Server won't start: reading the console on uniz.host

The server will not come up, friends cannot join, or it dies moments after every start. The server page on uniz.host almost always says why — but the answer is spread across three places. This guide walks them in the order worth checking, from the one that states the cause outright to the one you have to read yourself.

Read the status line first

The status line under the server name is the first answer. It is more specific than most people notice, and it usually adds a short note on what the state means for your money.

If you see "Stopped: out of credit" there is nothing further to diagnose. The owner sees an "Out of credit, so the server was stopped" alert on the same page with a "Top up" button. Top up, press start, and your world and files are exactly as you left them.

Read the red alert if there is one

When a start fails at the platform level, the status reads "Failed to start" and a red-bordered alert appears above the tabs with the cause in plain language, a "View console" button (and "Ask the AI assistant to look" when the server has the AI tab). Four underlying failures are translated.

If you added, removed or updated a mod or plugin just before the failure, the alert also names the last one that changed and when — very often the culprit.

An error that did not happen at boot is shown as "Last error" followed by the message. If the message matches none of the above, it is a raw message from underneath with no translation yet. Copy the whole line for support — it is worth a lot.

The alert holds the most recent error, not the current state. A server that has since come back may still show the alert from an earlier attempt, so let the status line decide what is true now.

Open the console and find the last lines before it died

The "Console" tab is the log the game itself prints, and it is the only place that names which mod or which line of config broke it.

Worth knowing before you read:

• The console is a live stream. It opens with roughly the last 200 lines and then follows along on its own — no need to press refresh.
• It keeps roughly the most recent 3,000 lines on screen; older ones scroll away. To go further back, use Download log. Expand console shows more lines at once, and the search box finds words such as Exception in the log.
• Logs are available from the "Creating…" state onward, which is the most useful window for a large modpack because you can watch how far the download has got.
• An empty console during boot is normal. Before the container prints its first line the platform returns empty logs rather than an error, and keeps polling until output appears. Nothing is wrong and hammering refresh will not help.
• Passwords and secrets that leak into a log line are masked before the line ever reaches you.

The way to read it: work bottom to top and find the last lines before the run ended. Watch for filenames, mod names, and anything starting with Exception or Error. On Minecraft, UnsupportedClassVersionError or class file version means a Java version mismatch, which has its own guide.

Restart-looping — and why the restart button is disabled

The symptom: the status sits on "Starting" or reads "Failed to start" and never becomes Running, the console prints the same block every few minutes, and the header has no restart button.

That is not a bug. Restart is only offered while the server is genuinely running, because restarting means shutting down cleanly and coming back — which cannot be done to a server that never came up. In this state the button that works is Stop.

Stop it fully, fix the cause, then start again

1. Press "Stop" and wait until the status settles on "Stopped" — do not press start while it is still stopping. If the platform already stopped it for you, the status reads Failed to start with a note that it was stopped, and a Start button is shown instead
2. Fix whatever the console pointed at. If you added a mod or changed the version just before this, undo that first: it is the most common cause by a distance
3. Press "Start" and watch the console from the first line

Money is not a worry meanwhile: billing starts only once a server reports itself online, so a server that never finishes booting is never charged for. Stop it anyway — a server sitting in a restart loop is doing nothing for anyone.

When commands work

The command box under the console has two conditions.

First, the server must be online. Otherwise it reads "Console commands are available while the server is online", because a command is delivered to the running game, not to a file.

Second, the game must support remote commands. Minecraft does, which is why it gets a command box plus command and player-name suggestions. Palworld has no such system in the game itself, so a Palworld server shows logs and its own dedicated buttons but no command box.

A quiet console on an idle server is normal

If your server is online with nobody playing, the console can show nothing at all for long stretches. That is deliberate, and it is not a sign the server is stuck.

Both games log a line every time something reads values out of them, and our platform reads routinely to count players and measure server health — on Palworld through its own web interface, on Minecraft through the remote-command channel. On an idle server that traffic is very nearly the whole log. All of it is hidden, so what you see is your server and nothing else: the moment a player joins, a command runs or an error is thrown, it appears. Real in-game events and the results of your own actions are never hidden.

Running, but friends still cannot join

If the status says Running, booting is not your problem. Check these three:

1. Wrong address — copy it from the Join the game box on the Overview tab exactly. Games that use a port need the port number too; it is not optional.
2. The address was just changed — the old one stops working immediately, so players who saved it in-game have to remove and re-add it.
3. Whitelist or ban list — a Minecraft server with the whitelist on refuses anyone not on it, while working perfectly in every other respect.

Still stuck — what to send support

Sending these four together shortens things considerably:

• the server name or its address
• the status you are looking at right now
• the full line in the red alert, if there is one
• the last twenty or so console lines before it died

And if you changed something just before this started, say what. Nearly every time, that is where the answer is.

Read next

• Java runtime — if the console mentions class file version
• Server file manager — how to undo a config edit
• Dashboard tour — every status, alert and tab on the server page
• Credits and billing — if the server stopped for want of credits