GamesOMGHosting
Rust · Troubleshooting

Rust server not working?
Start here.

Most Rust tickets are one of three things: a boot that has not finished, a server one build behind Facepunch’s monthly update, or a setting edited somewhere the next boot rebuilds. Each one is fixed from the panel.

rust — the three checks
# what fixes most Rust problems
1  Server up but nobody can join
   → Wait for BradleyAPC Spawned
2  Nobody can join after an update
   → Update banner, or the Mods tab if modded
3  A setting keeps reverting
   → Settings tab — server.cfg is rebuilt
Each one is written out below, with the panel tab you fix it on.
🔧

It says it’s starting, but nobody can join and it isn’t in the server list

Plugins can cost real minutes at boot. One three-year-old plugin (InfoPanel 1.0.9) added 225 seconds per restart on a small world and 803 on a big one, because it scans the whole world at startup. If boots got slow after you added plugins, Remove the newest on the Mods tab and time the next restart.
1

Let the boot finish

While Rust boots, the status chip reads Booting… and the Console tab names the step it is on — map generation, AI navigation, Fetching item skins from Steam. The console goes quiet for minutes at a time on a big map. That is the game working, not a hang.

2

Server startup complete is not the finish line

Rust is joinable at BradleyAPC Spawned. On a busy modded 4500 map we measured six and a half minutes between those two lines. The first boot of a new world also generates the map: about 4 minutes at size 3000, about 6 at 4500.

3

Don’t mash Restart

A restart throws the boot away and starts the same wait again. A boot that is genuinely stuck raises the boot-failing banner on its own once it runs past the boot timeout.

4

Join by address

Hit Copy beside the address at the top of the panel, press F1 in Rust and type client.connect followed by that address. It works whether or not the server browser has caught up.

Why: Rust spends most of a big boot waiting, not printing: on one 511-second boot, 358 seconds were a single silent wait on Steam’s skin manifest. A console that has stopped moving is not a server that has stopped working.

🔧

After a Rust update nobody can join my server

The update leaves a Before your last game update copy in Worlds & backups. After a force wipe that copy holds files the new build will not load, so it is your archive of the old map, not a way back onto it.
1

Update the server

When a newer Rust build reaches our node, a banner at the bottom of the panel says A newer Rust build is ready, with Update; the build line at the top of Settings carries Update now too. Your world is copied first, then the server restarts on the new build.

2

Modded? The Mods tab owns the build

Turning Carbon on pins your game build so an update can’t land under your plugins — which also means a pinned server gets no banner. On the Mods tab the pin card shows Update now when a newer build is on the node, and Keep this server on the newest game build automatically takes each new build on the nightly sweep instead.

3

First Thursday is the force wipe

Facepunch’s monthly update lands on the first Thursday, with the wipe set for 19:00 London time. That build starts a fresh map: it bumps the world’s version stamp and the game ignores every file carrying the old one. The blueprint stamp moved too on each force wipe we recorded, August to October 2026. Every Rust host gets this one; it is not our scheduler.

4

Mid-month patches keep the world

Rust also ships smaller patches between force wipes. Those leave the stamps alone — we updated a live server to one and it loaded the same world, blueprints and all.

Why: Rust clients and servers have to run the same build, and Steam updates your players’ clients on its own. A server held one build back is a server nobody can join.

🔧

I changed a setting and it didn’t take, or it reverted after a restart

World Size, Map Seed, Map Type and Custom Map URL are a different kind of setting: changing one starts a different world. Read the next question before you touch them.
1

Change it on the Settings tab

server.cfg is panel-owned: it is rebuilt from your Settings on every start, so an edit made in Files is gone at the next boot. Change the field, then Apply & restart.

2

Console changes are temporary

A convar typed into the Console applies instantly and is lost at the next restart unless you run server.writecfg. Even then, anything the Settings tab manages wins on the next boot — we write those and clear them from Rust’s own saved config.

3

Weather lands after the boot

Rust resets every weather.* value after it reads its config files, so the panel applies your weather fields over RCON once the server is up, on every boot. Until that lands, the game runs its default weather.

4

Some convars do nothing

server.cycletime is read by no server code. wolf.population became wolf2.population and the old name is silently ignored. server.tags keeps at most four of the game’s own tags and drops every other word — US, 2x and modded never show. Type find <word> in the Console to see what this build actually has.

🔧

I changed the seed or map size and my base is gone

Map Type and Custom Map URL work the same way. And it only holds until the next force wipe: after that, the old world sits on a version stamp the new build ignores.
1

Nothing was deleted

Rust names its save after the world size and seed — proceduralmap.<size>.<seed>.<protocol>.sav. A new seed or size builds a different world beside the old one, and the old one is still on disk.

2

Put both values back

Settings → World Size and Map Seed back to the old pair → Apply & restart. It takes both: the server only loads the file whose name matches.

3

Read the chips, not the fields

The chips beside your server’s name show the size and seed of the world actually on disk, and when the map was last wiped. An amber settings not applied yet chip means your settings ask for a world this server is not running yet.

4

Or restore it

Worlds & backups → Restore. A restore refuses a backup whose seed or size differ from the server’s settings and names both values, so set those first. Loading a saved world sets its own seed and size for you.

Why: Apply asks before saving a change like this, and it compares what you are about to save against the world on disk, not against your previous settings — settings can disagree with the world for weeks without anyone noticing.

🔧

How do I wipe the server, and do blueprints go with it?

There is no Wipe now button — wipes run from the schedule. Carbon ships its own AutoWipe module, switched off. Turn it on and keep a schedule here and you get wiped twice; the wipe card warns you while it is on.
1

Schedule → Scheduled wipe

Pick set days or every few days, a time in your own timezone, and Keep the same map or New random map. Save asks first and names what gets deleted.

2

Blueprints are their own box

Also wipe blueprints is the whole map-versus-full choice. Unticked is a map wipe: players keep their blueprints. Ticked is a full wipe: everyone starts from a rock.

3

Every wipe backs up first

A backup is taken before anything moves, and if it fails the wipe does not run. To undo a wipe: Worlds & backups → Before your last wipe → Restore.

4

Skip one, or leave it to Facepunch

Skip this one skips the next date (to undo a skip, turn the card off and on again). A scheduled wipe within 12 hours of the monthly force wipe is dropped, because the game is about to wipe anyway. Your schedule also sets the in-game wipe countdown and the weekly / biweekly / monthly tag players filter on in the browser.

🔧

How do I make myself admin?

1

Settings → Server owners

Put your SteamID64 — the 17-digit one — in Server owners (SteamID64), commas between several, then Apply & restart. Rust ships users.cfg empty, so until you do this nobody is admin.

2

Or from the Players tab

On your own row while you are online: Make admin gives owner — Rust’s full F1 console and every admin command. Make mod gives kick, ban and mute, not the owner console. Both survive restarts and wipes until you remove them.

3

Grants made in game are kept

An ownerid you add in game survives the panel’s rewrite; the panel only ever removes ids it wrote itself.

4

Bans stick

Ban on the Players tab records the player’s name and reason and survives restarts and every wipe; the ban list carries Lift beside each row. A blocked join shows as refused on the Server tab — Rust logs the same refusal for a full server or a version mismatch, so the panel won’t call it a ban.

5

RCON tools

RustAdmin and BattleMetrics connect over WebSocket RCON on your base port + 2, with the RCON password from Settings (generated for you). Five wrong passwords in a row and Rust blocks that address for 300 seconds.

🔧

I installed a plugin and nothing happened

Turning Carbon on also pins your game build — see the update question above. The Map tab’s picture is drawn by our own plugin, so it needs Carbon on too; the live player dots don’t.
1

Turn Carbon on first

Mods are off by default on Rust. Mods tab → Install & enable mods. Carbon runs Oxide/uMod plugins unmodified, and the uMod browser on the same tab installs one in a click, dependencies first.

2

Install one at a time

Carbon compiles plugins in parallel and can trip over itself: ten installed back to back on our server left three dead with Threading compilation failed. Reloading those three one at a time, about 25 seconds apart, brought them up unchanged — c.reload <PluginName> in the Console, one per plugin.

3

Grant the permissions

Most plugins do nothing for players until a permission is granted. Ask the server, not the plugin’s source: c.show perms lists what this build actually registered, and c.grant user <SteamID64> <permission> hands one out. The groups are default, admin and moderator.

4

Edit configs, then reload

Edit config on the plugin’s row in the Mods tab (or carbon/configs in Files), then Reload plugins on the Console. Plugins hot-load; no restart.

Why: Rust gets Carbon here, not Oxide, because Oxide patches a file inside the shared game install and would quietly revert to vanilla on the next rebuild. Carbon keeps what it needs on your server’s own storage.

🔧

Memory keeps climbing, even with nobody on

On Rust the panel’s memory number tracks the kernel’s own figure to within about 40 MB, so you can believe it here. The full size-by-size table is on the Rust hosting page.
1

That is Rust

An empty Rust server on our node gained about 70 MB an hour — slowing as the hours went on, still rising after seven — while a 7 Days to Die server on the same machine stayed flat. A restart resets it.

2

Schedule a restart

Schedule → Scheduled restart → Every 12 hours, at an hour your players are asleep. The world is saved first and comes back exactly as it was. Rust’s own server.cycletime restarts nothing.

3

Size the plan by the map

Measured on our node: a 3000 map runs 4.9 GB (peak 6.3); a 4500 map with one player peaked at 8.85 GB; a 5000 map with nobody on sat at 8.3 GB. 12 GB suits the default 3500 map and a group of friends — past 4000, a bigger group or heavy building, start at 16. Adjust RAM at the top of the panel moves RAM from your plan to this server.

Why: None of those numbers is a heavily built world. We have not measured one yet, and we won’t guess.

💬

None of these, or still stuck?

1

Check the problems every game shares

Connections, settings that will not take, where your world is, lag: the answers that hold on every game are on the support page.

2

Write to us

The form arrives with Rust already set; tell us what you tried and it saves a round trip. Pressing Need help? in your panel does the same and attaches your server, so there is nothing to look up.