Managing your Valheim server

Q: Where are the world files?

In .config/unity3d/IronGate/Valheim/worlds_local/, as one folder per world since Valheim 1.0. Back up and restore the folder whole — Valheim Save Location and the 1.0 World Folder Format breaks down what each file inside it does.

Deploy a 5 AM automated restart schedule, safeguard your worlds_local directory, and resolve common BepInEx log errors quickly.

Updated September 28, 2026

Valheim

Once your server is up and people are playing on it, the job changes. This guide is the routine side of running a Valheim server: what to automate, what to check, what to do when something breaks, and what the 1.0 update of 9 September 2026 changed.

If you have not booted the server yet, start with Getting started with your Valheim server.

The short version

Set a daily restart. Set a daily backup. Keep the server and every player's game on the same build. Check Enable Crossplay is Yes if anybody is joining from a console — nothing else lets them in. On our Valheim servers it ships that way; on a self-hosted one the flag is off unless you add it. Everything else on this page is a response to something going wrong.

Scheduled Restarts

A daily restart keeps memory use in check. From the Schedules tab:

Create a schedule named "Daily Restart".
Cron: 0 5 * * * (5 AM server time, adjust to your quietest hour).
Add task: Send Power Action, Restart.

Valheim is a long-running Unity process holding a world that grows as people build in it, and a restart is the cheapest way to reclaim what it has accumulated. Pick an hour when nobody is on: a restart drops every connected player, and anything since the last save is lost.

Two things to know about restarts:

Save first if you are restarting by hand. Run the save admin command in the console before you stop the server, and you lose nothing. Automatic saves happen on the -saveinterval cycle — 30 minutes by default — so an unlucky restart can otherwise cost half an hour of building.
On a crossplay server, the join code changes. Iron Gate regenerates the join code every time the server restarts. The IP and port stay the same, so tell people to save the address rather than the code, and re-share the code after a restart.

Stop cleanly, do not kill

Use the panel's Stop, not a force kill. Iron Gate's guide makes the same point about the desktop server — closing the window instead of shutting down properly can leave the process running and the world half-written. A clean stop flushes the world to disk.

Backups

The world files in worlds_local/ are small (a few MB to a few hundred MB). Snapshot daily through the Backups tab.

A bad mod can corrupt the world

Always back up before installing or updating mods, because a bad mod can corrupt the world. See taking and restoring a panel snapshot.

You have two layers of backup, and they are not interchangeable.

Valheim's own automatic backups are controlled by launch arguments and live in the same place as the world:

Argument	Default	What it does
`-saveinterval 1800`	1800 (30 min)	Seconds between world saves
`-backups 4`	4	How many automatic backups to keep
`-backupshort 7200`	7200 (2 h)	Interval for the first backup
`-backuplong 43200`	43200 (12 h)	Interval for the rest

By Iron Gate's defaults that gives you one backup roughly two hours old and three more twelve hours apart. Valheim also keeps a .old copy of each file — the previous save — and will fall back to it if the current pair will not read.

Panel snapshots are the layer that actually protects you. Valheim's own copies sit on the same disk, in the same directory, under the same server. If the world is deleted, a mod corrupts it, or you wipe the wrong thing, those copies usually go with it.

A world is two files, and you need both

Since Valheim 1.0 every world is a folder in worlds_local/, named after the world, holding the metadata (_main.N.fwl2), the world data (_main.N.db2), a chunk index (_main.N.chunks), the terrain chunks and an _main.N.ok completion marker. Restore the folder whole. A partial restore will not load as your world: Valheim generates a fresh one instead, and the progress in the files you did restore is unreachable.

To restore: stop the server, restore the snapshot from the Backups tab, confirm the world folder is present in worlds_local/ and that World Name in the Startup tab matches the folder name exactly, then start.

Keeping Everything on the Same Build

Valheim expects the server and every client to be on the same patch. Iron Gate says so in the crossplay patch notes: "make sure your game has the same patch version as your friends', or else connecting to each other might not work." The version number is in the bottom-right corner of the main menu.

In practice this means:

Let the server update. After a Valheim patch, restart the server so it picks up the new build. Players who have already auto-updated cannot join an un-updated server — Valheim version mismatch and update problems covers what they see and the four faults that impersonate it.
Check the beta branch when one player is the odd one out. If a single person cannot connect after a patch, they are usually on the public test branch — or stuck on an old one — rather than on the default branch everyone else is on.
Expect mods to lag behind. A game patch invalidates BepInEx plugins until each author rebuilds. Installing mods covers how to check whether a mod is still maintained, and Best Valheim Server Mods That Work After 1.0 tracks which ones have been rebuilt since the update.

Moderating Your Players

Valheim has no RCON and no web console command box — administration happens in game, or by editing files. Three plain-text files sit in the save directory, which on your server is .config/unity3d/IronGate/Valheim/, next to worlds_local/ — not the server root:

File	Effect
`adminlist.txt`	Grants admin, including the in-game admin commands
`bannedlist.txt`	Blocks those players
`permittedlist.txt`	A whitelist

One Platform User ID per line, in Iron Gate's case-sensitive [Platform]_[UserID] format, which you read off the F2 panel in game or the server log as a player joins. Since 1.0 a newer V_123456789 form exists alongside the older Steam_123456789 one and both are meant to work — copy exactly what F2 shows.

permittedlist.txt locks out everyone not on it

Iron Gate's guide is explicit: "adding a person on the permitted list will ban everyone else from the server." One test entry turns your server invite-only. Leave it empty unless a closed server is what you want.

From the in-game console (F5), an admin has Kick PLAYERNAME, Ban PLAYERNAME, Unban PLAYERNAME and Banned. Bans written this way persist in bannedlist.txt. The full command list, including which cheat commands a dedicated server refuses, is in Valheim Console Commands.

Player Count and Performance

Valheim is designed for 1 to 10 players, and Iron Gate has confirmed that is unchanged at 1.0. The limit is the game's, not your allocation's — a bigger server buys you headroom for large builds and heavy world generation, not more player slots.

What actually costs a Valheim server:

Build size. Big bases with many pieces are the main driver of both memory and save time. A world that has been played hard for months saves more slowly than a fresh one.
Players spread far apart. Valheim keeps loaded zones around every player, so five people in five corners of the map is more work than five people in one base.
Save interval. Every save writes the whole world and produces a brief stutter. Lowering -saveinterval limits how much a crash can cost, at the price of more frequent stutters. On a busy server 900 (15 minutes) is a reasonable compromise. Raising it is rarely worth it.

If the server feels sluggish in one place only, that is usually a build, not the server.

Common Issues

Cannot connect: Almost always the password. Valheim requires at least 5 characters; empty passwords are rejected on public servers.
One player cannot connect, everyone else can: Version mismatch. Compare the number in the bottom-right of their main menu with everyone else's. On crossplay servers, also check that Xbox account has the crossplay privilege enabled.
Console or PlayStation players cannot see the server: The server is not running the crossplay backend, or it is not public. Console players search the in-game list by name — they cannot type an IP. The crossplay backend is the -crossplay launch argument. In Valheim it is off unless you add it, though on our servers the Enable Crossplay field ships set to Yes — so check it has not been switched to No rather than assuming it was never on: Iron Gate's dedicated server guide says that without it "the Steam backend is used, which means only Steam users can see and join the Server". Add it in the Startup tab and restart — see Valheim Server Settings and Launch Arguments.
Mods will not load: Check BepInEx/LogOutput.log for compile errors or missing dependencies. Most mods need the BepInExPack, which the bepinex server type installs by default, and many also need Jotunn — see installing mods.
World corrupted: Restore the world's whole folder from the most recent backup.
The world came back missing recent progress: Valheim fell back to a .old copy after an unclean shutdown. Restore your own latest snapshot rather than playing on and re-saving over it.
A new, empty world appeared: World Name no longer matches the files on disk, so Valheim generated a fresh world. Fix the name — including capitalisation — and restart. Do not delete anything first.
Server crashes after a mod update: Roll back to the prior mod version. Valheim mods occasionally break across game updates; Thunderstore tracks compatible versions.
A setting changed nothing: Launch arguments are read once, at startup. Restart after every change.

After the Valheim 1.0 Update

Valheim left early access on 9 September 2026 with the Deep North biome, and PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2 joined the platform list, as Iron Gate's release announcement promised, with "full crossplay between all the platforms". There was no public test branch beforehand, so the update landed on everyone at once. Valheim 1.0: What Changes for Server Owners works through the decisions in full; here is the short checklist if your server has not caught up yet:

Take a manual snapshot before an old world first loads on 1.0. Not just the scheduled one — a known-good copy you took deliberately.
Assume mods broke. Iron Gate could not guarantee any mod would work at 1.0, and no author got an early build to test against. Run the vanilla server type until each mod you rely on has a 1.0 build.
Decide about your world. Iron Gate has confirmed existing worlds carry over and keep working, but new biome generation only reaches areas nobody has explored — so an old, well-travelled world will not show Deep North where you have already been. They recommend a fresh world for the full experience. If you want both, keep the old world's files and start the new one under a different World Name. Achievements push the same way: Iron Gate's 1.0 FAQ says cheat use places a permanent flag on "your current character and world save", and that "characters that have used cheats before 1.0 will also be marked in this way". If anything has ever been spawned into your world, a new one is the only route to achievements — Valheim Console Commands has the full quote and what it means for a shared server.
Make sure -crossplay is on if console friends are joining. This is the one setting that decides whether they can reach you at all. It is a launch argument, off by default in Valheim itself — Iron Gate's dedicated server guide states that without it "the Steam backend is used, which means only Steam users can see and join the Server" — but the Enable Crossplay field on our servers ships set to Yes, so confirm rather than assume. Since 9 September, leaving it off shuts out PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2 players alongside the Xbox ones. It also changes how everybody connects, so settle it before you invite anyone: Valheim Server Settings and Launch Arguments covers the flag and its side effects, and Is Valheim Crossplay? PC, Xbox, PS5 & Switch 2 Explained covers what each platform can do.
The save format changed at 1.0. The rewritten save system shipped with 1.0 on 9 September 2026: worlds are now folders under worlds_local/ with the world data split into chunks, not a .db/.fwl pair. Existing worlds are converted on first load, after a backup. Uploading an existing world has the detail — check any older guide against it before moving files around.

FAQ

How often should I restart a Valheim server?

Once a day, at your quietest hour, is enough for most servers. Restart more often only if you see memory climbing between restarts. Run save first if you are doing it by hand.

Does Valheim have RCON?

No. Vanilla Valheim has no remote console protocol, which is why administration happens in game through the F5 console or by editing the permission files directly. Valheim Console Commands covers the alternatives.

Where are the world files?

In .config/unity3d/IronGate/Valheim/worlds_local/, as one folder per world since Valheim 1.0. Back up and restore the folder whole — Valheim Save Location and the 1.0 World Folder Format breaks down what each file inside it does.

Do I need Valheim's own backups if the panel is taking snapshots?

They cover different failures. Valheim's copies are quick and local, and are useful for undoing the last hour. Panel snapshots live off the server and are what saves you when the world is deleted or corrupted. Keep both.

Why did my server's join code stop working?

Join codes are regenerated every time a crossplay server restarts, including on a scheduled restart. Share the IP and port for anything permanent, and re-share the code after a restart.

How many players can a Valheim server hold?

Ten. That is the game's design limit in vanilla, confirmed by Iron Gate for 1.0 as well, and no amount of extra hardware raises it. How to Play Valheim With Friends covers how those ten actually get in. A mod can change it — ValheimPlus exposes a maxPlayers setting accepting 1–32 — with the trade-off that every player then needs the mod; see ValheimPlus on a dedicated server.

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