Windrose World Corrupted After Renaming the Folder

You renamed your Windrose world folder to something more descriptive, maybe AdventureWorld instead of a1b2c3d4-e5f6-..., and now your server boots to a blank world. Or it fails to load entirely. Your world isn't gone, but it's currently orphaned. Let me explain what happened and how to get your save back. If you would rather not manage the save folders yourself, a hosted Windrose server with us keeps a backup you can roll back to.

Why Renaming Breaks It

Windrose saves live under:

R5/Saved/SaveProfiles/Default/RocksDB/<GameVersion>/Worlds/<WorldID>/

That <WorldID> folder name isn't just a label. It's the RocksDB database identifier for that specific world, and the game treats the folder name as a hard-coded piece of the world's identity. Kraken Express put it plainly in the official dedicated server guide: do not rename world folders, the database relies on those IDs.

Three things have to agree exactly for the server to load your world:

The folder name on disk
The IslandId value inside the folder's WorldDescription.json
The WorldIslandId value in R5/ServerDescription.json (spelled WorldIslandID in some versions)

If any of those diverge, the server can't reconcile them and either creates a fresh empty world (using the ID from ServerDescription.json) or fails to load anything at all.

When you rename the folder, the IslandId inside WorldDescription.json still references the old name, and ServerDescription.json also references the old name. The server looks for the folder matching the ID, doesn't find it, and behaves accordingly.

Getting Your Save Back

Your data isn't lost. The RocksDB files are still sitting in the renamed folder. You just need to line the IDs back up.

Option 1: Rename the folder back

The fastest fix. Stop the server from the LOW.MS Control Panel, open File Manager, navigate to R5/Saved/SaveProfiles/Default/RocksDB/<GameVersion>/Worlds/, and rename the folder back to its original ID. Start the server. Your world should load as before.

If you don't remember the original ID, open the folder's WorldDescription.json. The IslandId field inside is the original name. Use that for the folder.

Option 2: Update the config files to match the new name

If you really want to keep the folder renamed to something memorable, update both config files to agree:

Stop the server.
Open the world's WorldDescription.json and change IslandId to the new folder name.
Open R5/ServerDescription.json and change WorldIslandId to the same new name.
Save both files.
Start the server.

All three references now agree and the world loads. The catch: some internal systems may keep legacy references to the old ID, so you might see oddities with shared quests or achievements tied to the "old" world. For most groups this is fine, but be aware. Option 1 is the safer choice.

A Note on the RocksDB_v2 Folders

Update 0.10.0.5.120 added two folders that sit next to the original RocksDB and cause their own version of this problem:

RocksDB holds the live world data. This is the one your worlds are in.
RocksDB_v2 holds runtime files the game writes while it's running. Do not touch, rename, or copy this folder.
RocksDB_v2_Backups holds the game's own automatic backups, added in the same update.

If your world stopped loading right after a game update rather than after you renamed something, the likely cause is a version folder mismatch rather than a world folder rename. Check which <GameVersion> folder the server is actually writing to in File Manager, and make sure your world sits inside that one.

Renaming RocksDB_v2 is a workaround that circulates in community threads for an unrelated config bug. We don't recommend it. It's untested against our setup and you can lose data during the migration that follows.

The Right Way to Rename (Display Name Only)

If your actual goal was just a prettier name for the world, not a filesystem rename, you don't need to touch the folder at all. Edit WorldName inside WorldDescription.json:

{
  "IslandId": "a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890",
  "WorldName": "The Crew's Adventure",
  "WorldPresetType": "Medium"
}

WorldName is a pure display field. Change it to whatever you like, save, restart, and the in-game UI will show the new name while everything under the hood keeps working.

Do this edit with the server stopped. Windrose rewrites the file on shutdown, and edits made to a running server get lost. See why config changes don't save for the fuller explanation.

Prevention

Before you rename, move, or otherwise mess with world folders: back up first. Run a Cloud Backup from the control panel. If something goes sideways, Cloud Restore gets you back to a known-good state in a couple of minutes. Our backup and restore guide covers the full flow.

As a rule of thumb:

Never rename a Worlds/ subfolder in place without updating both config files.
Always back up before moving saves between servers.
Keep the folder name and IslandId in lockstep if you do need to change them.
Leave RocksDB_v2 alone entirely.

More on safe save handling in our save location and upload guide and the deeper configuration guide.

If the World Is Really Gone

If you've already done something drastic, deleted the folder, overwrote it with a blank save, worked on it without a backup, there may not be anything to recover on the server side.

One place worth checking before you give up: if the world originally came from your own PC, the game may still hold a copy under %LOCALAPPDATA%\R5\Saved\SaveProfiles\<YourProfile>\RocksDB_v2_Backups\<GameVersion>\Worlds\, or <YourProfile>_Backups for saves from before update 0.10.0.5.120. Those are the client's own automatic backups and they're independent of anything on the server.

Beyond that, Windrose doesn't keep automatic shadow copies of server world state. Cloud Backup is your safety net, and if you didn't have a backup from before the incident, you're starting over.

Sorry. It's the Early Access survival game circle of life. Going forward, schedule daily Cloud Backups via Scheduled Tasks in the panel and you won't get bitten like this again.