Troubleshooting Common ARK: Survival Evolved Server Issues

ARK: Survival Evolved is a fantastic game but it's also one of the more demanding titles we host. Things go wrong from time to time — long startup times, mods misbehaving, the odd crash — and most of it has a straightforward fix. This guide walks through the problems we see most often on LOW.MS ARK servers and how to sort them out. If you are still stuck after reading through, drop us a message at LOW.MS support and we'll take a look.

If you haven't set your server up yet, start with our getting started guide and the server configuration guide before troubleshooting — a lot of "bugs" turn out to be settings that haven't been applied.

The server takes forever to start (or looks like it isn't starting)

ARK is slow to boot. That's just how it is. A fresh start on a vanilla map will often take several minutes, and once you pile on mods or a larger map it can take quite a bit longer. Before you assume something is broken, give it time.

1. Log in to https://control.low.ms and open Web Console to watch the live output. You are looking for the "Full Startup" line — once that appears the server is actually ready for players.
2. If you'd rather tail the log file, use Log Viewer instead.
3. If the console just sits there with no activity for a long stretch, restart the server once. ARK occasionally stalls during the initial load and a clean restart clears it.
4. Check Steam Update hasn't got stuck mid-update. After a big ARK patch the server has to grab the new files before it will come up.

Players can't find the server in the browser

This one is almost always a query-port thing or a "you didn't wait long enough" thing.

ARK uses two ports: the game port (default 7777 UDP) and the query port (default 27015 UDP). The query port is what the in-game and Steam server browsers talk to — it is not offset from the game port, it is its own separate port. If you or your players are searching by IP, make sure you're using the query port, not the game port.

A few things to try:

1. Wait until the console shows the server is fully started. Steam's master server list also takes a couple of minutes to pick up a freshly-started server.
2. Have players try a direct connect. In-game, press Tab to open the console and type open YOUR_IP:7777 (use your actual game port if you've changed it).
3. Make sure the server and the client are on the same game version. If you've just had an ARK update, restart the server so the new files are applied.
4. If you have favourited the server in Steam, use the query port in the Steam favourites dialog.

High RAM usage and out-of-memory crashes

ARK is hungry. There's no polite way to put it — it loves RAM, and the more tames, structures and mods you have on the map, the more it will eat. If your server is hitting its memory ceiling you'll usually see it as sluggish tick rates, failed saves, or an outright crash.

1. Open Current Activity & Stats to see how much memory you are actually using. If you are sitting near the top of your allocation most of the time, that is your problem.
2. Trim your tamed dino count. This is the single biggest lever. Cryopod what you don't need and drop your MaxTamedDinos cap in GameUserSettings.ini via Configuration Files.
3. Audit your mods. Some of the heavier mods — especially ones that add creatures or full map overlays — push memory use up significantly. Remove anything you're not actively using.
4. If you've trimmed everything and you're still tight on memory, you can upgrade your plan from the ARK server hosting page. More RAM is cheaper than fighting a memory leak every evening.

Mods not loading, crashing on start, or mismatched between server and client

Mod issues cause more ARK server headaches than anything else. The good news is the process of narrowing them down is always the same.

1. Open Configuration Files, edit GameUserSettings.ini, and check your ActiveMods line. Workshop IDs should be comma-separated with no spaces. Load order matters — the first mod in the list has priority, so if two mods touch the same thing, the first one wins.
2. If the server crashes on startup after adding several mods at once, remove them all and add them back one at a time, restarting between each. It's tedious but it's the only reliable way to find the troublemaker.
3. Use Mod Manager to keep your installed workshop content in sync. After a major ARK update, mod authors push fixes — if your server is crashing the day after a patch, outdated mods are almost always to blame.
4. If your players see a "mods are mismatched" message, have them resubscribe to the mods on the Steam Workshop and verify their game files through Steam. Then restart the server once so both sides are on the same version.
5. If you suspect a corrupted mod download on the server side, contact LOW.MS support — we can clear the mod cache and force a fresh pull.

BattlEye kicking players

BattlEye is the usual suspect if players can connect, play for a few seconds, then get dropped with an anti-cheat message. On the player side, ask them to run the BattlEye installer from their ARK folder (\steamapps\common\ARK\ShooterGame\Binaries\Win64\BattlEye\Install_BattlEye.bat) and to verify their game files in Steam. Overlays, VPNs and some antivirus tools can also upset BattlEye, so temporarily disabling those is worth a shot.

If you want BattlEye turned off entirely on your server — for a private group where you don't care about anti-cheat — get in touch with LOW.MS support and we'll handle the commandline change for you. We'd rather flip it from our end than have you guessing at flags that may or may not still be honoured by the current ARK build.

Server-side lag and low tick rate

If everybody on the server is lagging at the same time, it's the server that's struggling, not their connections. ARK's server process is heavily single-threaded, so there's a limit to how much you can throw at it before the world tick starts to slip.

1. Tamed dinos are the number-one cause. Every tame runs AI, food drain and physics every tick. Lower MaxTamedDinos, nudge players toward cryopods, and don't be shy about a server-wide tame clean-up.
2. Large unused bases hurt too. Encourage players to demolish old builds they aren't using.
3. Wild dinos accumulate over time in awkward corners of the map. Once a week or so, enable cheats in-game with enablecheats <password> and run DestroyWildDinos from the admin console. This wipes the wild population and lets it respawn cleanly, which usually gives the tick rate a noticeable lift.
4. Review your mod list for anything that runs heavy automation or custom AI — those are the ones that quietly eat your CPU budget.

Crashes and corrupted saves

When the server crashes, the first place to look is Log Viewer. Scroll back through the last few minutes before the crash and you'll usually find a clue — a mod name, an "Out of Memory" line, or an assertion from a specific system.

1. Restart the server once. A fair number of ARK crashes are one-offs.
2. If you changed something recently — added a mod, tweaked a config, swapped map or DLC — revert that change and see if the crash goes away. Our map/DLC switching guide is handy if you need to back out a map change cleanly.
3. If the save itself is corrupted, use Cloud Restore to roll back to an earlier Cloud Backup. We take backups automatically, so you should have several recent restore points to choose from. Losing a few hours of progress is always better than losing the whole world.
4. If you think the game files themselves are damaged, open a ticket with LOW.MS support and we'll validate the install for you.

When to contact support

You don't need to fight ARK on your own. If the console is showing errors you don't recognise, if you've tried the steps above and nothing is helping, or if you want something changed at the commandline level, raise a ticket at LOW.MS support with your server details and whatever you've seen in Web Console or Log Viewer. The more context you give us, the faster we can get your server back on its feet.

For everything else ARK-related, our other guides cover becoming an admin, enabling crossplay, running a cluster, enabling the Primitive+ DLC and building a dedicated server from scratch.