Scheduled restarts define a maintenance window for your GSH game server. Check your profile time zone, warnings, and the player condition before saving. A restart can activate updates or settings, but it does not automatically fix memory errors, incompatible mods, or a damaged world.

Where to Find the Restarts

Open your server in the customer area and select the Automation section. There you will find the tabs Tasks, Alerts, and Automatic Restarts. In the last one, at the top is the Auto-Restart on Crash switch, which automatically restarts the server if it unexpectedly goes offline, and below it the Automatic Restarts list with the New Task button. A counter next to the description shows how many restart slots are already in use.

New paid servers already come with a daily restart set between 04:00 and 04:25 in your profile's time zone. You can move it, turn it off, or add more times.

Automatic restarts are available for paid servers and for free servers with Always Online active. Only the server owner can create and change them.

Schedule a daily restart in the customer panel

Creating a Restart

  1. Click New Task.
  2. Choose the time: directly in the field or by clicking one of the suggestions below, such as 12:00 or 20:00. The time applies in your profile's time zone, and the list later displays it with the time zone, for example 05:00 Europe/Berlin.
  3. Optionally check Only run when no players are online. This prevents a nightly restart from disconnecting active players. This only works reliably for games with a live player query such as Minecraft; for other games, the restart is run anyway to be safe.
  4. Optionally set in-game warnings if your game supports them. The panel then points this out: In-game warnings are available for this game. You choose none, one, or several times, 1, 5, 10, 15, 30, or 60 minutes beforehand; the default is 10 minutes. You can also enter a custom message text, at most 140 characters, with the placeholders {minutes} for the remaining time and {server} for the server name.
  5. Click Create. The panel reports Task created successfully., and the restart appears in the list with Next run.

A few fixed rules apply to the times: up to 10 restart times are possible per server, the same time can only exist once, and active restarts must be at least 60 minutes apart.

Managing Restarts

Each entry in the list has its own actions:

  • The switch on the right pauses a restart or turns it back on without deleting it.
  • The trash can icon deletes it after a confirmation prompt.
  • Show history lists the most recent runs with their result, including skipped restarts, for example because players were still online.
  • Edit warnings changes the times and text of the in-game warnings afterwards.

Older restarts that are still scheduled in UTC are offered by the panel for conversion to your profile's time zone. Before the conversion, it shows you the new time and the next run.

What to Keep in Mind

  • The right time: Choose a time when little is going on. The player analytics of your server show you how many players are online at which time.
  • Palworld: The community server list creates a new entry after every restart and only removes the old one after around 40 hours. With several restarts per day, your server appears there multiple times; so schedule only a few restarts there.
  • Project Zomboid: In the same section there is also a switch for restarts after workshop mod updates, so that new players can join again after a mod update.
  • Before bigger changes: A restart does not replace a backup. How to save a state beforehand is explained in Create and Restore a Server Backup.

Whether a restart ran cleanly can be seen in the Server Console: there you will find the warnings to the players, the shutdown, and the restart.

Checking the First Scheduled Run

Compare "Next run" with your desired profile time zone and check whether an already existing daily restart remains active alongside it. Avoid two tasks close together. If warnings are supported for the game, test their display before the maintenance window. After the first run, observe the stop, the start, and the subsequent join. If the player condition is enabled, check whether your game actually supports the necessary live query. A task in the list does not yet confirm a successful run. If there is an error, note the time and task name and check the process before adding more restarts.