Palworld Characters and Progress Lost
Palworld has a confirmed bug where characters and progress disappear on dedicated servers. Community workarounds that have worked for some players — and what to do while waiting for an official fix.
This Is a Confirmed Palworld Bug
Character and progress loss on Palworld dedicated servers is a confirmed bug in the game itself — it affects all hosting providers and is not caused by server configuration. PocketPair is aware of the issue.
These workarounds come from the Palworld community. They have helped some players recover their characters, but cannot be guaranteed to work in every case.
Before Anything: Check Your Backup
- Log into your control panel → Backups tab
- Restore the most recent automatic backup (taken daily)
- Restart the server and check if your character is back
If a backup restores your character, that's the cleanest solution. See Palworld Backups.
Workaround 1: Server Idle Trick
This has recovered characters for a number of players when the bug triggers:
- Have the affected player get to the character creation screen without creating anything — sit there and wait
- From your AMP or WISP panel, stop the server
- Leave it stopped for roughly 10–15 minutes — don't skip this wait
- Start the server back up
- Have the player reconnect — their existing character should load instead of the creation screen
Do not create a new character. If the player creates a new character before trying this, it can overwrite the save slot and make the original character unrecoverable. Hold the line on the creation screen.
Workaround 2: xNul's Save Fix Tool
For cases involving save file corruption or GUID mismatches (especially after transfers or updates), the community tool palworld-host-save-fix by xNul has resolved character loss for some users.
Follow the tool's README carefully — it involves manipulating save files, so make a backup first.
Preventing Future Loss
- Enable daily automatic backups and periodically download a local copy (see Palworld Backups)
- Avoid force-stopping the server mid-session — use
/Savethen/Shutdownto gracefully stop - Keep server and client versions in sync — version mismatches after patches can trigger this bug