How to move your game server from G-Portal to PlayNHost

This guide is for anyone who runs a server on G-Portal (also written GPORTAL) and wants to move it to PlayNHost with the world, settings and mods intact. It shows how to get your files out of G-Portal and how to put them into PlayNHost. The steps for G-Portal follow its own wiki, so if its web interface looks a little different when you read this, trust what you see on screen.

The general steps are in How to move your existing server to PlayNHost. This page covers the part that is specific to G-Portal.

Keep your G-Portal server running until the new one works. Downloading only copies files and changes nothing on your old server. G-Portal's wiki also tells you to download your data over FTP before a server expires, so do not leave it to the last day.

Before you start

1. Order a PlayNHost server for the same game, and for the same version if the game has versions. For Minecraft, pick the same edition (Java or Bedrock) when you order. After you order, the setup screen asks for the server software and version, so choose the same ones as your old server. You can change them later with Edit Server Type (see How to change your server type or game version), but that reinstalls the server and deletes its files by default. For Minecraft that means the same server software (for example Vanilla, Paper, Forge or Fabric) and the same game version.
2. Write down your game version and the mods or plugins you use.
3. Be aware that the backup button in the G-Portal panel is meant for restoring on G-Portal. The way to get a copy of your files is FTP, described below.

Get your files out of G-Portal

Step 1: find your FTP access data

1. Log on to the G-Portal website and click My servers in the menu on the left.
2. Select your server.
3. Stop the server from its page in the G-Portal web interface, so the files are not changing while you copy them.
4. Click Status in the left menu. The FTP access data is on that page. Write it down, or keep the page open.

Step 2: connect and download

1. Open an FTP program. G-Portal recommends FileZilla.
2. Enter the hostname, user name, password and port from the Status page and click Quickconnect.
3. Before you download, set the transfer type to binary. In FileZilla this is in Edit, then Settings, then Transfers, then File Types. G-Portal's wiki warns that an ASCII-mode FTP copy corrupts binary save files.
4. Find the folder that holds your game's save and drag it to a new folder on your computer. Wait until the transfer finishes.

Where the save is

G-Portal's wiki names these folders for the games below. For any other game, ask G-Portal support or look at its wiki page for that game.

• ARK: Survival Evolved: ShooterGame/Saved/SavedArks. Download the whole folder. G-Portal warns that deleting that folder resets the server completely, so only copy from it. The Savegames page under Basic Settings in the web interface lists only recent savegames.
• Palworld: Pal/Saved/SaveGames/0/ and then the folder with a long name made of letters and numbers. Inside it you need the Players folder, Level.sav and LevelMeta.sav.
• Minecraft: the world folder carries the name set as level-name in server.properties (the default is world). A Paper or Spigot style server has extra folders for the Nether and End, with endings such as _nether and _the_end. Download all of them. Take server.properties too, and the mods folder or the settings of any plugins you use.

A backup from the panel

On the server menu under Administration, Backup has a Create Backup button. G-Portal says the server stops while the backup is made and then starts again on its own, and that backups are not created automatically. G-Portal's wiki pages on backups do not describe downloading one, so use FTP for your copy.

Bring it into PlayNHost

1. In the panel, open your new server, click Stop and wait for Offline.
2. Clear the default world first. Your new server may already have a default world (on Minecraft Java a world folder, on Bedrock a world inside worlds, and other games keep theirs elsewhere, so see the game's guide). Back it up if you want to keep it, then delete it. Everything in it is lost: its builds, its player data and its Nether and End. The Backups page holds 3 slots by default, so delete an old backup first if the list is full. See How to create, download and restore backups. If you upload over the default world without deleting it, files with the same name are overwritten and the others stay, so the two worlds are mixed and the result may not load.
3. Upload your files. To use the browser, put your world in a ZIP on your computer, click Upload in the Files tab, then tick the ZIP and click Unzip. Folders cannot be dragged into Upload. For a folder, a large world or a whole server folder, use SFTP. See How to connect to your server files with SFTP.

4. Put the files where the game expects them.

   • Minecraft Java: the world folder goes in the main folder, next to server.properties. Mods go in mods, plugins in plugins. After unzipping, check that the world folder is not inside an extra folder of the same name.
   • Minecraft Bedrock: the world folder goes inside the worlds folder.
   • Folders ending in _nether and _the_end only work if your PlayNHost server is also Paper, Spigot or Purpur. On other types, copy the DIM-1 folder from the _nether folder and the DIM1 folder from the _the_end folder into your main world folder first.
   • Other games: use the game's guide in this knowledge base, listed below. They show the folder and any name the settings must match.

5. Tell the server which world to load. For Minecraft:

   • Minecraft Java: open Settings, then Server Properties (Java) in the list on the left, and set World name to the folder name of your world. You can also open server.properties in Files and set level-name.
   • Minecraft Bedrock: open Settings, then Game Settings, and type the folder name from worlds into Choose World. Do not edit level-name in the file, because it is reset on every start.
6. Match your other options in Settings to the old server. See How to change your server settings.
7. Click Start, watch the Console for errors, then join to check the world and the mods.

For mods, see How to add mods, plugins and modpacks to your server. To change server type or version, see How to change your server type or game version. That reinstalls the server and deletes its files by default, so back up first.

Or ask us to move it

Open a ticket in the category Worlds & backups (or Something else). The message is limited to 300 characters, so keep it short: your game, your new server's name, the host you are leaving (G-Portal) and the download link to a ZIP of the files from the steps above. Put the details, such as the version and the mod list, in a text file inside the ZIP. Tell us in the ticket what you are moving and we will reply with the next step.

To make the link, upload your ZIP to a file-sharing or cloud-drive service, set the share to anyone with the link with no password, and paste the link in the ticket. Delete the link once we confirm we have the files. Never put a password in a ticket. See How to open a support ticket.

Other games

Each game keeps its world in a different folder. Check the guide for your game here before you upload, for example ARK: Survival Evolved, Palworld, Terraria, Valheim or Rust. If your game is not listed, ask G-Portal support which folder holds the save, and tell us in your ticket.

After the move

• Test with a few players before you cancel anything on G-Portal.
• Take a backup of the new server once it works.
• Tell your players the new address. The address changes when you change host. See How to join your server.