Valheim progress was lost after a crash or a stop

Valheim writes the world on a timer and when the server stops normally. If the server crashes or is killed, you lose what happened since the last save, 30 minutes at most with the default timer. Stop the server with Stop, not Kill, and lower World Save Interval if you want shorter gaps. The game's own copies on the Worlds page may hold a later state than your last backup.

How saving works

• The world is saved every World Save Interval seconds. The default is 1800, which is 30 minutes.
• It is also saved when the server stops normally. Stop and Restart do this, and so does the Daily restart.
• With PlayNHost Tools on, the world is also saved right before every backup, and before a warned restart.
• Kill ends the game at once with no save.

Get progress back

1. Open Worlds in the left menu and click the world.
2. The Rewind timeline lists the game's Automatic copy entries and your Server backups, newest first, with their times.
3. Pick the newest one from before the problem and click Rewind to this. The world as it is now is kept, so you can undo.

See How to rewind your Valheim world to an earlier copy. Characters are kept on each player's own computer, so a rewind does not change them.

Lose less next time

1. Click Settings, then Game Settings.
2. Lower World Save Interval. The smallest value is 60 seconds.
3. Restart the server.

4. Stop the server with Stop and wait for Offline. Use Kill only when the server does not stop by itself. See How to start, stop, restart and force-stop your server.
5. Keep PlayNHost Tools on, so backups save first: How to turn on PlayNHost Tools on your Valheim server.

Related

Valheim save and backup settings explained and How to schedule restarts and backups for your Valheim server.