Valheim Server Troubleshooting Guide

Running into something weird on your Valheim server? This is the catch-all troubleshooting guide – it covers the issues that come up most often in support tickets, in roughly the order they tend to appear. If your problem isn't here, the legacy Common Issues and Can't Connect articles cover a few extra cases, or you can just open a ticket from the panel and we'll dig in.

Connection issues

"I can't connect to the server"

This is the most common ticket we get. Work through these in order – at least one of them is the culprit 95% of the time.

1. Is the server actually running? Open the LOW.MS Control Panel, pick your Valheim server, and check the status. If it says "Stopped", start it. If it says "Starting" or "Running", give it another 60-90 seconds – Valheim takes a moment to load the world, especially on larger or modded servers.

2. Are the connection details right? Triple-check the IP and port. They should be in the format IP:Port, e.g. 92.118.16.126:27515. A single typo will keep you out. Crossplay doesn't change this for Steam players: Iron Gate's own dedicated server guide says you can join a crossplay server by public IP and port, by join code, or from the server list. What it does change is Xbox and Game Pass players, who can't use an IP at all and need the Join Code from the server log.

3. Is the password right? Valheim passwords are case-sensitive and must be at least 5 characters (our panel asks for 8, which is the stricter of the two). There's also a gotcha that catches people out: the password can't be contained in your world name or your seed name. Call the world Midgard and set the password to gard and the server refuses to start. It does tell you, but only in the log rather than in the panel, so check Log Viewer for a line beginning Error bad password:. If you've recently changed your world name, this is worth double-checking.

4. Version mismatch? The client and server both need to be on the same Valheim version. Right-click Valheim in Steam → Properties → Updates → make sure auto-update is enabled. On the server side, restart from the panel to trigger a Steam update.

5. Have you actually waited? After a restart, Valheim takes 1-2 minutes to fully load the world before it accepts connections. Don't try connecting in the first 30 seconds – you'll get a "failed to connect" that has nothing to do with the actual problem.

For a longer connection-troubleshooting walkthrough see the dedicated article: Can't Connect to Your Valheim Server?.

Server isn't appearing in the in-game browser

Public listing isn't the problem. -public 1 is fixed on all three of our predefined command lines, so it's always on and there's no way to switch it off from the panel. (If you actually want your server hidden from the browser, that's a quick support ticket.)
The Steam community browser can take 5-10 minutes to list a freshly-started server. Be patient or use direct connect.
Add the server to your Steam favorites for quick access from then on.

Random disconnections

High ping (over ~200ms) causes timeouts. Pick a server region close to most of your players.
Big builds and heavy entity counts can cause connection timeouts when someone walks into the area, because the server tries to sync everything at once.
On modded servers, a misbehaving mod is often the cause. Open a ticket and we'll help bisect which one.
A flaky client connection looks identical to a server problem from the player's side. Get them to check their own connection before assuming the server is at fault.

Performance issues

Lag, low TPS, rubber-banding

The first thing to do is check your resource usage in the panel. Open your server's dashboard and look at the RAM and CPU graphs. If RAM is consistently sitting above 80%, you'd benefit from a bigger plan.

Beyond that, the usual suspects in roughly the order they cause problems:

Building piece counts. This is the number one cause of Valheim server lag, full stop. Each piece is tracked and synced. Sprawling castles with many thousands of pieces will start to chug, especially when players enter the area. There's no hard limit, but if a single base is causing noticeable lag, it's almost always the piece count.
Tamed creatures. Each tamed animal is an active entity. A breeding farm with dozens of boars eats more performance than the same number of building pieces. Cull the population if it's getting out of hand.
Terrain modifications. Heavy use of the hoe or pickaxe to reshape terrain creates terrain-mod data that has to be synced to anyone walking through. Avoid terraforming every square metre.
Item drops. Items left on the ground are entities. Clean up around smelters, forges and farms regularly.
Many active fires and torches. Each light source with a particle effect adds rendering and network load. Use them deliberately, not as decorative spam.

The quickest one-shot fix when something feels slow: restart the server from the panel. It clears memory and resets entity states, and it's free.

World takes forever to load

Loading time naturally grows as your world matures. After major Valheim updates the first load can take longer because the world file migrates to a new format – let it run, don't kill it. If a load is taking more than 5 minutes on a previously-working world, open a ticket.

World and save issues

"The world isn't saving"

Valheim auto-saves every 30 minutes by default (-saveinterval 1800). If you suspect saves aren't running:

Check the server console output for any save-related lines (look for "World saved").
In File Manager, open Valheim/worlds_local/ and find YourWorldName.db and YourWorldName.fwl. They're nested in there, not at the top level. Their modified timestamps should match the most recent save.
Make sure the server has enough disk space – out-of-disk is a silent killer.

You can also force one yourself. save is one of the plain admin commands that does work on a dedicated server, so if your Steam64 ID is in adminlist.txt, press F5 in-game, type save, and watch for the confirmation in the console. Worth doing before any restart, update or branch change. If nobody with admin is online, restarting from the panel does the same job – Valheim flushes the world to disk on shutdown.

World looks like it reset

If you log in and your world is suddenly fresh:

Check the World Name in Service Settings. This is the most common cause by far – the world name was changed (or has a typo) and the server is now creating a brand new world by that name. Your original world is still safe in Valheim/worlds_local/, just not loaded. Set the world name back and restart.
If the file is genuinely missing, restore from a cloud backup via the panel.

Restoring from a backup

Open Cloud Restore in the panel.
Pick the backup you want.
Click Restore and confirm.
Start the server once it's finished.

Cloud Restore stops the service itself as part of the restore, so you don't need to stop it first. Worth knowing that backups only exist if somebody set them up: Cloud Backup can run on a schedule, but nothing schedules it for you by default. If you've never configured one, there's nothing to restore from.

Mod issues

"I installed mods but nothing is happening"

Walk through these in order:

Is BepInEx actually loaded? This is the first thing to establish, because it tells you whether you have a loader problem or a mod problem. Check for BepInEx/LogOutput.log in your server root via File Manager, or open the live Log Viewer in the panel sidebar and look for BepInEx's startup banner and the plugin list underneath it. If the log is there and your plugins are named in it, the loader is fine and the problem is with a specific mod. If it isn't there at all, open a ticket and we'll check the install – BepInEx is something we manage on our end, not something you'd have uploaded.
Client/server mismatch. Every player needs the same mods at the same versions. r2modman makes this obvious – anyone with a different modlist will just fail to connect.
Mod isn't compatible with the current Valheim version. After game updates, mods often need to catch up. Check each installed mod on Thunderstore for a compatible release.
A mod that assumes Steam, on a crossplay server. Worth clearing up a myth here, because it's been repeated for years including by us: crossplay does not stop BepInEx loading, and it does not disable your mods wholesale. Turning crossplay on moves the server onto a different matchmaking backend and leaves the loader alone. What it does affect is individual mods written on the assumption that every player is on Steam, typically anything reading a SteamID64 for admin or permitted lists, or leaning on Steam networking. Those can throw when someone joins. So if step 1 showed your plugins loading but one specific mod misbehaves, this is worth testing. Crossplay isn't a settings toggle: open Commandline Manager and switch from Default (With Crossplay) to Default, then restart. Be aware that only the Additional Configuration line carries the preset and extra-argument tokens, so switching lines can drop tuned settings.
Read the BepInEx log. BepInEx/LogOutput.log is verbose, but the actual error is almost always obvious if you scroll to the end. Screenshot anything suspicious and drop it into a support ticket.

Short version of the install workflow: the panel's Mod Manager carries a couple of hundred pre-bundled Valheim mods with one-click installs, and anything outside it goes through a support ticket (our control panel blocks customer .dll uploads, so we handle the file drops for you). Full walkthrough in the Mod Installation Guide.

Server crashes after adding a mod

Open a ticket with "please disable the last mod we added" and we'll pull the .dll back out and restart. If the server boots again, that was the culprit. If not, we'll pull the one before and keep bisecting until we've isolated the problem.

Players get kicked or can't connect after adding mods

Almost always a client/server mod mismatch:

Check whether the mod needs to be installed on both sides or only one.
Make sure all players have the same mods at the same versions.
Some mods enforce strict version matching – check the mod docs.
The fastest fix when one player is broken: wipe their r2modman profile and reinstall the same mod list from scratch.
Console players can't install mods at all. If your server runs anything client-side, they can't join it, and no server setting changes that.

Crossplay issues

Crossplay needs to be enabled on both ends:

Server side. Crossplay isn't a toggle in Settings, which is where most people go looking. Open Commandline Manager and switch the server to the Default (With Crossplay) predefined line, which is the one that passes -crossplay. Save and restart. Worth knowing before you switch: only the Additional Configuration line carries the tokens for world presets and extra arguments, so moving to the crossplay line quietly drops those. No predefined line offers both, so if you need crossplay alongside custom arguments, open a ticket and we'll set up a custom line.
Client side, Steam. In the Valheim main menu, click the crossplay toggle icon before joining.
Client side, Xbox/Game Pass. Crossplay is enabled by default.

The Join Code isn't working

The join code regenerates every time the server restarts. Check the server log for the most recent Join code: line.
All players need crossplay enabled on their client.
Make sure the server is fully started – codes generated mid-startup may not be valid yet.
Steam players don't have to use the code at all. If the code is being awkward, give them the IP and port instead. Xbox and Game Pass players have no such fallback.

Server is out of date after a Valheim update

Restart the server from the panel – that triggers a Steam update. Valheim updates can take longer than usual to download on the first restart. If the server still reports an old version after the restart and update finishes, open a ticket.

World isn't compatible after an update

Some Valheim updates change the world format. The server will migrate your world automatically on first load, but for big worlds this can take several minutes. Do not interrupt the migration – if you kill the server mid-migration you can corrupt the world. Let it finish.

DLC issues

Hildir's Quest content not showing

There's a dedicated walkthrough: Installing/Activating Hildir's Quest DLC. Short version: there's nothing to "install" – Hildir's Quest is part of the base game now. Just run a Steam Update on your server. If the new content isn't appearing, it's almost always because you're trying to find it in an area you've already explored. Hildir's locations only spawn in unexplored regions.

When to open a ticket

The support team is around 24/7 and we'd rather help early than have you bounce off something for an hour. Open a ticket if:

You've worked through the relevant section above and it didn't help.
The server logs are showing errors you don't understand.
You think it might be a hardware or network issue on our side.
You need help with a backup restore or rolling back a corrupt world.
You're setting up a complex mod stack and want a second pair of eyes.

Tell us which Valheim version you're on, what changed since it last worked, and (for mod issues) which mods you've got installed. That information up front saves us both a few back-and-forth messages.