Valheim Server Troubleshooting Guide (1.0 Updated)

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, and the fixes work on any Valheim dedicated server. Where the fix lives somewhere specific on our panel, I've said where. If your problem isn't here, the Can't Connect article covers the connection cases in more depth, 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, because at least one of them is the culprit 95% of the time.

1. Is the server actually running? Check the status, and then check it's finished loading, which is a different thing. Valheim takes a minute or two after starting to load the world, longer on a big or modded one, and it doesn't accept connections until the log prints Game server connected. On our panel the status sits next to the power controls at the top of the server page, and the Console tab shows the log live. Offline? Start it. Starting…? Wait for that line.

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, and on our panel the address is on the strip at the top of the server page with a copy button. A single typo will keep you out. Two port gotchas: Valheim's default of 2456 is almost never what a hosted server uses, and the Steam server browser wants the port one above the game port (27516 for a server on 27515) while in-game Join Game wants the game port itself. 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. Console and Game Pass players are the ones who use the join code instead (more on that below).

3. Is the password right? Valheim passwords are case-sensitive and must be at least 5 characters. 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 anywhere obvious, so check the Console for a line beginning Error bad password:. If you've recently changed your world name, this is worth double-checking. On our panel all of these are in the General group on the Manage tab.

4. Version mismatch? The client and server both need to be on the same Valheim version, and since 1.0 this one's back near the top of the list. Valheim 1.0 launched on 9 September 2026 as 1.0.7, and hotfix 1.0.12 followed on 11 September. A server still on 1.0.7 won't take players on 1.0.12. On the player's side, right-click Valheim in Steam, then Properties, Updates, and make sure auto-update is enabled. On the server side, run the update. A dedicated server keeps whatever build it started with, and a restart alone doesn't change that; the update section further down says where the button is. There's one exception to "everyone on the latest", which is Switch 2, covered in the crossplay section below.

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, because 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: Valheim Failed to Connect: Every Fix After 1.0.

Server isn't appearing in the in-game browser

• The server has to be public to be listed. That's the -public 1 startup argument, or on our panel the Public Server setting in the General group on the Manage tab. A private server is still joinable by address, it just isn't listed.
• 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 resource usage. On our panel the CPU and Memory readouts sit at the top of the Overview tab. If Memory is consistently close to your plan's allowance, you'd benefit from a bigger plan.

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

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. Item drops. Items left on the ground are entities. Clean up around smelters, forges and farms regularly.

5. 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. It clears memory and resets entity states, and it's free. If you want that to happen on its own, a nightly Restart task under Scheduled tasks on the Settings tab does it while nobody's on.

World takes forever to load

Loading time naturally grows as your world matures. The first load of an older world on 1.0 takes longer than usual, because Valheim converts it to the new folder format and copies the old files first. 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; on our panel that's the Save Interval slider in the Saves & Backups group on the Manage tab). If you suspect saves aren't running:

1. Check the server output for the save lines. On 1.0 a save logs a short run of World save lines ending World save (5/5) done.
2. Look in the worlds folder. Since 1.0 your world is a folder named after it, full of .chunk files and a few _main. files, rather than a YourWorldName.db and YourWorldName.fwl pair. Only the chunks that changed get rewritten on each save, so look at the newest timestamps in the folder, not every file. That's config/valheim/worlds_local/ on the Files tab if you're with us (nested inside config/valheim, not at the top level).
3. Make sure the server has enough disk space. Out-of-disk is a silent killer, and 1.0 refuses to save at all when space runs very low.

You can also force one yourself. save is one of the plain admin commands that does work on a dedicated server, so if you're on the admin list, press F5 in-game, type save, and watch for the confirmation in the console. Worth doing before any restart or update. If nobody with admin is online, restarting from the panel does the same job, because 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 the server is loading. This is the most common cause by far: the name was changed (or has a typo) and the server is now creating a brand new world by that name. Valheim generates a fresh world for any name it doesn't recognise without complaining anywhere. Your original world is still safe in worlds_local, just not loaded. On our panel it's World Name on the Manage tab: set it back and restart. And don't trust the field's suggestions on a 1.0 world for now, they were built for the old two-file format and can miss a world folder that's sitting right there; check the Files tab instead.
• Check it isn't pointing at a backup. On a server that ran before 1.0 you'll see names like YourWorld_backup_20260909-134827 in worlds_local. That's the copy Valheim took before converting your world, and loading it puts you back on the world as it was that day. Set the plain world name instead.
• If the world is genuinely missing, restore a backup.

Restoring from a backup

If the log says World load failed mid-file. Exiting without save. Check backups!, Valheim couldn't read the main world file and is pointing you at its own _backup_auto- folders. Don't do anything yet. On our panel:

1. Stop the server. The panel won't restore a running one.
2. Open the Backups tab and pick the backup you want.
3. Click Restore and confirm. It puts back your worlds and mod settings over what's there.
4. Start the server once it's finished.

Worth knowing that backups only exist if somebody made them: Create backup is a button, and a Backup task under Scheduled tasks on the Settings tab is how you make it automatic. Nothing schedules one for you by default. If you've never done either, there's nothing to restore from.

Valheim's own rolling backups are still there too, but since 1.0 each one is its own folder, named YourWorld_backup_auto- plus a date and time. Swapping one of those in by hand is fiddly, so open a ticket if you need one restored. The full picture is in backing up and restoring a Valheim server.

Uploading a world from your PC is its own topic, and 1.0 changed it: the save location guide covers both the new world folders and the older .db and .fwl files.

Mod issues

"I installed mods but nothing is happening"

Walk through these in order:

1. 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. After a start, look for BepInEx's startup banner and the plugin list underneath it. It's in the server output (the Console tab) and in game/BepInEx/LogOutput.log on the Files tab. Banner there, plugins named? The loader's fine and the problem is one mod. No banner at all means BepInExPack is missing or out of date: check the Installed list on the Mods tab shows it, update it if it's behind, and open a ticket if it's current and still silent.
2. 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.
3. Mod isn't built for the current Valheim version. After game updates, mods often need to catch up, and 1.0 upgraded Valheim's Unity engine, so plenty of older plugins won't load until their authors ship a 1.0 build. Check each installed mod on Thunderstore for a release from after 9 September 2026 (the last-updated date is on the mod's row in the Mods tab too).
4. 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: untick Crossplay on the Manage tab, restart, and see if it clears.
5. Read the BepInEx log. 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.

Full walkthrough, including what 1.0 means for mods, in the Mod Installation Guide.

Server crashes after adding a mod

Take the last mod you added back out (uninstall on the Installed tab) and start again. If the server boots again, that was the culprit. If not, pull the one before and keep bisecting until you've isolated the problem. Open a ticket if you'd rather we drove.

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, so 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

Steam and console players can't share a server

Since 1.0, crossplay covers every platform: Steam, Xbox, PlayStation 5, Switch 2 and Game Pass. It needs to be enabled on both ends:

1. Server side. The dedicated server has to start with the -crossplay argument, which moves it onto Valheim's PlayFab backend. On our panel that's the Crossplay tick in the General group on the Manage tab: tick it, save, restart.
2. Client side, Steam. In the Valheim main menu, click the crossplay toggle icon before joining.
3. Client side, consoles and Game Pass. Crossplay has to be allowed in their game too. If an Xbox player can't find the option at all, it's usually the console's parental controls hiding it.

The Join Code isn't working

• The join code is a six-digit number, and it changes every time the server restarts. The server log prints it as registered with join code 604510, and on our panel the current one is on the Join your server card on the Overview tab.
• One line early in startup reads has join code , with nothing after it. That's normal: the session is announced before the code exists. Read further down.
• All players need crossplay enabled on their client.
• Steam players don't have to use the code at all. If the code is being awkward, give them the IP and port instead. Console and Game Pass players need the code.

Switch 2 players can't join after the 1.0.12 hotfix

Not your server. Iron Gate couldn't get hotfix 1.0.12 onto Switch 2, and until they do, crossplay "is not currently supported between Switch 2 and other platforms", in their words. Their workaround is for Steam players and dedicated servers to go back to the previous build on the default_old branch (the 1.0.7 launch build). They also say there's no workaround for PlayStation 5 and Xbox players to play with Switch 2 at the moment.

So it's a group decision. Either play on 1.0.12 without the Switch 2 player for now, or move everyone to the older build. On the player side that's right-click Valheim in Steam, Properties, Game Versions & Betas, pick default_old. On the server side it's a branch switch, and that isn't something our panel exposes, so take a backup and open a ticket and we'll do it with you. That drops PlayStation and Xbox players instead, and you lose the 1.0.12 fixes while you're there. When Switch 2 gets the hotfix, everyone goes back to the default branch and we put the server back.

Banned or whitelisted players being ignored

1.0 introduced a new player ID format starting V_. On the 1.0.7 launch build, bannedlist.txt and permittedlist.txt only matched those new IDs, so older-style entries such as Steam_ plus a number were ignored. Hotfix 1.0.12 fixed it. If your lists stopped working after 1.0, update the server before you start rewriting them. The three lists live on the Players tab if you're with us, changes apply on the next start, and the admins, bans and whitelist guide covers the ID formats.

Update-related issues

Server is out of date after a Valheim update

A dedicated server doesn't update itself when Steam pushes a patch, and it doesn't update on a restart either. The Game updates card on the Overview tab tells you an update is waiting, and Update installs it (the server stops and restarts to do it). A big update takes longer than usual to download. If the server still reports an old version after the update finishes, run it once more, and open a ticket if that doesn't do it. If you'd rather not think about it, add an Update task under Scheduled tasks on the Settings tab.

World isn't compatible after an update

Some Valheim updates change the world format, and 1.0 is the big one: it turns each world's .db and .fwl into a folder of chunk files. The server does this automatically on first load, and it keeps the originals as .db.old and .fwl.old plus a _backup_ copy with the date. For big worlds this can take several minutes. Do not interrupt the conversion. If you kill the server mid-way you can corrupt the world. Let it finish, and take a backup before the first start if you can.

DLC issues

Hildir's Quest content not showing

There's nothing to "install". Hildir's Quest has been part of the base game since it shipped in 2023, and a server on the current build has it. 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, the same rule that governs the Deep North on an existing world, which has its own article.

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.