Windrose server not working?
Start here.
Windrose has two ways in that cancel each other out, a console that looks frozen on a perfectly healthy server, and no kick or ban at all. Most of what looks broken on a Windrose server is one of those three.
# what fixes most Windrose problems 1 Invite code says “Server not found” → Direct Connect is on: use the address 2 Console stuck on “Start preloading…” → Normal. Check the Players tab 3 Mods off, levelled crew can’t join → Turn mods back on. Nothing is lost
My friends can’t connect, or the invite code says “Server not found”
Check how your server takes joins
Settings → Identity & Access → Direct Connect. It’s on by default, and while it’s on the invite code is dead: the game never registers the server with its relay, so the code points at nothing.
Direct Connect on: use the address
Players type the address and port shown at the top of the panel. Windrose doesn’t save direct joins to Recently Played, so they type it every session. That’s the game, not your server.
Want the invite code instead?
Turn Direct Connect off and save; it applies from the next start. The panel then shows the invite code with a Copy button, and the server lands in your players’ Recently Played. The cost: the relay only has EU, SEA and CIS regions — no North America — and this server is in Canada.
The join password is all they need
Join password, same section. We generate a unique one per server. With Direct Connect on, nobody needs an invite code on top of it.
Stop saving settings mid-test
Every Settings save restarts the server. On one of ours, five restarts in ten minutes were the entire reason a player couldn’t get in; left alone, they joined first try.
Why: Direct Connect and the invite code are mutually exclusive inside the game itself. With Direct Connect off the server never opens its game port at all, which is normal for that mode, not a fault.
The Console has said “Start preloading GenlandiaMulty” for ages. Is it hung?
No. That line is permanent
Windrose logs that line and its matching “Finish preloading” in the same millisecond, but only the first ever reaches the Console. A healthy server shows it until its next restart.
The server is up in seconds
We measured a fresh Windrose world live ten seconds after the server started. If the panel says Running, try joining.
Check the Players tab
It reads joins and leaves out of the game’s own log, which the Console never shows. Someone on the server shows up there.
Want the real log? It’s a file
Files → windrose/R5/Saved/Logs/R5.log. A live world writes “Save backup has finished successfully” there every minute.
Why: The Console only carries the engine’s top-level messages. The game’s join, load and save lines go to a separate file, R5.log.
I added a mod and nothing changed
Know which kind you have
Windrose takes two kinds of mod and they don’t swap. A CurseForge or Nexus download is a .pak + .ucas + .utoc trio; a UE4SS mod is a folder of .dll or .lua files.
Pak mods: three files, loose
Mods tab → Install a mod file takes the trio or a zip and puts it where the game looks. By hand it’s Files → windrose/PakMods/, all three side by side — a wrapper folder, or a .pak without its two partners, mounts nothing.
UE4SS mods: add the mods.txt line
The mod’s folder goes in windrose/ue4ss/Mods/, then add a line like MyMod : 1 to mods.txt in that same folder. Without the line the mod is skipped and nothing tells you.
Restart, then give it 90 seconds
Mods are read at boot, and UE4SS starts its Lua mods about 90 seconds after the engine is up — judge after that. Windrose+ is running when the Players tab names your players and the Map tab draws your islands.
Visual mods go on each player’s PC
Mods that change game data — stamina, stacks, loot — work from the server for everyone. Mods that change what a player sees, like inventory screens or map fog, only work on a PC that has them installed.
Why: PakMods is mounted where Unreal reads mods after its own files; UE4SS only loads what its own list names.
I changed difficulty or a Windrose+ rate and nothing changed in game
windrose_plus/config/ into windrose_plus.weapons.ini, .food.ini, .gear.ini or .entities.ini next to your world. We never overwrite those. windrose_plus.ini and .harvest.ini we rewrite from Settings every start, so edit those on the Settings tab.It applies from the next start
Saving on the Settings tab restarts the server; a running world changes nothing before that. The Windrose+ sections only show while mods are on.
Difficulty needs the Custom preset
Settings → World & Difficulty: the multipliers only apply when World preset is Custom. On a named preset the game uses its own balance and ignores them.
Wood, copper and iron have their own dial
Trees, copper caves and iron caverns ignore the main Harvest yield. Set them under Windrose+ harvest by resource. The two multiply: harvest 2 with Wood 5 gives 10x wood.
Players restart their own game
Someone already in the world keeps the XP curve their client loaded at connect. After an XP change, have them quit and relaunch to see their new level.
XP only goes up
Once a world has run, Windrose+ refuses to build XP lower, because a shrunken curve stops existing characters loading. Ask for less and we keep your current rate and say so.
Why: Windrose+ only reports its rates; what applies them is a content pack its builder bakes before every launch, which is why every change waits for a restart.
I turned mods off and now my character can’t get in
R5/Saved/Crashes/ reading “data inconsistency” is the game’s crash reporter firing on the refused character. The server didn’t crash.Turn mods back on
Mods tab → Turn mods on, let it restart, join. The character loads again; nothing was deleted.
Why it happened
Windrose+ replaces the game’s XP curve. A character that levelled while your XP rate was above 1x is past what the unmodded curve allows, and the game refuses it at the very end of the join.
It looks like a network fault and isn’t
The server stays up and everyone else plays on. The refused player never gets in; the server log shows them connecting and being turned away in under a second.
Treat mods-on as permanent for that world
Once anyone has levelled with Windrose+ on, mods-off stops being an option for that world. The panel says so when you install the loader and again when you switch it off.
Why: Windrose+’s own guard refuses to build a lower XP curve, but switching mods off doesn’t build anything — it removes the curve outright, the one path the guard can’t see.
How do I kick or ban someone?
Windrose has no kick or ban
The game ships no admin console, no RCON and no ban, and its engine console is switched off. The panel offers none either: the mod versions need a piece their author has switched off, and a kicked player still has your password anyway.
Stop the server
Windrose saves the world every minute on its own, so a stop costs at most the last minute.
Change the join password
Settings → Identity & Access → Join password, save. On a stopped server it’s written now and used at the next start.
Start it and hand out the new one
Whoever was on is gone, nobody without the new password gets back in, and it works on the account — which a ban here wouldn’t.
Why: We tested a Windrose+ ban on our own server: it was keyed to the character’s name, and the same player walked straight back in on a new character from the same account. Changing the password is the only removal that holds.
Did my world save? Where is it, and what’s this “DATA VALIDATION” screen?
It saves itself every minute
Windrose writes the world every 60 seconds, even with nobody on. It doesn’t save on the way out, so a stop or restart costs at most the last minute. That’s why there’s no Save button.
Where it lives
Files → windrose/R5/Saved/. The world is a RocksDB database under SaveProfiles/Default/RocksDB_v2/<version>/Worlds/<islandId>/ — a folder, not one file, so copy the whole folder.
Backups and restores
Worlds & backups: last night’s copy, two we take before game updates, three slots you fill. One click to roll back or download. Take one before you turn mods on.
“Parts of your save files are broken”
That DATA VALIDATION IN PROGRESS screen is Windrose’s own recovery. It names the file and offers the game’s own backup from minutes earlier; Confirm, and the character comes back intact.
Bringing a world in
Stop the server, upload the island folder into Worlds/ and your old R5/ServerDescription.json over ours. Its WorldIslandId is what picks the world — no panel setting does — and we keep it while moving the port to this server’s.
Is my server short on RAM? It feels laggy
Read Memory used
Your server card shows it live. We measured about 4.6 GB with one player on, against the 12 GB we start Windrose at.
Size by crew
We have no reading past one player yet, so our tiers are estimates: 12 GB for a duo, 16 GB for a crew of 3–4, 24 GB for 5–8. Eight is the most the game supports.
Near the ceiling? Size up
If Memory used sits near your plan, a bigger tier is the fix, and you can move up yourself. If it doesn’t, tell us what changed most recently.
Restart on a schedule
Schedule → Scheduled restart: daily or every 12 hours, at an hour your crew is asleep. Windrose saves every minute, so it costs at most the last minute.
None of these, or still stuck?
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.
Write to us
The form arrives with Windrose 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.