Colony Survival server world or colonists are missing

These are the Colony Survival problems that reach our queue most often.

1. The world is empty after a restart

The server loads the world named at launch. If that name changes, even by a capital letter, it generates a brand new world instead of loading yours. Nothing has been deleted.

1. Stop the server.
2. Open the Files tab and list the saves folder. Every world you have created is a folder there.
3. Open the Startup page for your server by adding /startup to the end of its panel address.
4. Set the world name to match the folder exactly and start the server.

2. Colony progress is missing after a crash

• Colony Survival writes the world periodically and on a clean shutdown. A hard kill can cost the time since the last write.
• Always use Stop rather than Kill, and give it time to finish.
• Take a copy of the world folder before large changes. Download it from the Files tab.

3. Players cannot connect

• Use the IP and port from the panel, not a remembered address.
• Check the server has finished generating the world. It does not accept players before then, and generation can take minutes.
• Confirm everyone is on the same game version and restart the server after a game update.
• If a password is set, check for a stray space when you copied it.

4. The server will not start after an edit

• The JSON config must stay valid. A missing comma, an extra comma or a missing brace stops the server before it loads anything.
• Read the first lines of the Console after a start attempt. The parse error names the file.
• If you cannot spot it, restore the file from a backup and make one change at a time.

Open a ticket from Support in the Client Area with the console output and the world name you expect to load if none of this fits.