakaLoader's own lines are prefixed with the part that wrote them, like [BakaLoader], [Thunderstore] or [Herald].
For a quick copy without opening a file: filter the Log screen, search for what you need, and press copy. It copies exactly what is visible.
Open an issue on the repository with the log lines around the problem, or post in Discussions. What helps most: what you pressed, what you expected, what happened, the BakaLoader version from the status bar, and the relevant part of the log.
Screens
Dashboard (Hearth) Players (Vikings) Mods Hexium Configs (Runes) Settings (World) World modifiers Map (Atlas) Log (Saga) Discord (Herald) Statistics (Skald)
Guides
Running the server Automatic restarts Server updates and the launch guard Updating the server Updating BakaLoader Worlds, backups and restore Deleting a world Multiple servers Custom domain The condition bar Command palette and shortcuts Privacy and network
Reference
Settings reference How mods are matched and updated The bundled plugins World file formats How the map is drawn For mod authors
Help