The Palworld Memory Leak
Palworld dedicated servers experience continuous memory accumulation over extended runtimes. Physics calculations, entity spawning, and base worker tracking steadily consume RAM:
| Player Load | Initial RAM Usage | RAM Usage After 24 Hours |
|---|---|---|
| 2–4 Players | ~4 GB | 8–12 GB |
| 8–16 Players | ~8 GB | 14–18 GB |
| 16–32 Players | ~12 GB | 20–30+ GB (OOM Crash Risk) |
Without periodic recycling, the server container will eventually breach its memory limit, triggering a kernel Out Of Memory (OOM Exit 137) termination. Scheduled restarts are mandatory for continuous server health.
Recommended Restart Frequencies
- Light Servers (2–5 players): Every 12 to 24 hours.
- Active Community Servers (10–20 players): Every 6 to 8 hours.
- Heavily Populated / High-Rate Servers (20–32 players): Every 4 to 6 hours.
Configuring Schedules in DustBowl Warden
- Log into DustBowl Warden (
https://warden.dustbowl.games) and select your server. - Open the Schedules tab in the sidebar.
- Click Create Schedule.
- Define your schedule properties:
- Name:
6-Hour Maintenance Reboot - Cron Expression:
0 */6 * * *(Fires at minute 0 every 6 hours)
- Name:
- Add Tasks within the schedule:
- Task 1 (Warning Broadcast):
- Action:
Send RCON Command - Command:
Broadcast Server_restarting_in_5_minutes_for_maintenance - Delay:
0
- Action:
- Task 2 (Graceful Shutdown & Restart):
- Action:
Restart Server - Delay:
300seconds (Fires 5 minutes after the warning broadcast)
- Action:
- Task 1 (Warning Broadcast):
- Save and toggle the schedule to Enabled.
Verifying Auto-Save Safety
Before setting automated restarts, confirm that auto-save is enabled in PalWorldSettings.ini:
AutoSaveSpan=30.000000,bAutoSaveEnabled=True
DustBowl Warden sends a clean termination signal (SIGTERM), giving Palworld 30 seconds to commit active world chunks and player profiles to disk before the container recycles.
Broadcast Automation Tools
Plan and schedule automated announcements with our Palworld Broadcast Message Scheduler.