Servers · Article 3

Troubleshooting Palworld mod server crashes

Most modded Palworld server crashes come from three causes: a mod compiled for an older game build, a corrupt Level.sav after an unclean shutdown, or memory exhaustion once the save passes roughly 200 MB.

Updated 2026-07-30

Key takeaways
  • Version mismatch
  • Corrupt saves
  • Memory ceiling
  • Read the crash log

Version mismatch

After every Palworld patch, disable all mods, boot clean, then re-enable one at a time. A loader built for a previous engine version fails silently rather than erroring.

Corrupt saves

Never kill the process. Use RCON 'Shutdown 30' or the console Ctrl+C so the world flushes. Restore from Pal/Saved/SaveGames backups if the world loads to an empty map.

Memory ceiling

Budget 8 GB plus 1 GB per four concurrent players. Large modded saves with 20 workers per base regularly cross 16 GB.

Read the crash log

Pal/Saved/Logs/Pal.log names the last loaded mod before the fault — that mod is your suspect in the overwhelming majority of cases.

Automate recovery

A watchdog script that restarts on exit plus an hourly zip of SaveGames turns most crashes into a two-minute outage instead of a lost world.

Further reading
Steam — Palworld dedicated server tool

Official server + mod discussion threads.