QUESTION For Server Owners

Dear forum members,
for some time now we have been creating and maintaining new ways to help game server admins with questions and problems as quickly as possible, e.g. our Guides section and the Nitrado Community Discord.

Therefore, we inform you that the Nitrado Forum will be closed on March 31, 2023. We are consolidating our community support to our Discord channel, which is faster and more efficient. We have also seen incredible growth in our community due to the hard work of our moderators and our bots. We are confident that this move will ensure that we provide the best support possible for our users.

Thank you to all members for your continued use of the forum!

Assistance with all questions concerning your Nitrado service can now be found in these spots:
Community Discord: https://discord.gg/nitrado
Guides section: https://server.nitrado.net/guides
Support Wizard: https://support.nitrado.net

    Hello I had a question for those that rent their own server as I've been having some difficulty lately with basically keeping it online and not auto shutting down with or without warning.


    Is ANYONE else experiencing this?


    I've been told that I didn't have enough automated tasks setup by nitrado customer support and that one daily restart is also insufficient and to add more. Reason being that Ark has this built in "feature" that shuts down idle servers (no one connected) after a period of time.


    I've since increased the amount of daily reboots to every 12 hours and also added a weekly full 15 minute shutdown.


    However I'm still experiencing this problem where my Discord will ping me notifying me they cannot find the server or connect. Yesterday happened with players on the server with no countdown and just a message on the main menu screen stating you've been kicked due to a server maintenance restart.


    So how do you all have your automated tasks setup? Is it really necessary to have a restart performed every 6 to 8 hours especially when I only run a 10 person public server (not basic) and maybe have only gotten to 8-9 players tops at some point. Typically averages around 3 to 4 during weekdays.

    I have 1 automated task on each server every 24hrs, and thats all. Been using that setup for nearly 5yrs.


    The ones you have experienced lately more than likely are due to several ARK updates and patches. and Yes, the server will reboot when those occur.

    I am a PC server.

    For mobile I have heard more issues occur.

    Thanks for your reply. I would possibly think that would be the case or cause rather however I've seen no change in version number on the server. I haven't seen any downloads or messages regarding game updates. And the last update to come to the Android or iOS store I believe was back in June. I do wish I had the PC version looks so much clearer and more fun.


    Game is still fun on mobile and quite addictive. That's why I am spending time to investigate further and ask those such as yourself with much more experience then I.


    Thanks again for the response.

    Anyone else out there? Especially mobile server admins but also I would like to hear from all platforms.


    Do you have any issues with your server automatically shutting itself off during the day or night? How many automated tasks (server restarts) do you have setup daily?

    Wow I'm in disbelief right now. So for whatever reason Nitrado customer support without any warning or prior notification shut down my server and locked the web interface. Next thing I know they are doing a restore of a data backup and then changing server machines as the IP number and port for the server both changed.


    I then get an email after all this has been done stating this (see attached). Just so everyone reading this knows last time they did a restore when I had been asking questions about something unrelated I lost a significant amount of money due to losing my 600 amber that had recently been purchased.


    And the new machine they put me on is also still stuck in a reboot loop 🙄


    I've never experienced this poor of customer service before. I had been given no reply for 5 days of messages after having answered their questions and then suddenly this happens this evening.

    It's been through the night will no change in the server state as it's still unusable. I've tried the force stop and force start commands with no success. The server despite it saying it's started at one point doesn't show up in the server list for me or any of my players. When I go to hit stop on the server the command instantly takes and the server shows its offline within seconds. It doesn't seem ss though the server is even on in the first place.


    Whoever is the bozo at Nitrado that started an unauthorized restore of my server without warning should be fired for the type of incompetence and stupidity displayed.


    Unlikely to be renewing any server with Nitrado ever again as the majority of their support staff come off as rude and uncaring. Been a couple I've encountered which are solid and good, but 80% I'd say are trash and should not be employed there unless they genuinely don't care about their customers.

    Quote from Jason_Bethune

    Server is fixed, I apologize for coming off like an ass :/

    I don't think you need to apologize at all. I have been similarly aggravated by the lack of prior warning when nitrado applies upgrades or fixes. A little bit of heads up would go a long way. AND it would be greatly appreciated if Nitrado could start taking a game state back up right before the update... the last couple updates have forced my game to start at day 0, and while I can do a back up restore, I've lost several hours of gameplay both time.


    Anyway... I don't think Nitrado the best at handling these nuances. Unfortunately they are the only choice (I play on xbox with friends), so I just try to roll with the punches.


    To answer your original question, I have several automated tasks:
    1. Shuts down the server at 2am every day

    2. Starts the server at 4pm every day

    3. Starts the server at 8am on Saturday

    4. Starts the server at 8am on Sunday


    I think you're fine with just the 1x per day restart task you have, this is just the schedule that my friends and I are on.

    I can't even get my server info url to appear for my discord. I've attempted to delete the url, add it, save, and restart server several times. There isn't even an info button present in the server info tab.

    I've also tested the url which is working fine.