Most problems with an ARK: Survival Ascended server come down to a few causes. Start with the one that matches what you see.
Players are blocked from joining after turning BattlEye Anti-Cheat on
Why: BattlEye has not been confirmed to work on our platform, and when it does not start players cannot connect.
Fix: Turn BattlEye Anti-Cheat off again and restart the server.
My buildings and dinos are gone after changing the map
Why: Each map is a separate world, so a different Server Map starts a new one.
Fix: Set Server Map back to the previous value and restart; the earlier world is kept and loads again.
Mod IDs will not save or mods do not load
Why: The field only accepts CurseForge project IDs as plain numbers separated by commas, with no spaces or names.
Fix: Copy the numeric project ID from each mod's CurseForge page, join them with commas and restart so the server can download them.
I cannot change Max Players
Why: The field shows your plan's player limit and is read-only.
Fix: Use Players on your server overview to run with fewer players, or upgrade your plan to raise the limit.
Admin commands do nothing in game
Why: Admin commands stay locked until you enter the server's Admin Password in the console.
Fix: In game, open the console and run enablecheats followed by your Admin Password, then use the cheat prefix for commands. In the panel Console, type the command without any prefix. The password may only contain letters, numbers, dashes and underscores.
The server will not start or ignores my Extra Map Settings
Why: Extra Map Settings must each start with a question mark and run together with no spaces; flags with spaces belong in Extra Launch Flags instead.
Fix: Rewrite it like ?DifficultyOffset=1?AllowThirdPersonPlayer=True, or clear the field to confirm the setting is the cause.
The server is slow to come online or restarts on its own after a heavy load
Why: The game needs a lot of memory (the wiki says 8 to 10 GiB on an empty The Island, plus headroom for players and mods) and the server also checks for updates at each start.
Fix: Allow extra time after a restart, and move to a larger plan if it keeps running out of memory with mods or many players.
Still stuck?
Open a ticket in the category that fits and include the last 50 to 100 lines of the console. See How to open a support ticket and How to fix a server that will not start.
