Most Enshrouded server problems we see on LOW.MS boil down to one of three things — a version mismatch after a patch, a config file that isn't quite doing what the admin thinks it's doing, or a server that's been running flat out for too long without a breather. This guide walks through the ones our support team deals with day to day, and the fixes that actually work.
If nothing here gets you sorted, open a ticket — we'd rather hear from you than have you wrestling with it for an hour.
Connection problems
Players can't connect
By a long margin, the number one cause is a version mismatch. Enshrouded pushes patches fairly often, and if the server is even one build behind the client you'll get a generic connection failure with no useful hint as to why.
Head to https://control.low.ms, open your server, and run Steam Update. Restart afterwards and get one of your players to try again. Nine times out of ten that's the whole fix.
If the server is on the latest build and players still can't get in, work through the usual suspects:
- Double-check the password. They're case-sensitive and a stray space at the end of a copy-paste will quietly break things.
- Make sure the server is actually finished starting — the panel will show it as running a little before Embervale has fully loaded. Pop open Web Console and wait for the world to report ready.
- Confirm the server isn't full. Enshrouded caps out at 16 players.
LOW.MS pre-configures the game and query ports for you, so there's nothing for you to set on the server side and no firewall or router rules to worry about.
Server isn't showing up in the browser
Give it a few minutes after a start or restart — the Steam master list takes its time, and a freshly booted server typically needs two or three minutes before it appears. If it still isn't listed, get your players to add it by IP directly from the in-game Add Server option. The IP is on your server page in the panel.
Config changes aren't taking effect
This one bites people constantly, and it's almost always the same gotcha. Enshrouded's gameSettings block is only read when gameSettingsPreset is set to "Custom". If your preset is Default, Relaxed, Normal or anything else, the game ignores every individual gameplay value you've carefully tuned.
Open Configuration Files, find enshrouded_server.json, and make sure the top of the file looks like this:
"gameSettingsPreset": "Custom",
"gameSettings": {
...
}
Save, then restart the server from its page in the panel. Most gameplay settings will pick up on the next boot — you don't need to start a new world just to change them.
A couple of other things worth checking if values still look off:
- Malformed JSON. A trailing comma or a missing bracket is enough to stop the file loading cleanly. Paste it through a JSON validator if you're not sure.
- You edited the wrong file. There's only one
enshrouded_server.jsonin the server root — if you've got a.bakor a copy lying around, make sure you're editing the real one.
If the server refuses to come back up after a config edit, check Log Viewer first. A parse error will be front and centre.
Performance and lag
Enshrouded's server performance is mostly driven by how spread out your players are. Sixteen players all building in the same valley is a much lighter load than four players scattered across opposite ends of the map — the server has to keep streaming world data for every area someone is standing in.
If you're seeing rubber-banding or sluggish combat, the first thing to look at is whether your group has wandered far apart. That's not a "fix" as such, just the shape of the game.
Beyond that:
- A wired connection on the client side makes a bigger difference than people expect. WiFi packet loss looks exactly like server lag.
- If your group is pushing the 16-player cap and you're on a smaller plan, more RAM genuinely helps. Upgrade options are on the Enshrouded hosting page.
- Restarts help, especially right after a big game update when things are still settling down. We don't recommend a fixed cadence — just do one if something feels off.
Server won't start
If the server sits in a stopped state or drops out shortly after booting, Log Viewer is where you want to be. The last few lines before the shutdown almost always tell you what's wrong.
The usual culprits:
- A broken
enshrouded_server.jsonafter a manual edit. Fix the JSON in Configuration Files and try again. - The server is mid-update. Run Steam Update from the sidebar, let it finish, then start the server from its page.
- A save that's in a bad state after an unclean stop. See the next section.
Saves and backups
Your world lives in ./savegame in the server root, and logs sit alongside it in ./logs. You shouldn't normally need to touch either directly — we take regular backups for you and surface them through Cloud Backup and Cloud Restore in the sidebar.
If a world won't load cleanly, jump into Cloud Restore, pick the most recent known-good snapshot, and roll back. It's a one-click job and it's usually the fastest way out of a bad save.
Bringing a save in from somewhere else — a local singleplayer world, or a save from another host — is its own thing with a few gotchas. We've got a dedicated walkthrough for that over on Transfer/Upload Your Save to Your Enshrouded Server.
One habit worth getting into: always stop the server cleanly from its page in the panel before doing anything with save files. Yanking a running server while it's writing to disk is the single best way to end up needing that Cloud Restore.
When to open a ticket
If you've worked through the above and you're still stuck, grab the last 50-ish lines from Log Viewer and open a support ticket. Telling us what you tried and pasting the log saves a round trip and gets you back in-game faster.
It's also worth having a look at our getting started guide, the settings guide and the how to join walkthrough if you haven't already — a surprising number of "bugs" turn out to be something small covered in one of those.