Game server crashes

Recently updated? Please visit the bug report forums (Steam & Survivetheark.com) to make sure you are not dealing with a bug. If there is a known bug, we are not able to help. You can contact Wildcard to ask for an update. 

Load default config
It is recommended to try starting your game server using the default config, provided with each account. Please create a snapshot / backup before you do. This ensure there will be no Saves lots.
If your game server does not crash when using the default configs, it is very likely that the issues are caused by something in your configs. In most cases the easiest way to find out what is causing the issues, is by disabling & re-enabling groups of settings, to narrow down the cause.

Do crashes happen often?
Although crashes are no longer a common thing with ARK servers, it should be said that this software only recently left the early access stage and is still under heavy development. This can sometimes result in a game server crash, where the application is unable to handle what it is asked to do and crashes as a result. Unfortunately there is not much we, as GameserverApp, can do about this. 

Precautions:

  1. Certain mods can have a negative impact on the overall stability of your game server. 
  2. Certain mod combinations can have a negative impact as well.
  3. Certain custom maps can decrease the performance dramatically.
  4. Sometimes an update introduces a new bug, which causes overall instability.
  5. Certain configurations, like the game serverlog for example, can have a negative impact on the stability too.

It can sometimes be quite hard to determine what causes the issues, but in most cases you will find that one of the latest updates caused a sudden instability. In that case we recommend to either contact the mod-developer or report a bug/crash on Wildcard's forum: survivetheark.com.

Other possible reason
A crash can also be caused when your game server uses all the available memory. Over time the server will use up more memory, due to the increase in in-game structures and dino's. This is normal behaviour. When the game server saves the progress (usually once every hour) it will use a bit more memory. Our servers are setup to have extra memory available to deal with this short spike, which should not cause a crash.