Scheduled restarts

A scheduled restart is a rule that restarts your server at a time you choose — for example every day at 05:00. This article explains why a Palworld server benefits from that, how to set one up in Rebetchi Manage, and what your players see in the game when one runs.

1. Why restart on a schedule

A Palworld dedicated server uses more memory the longer it runs, and it gets slower with it. Restarting clears that out. Most owners run one restart a night, in the quietest hour for their players.

A restart also applies changed game settings. Palworld reads its settings file only when it launches, so a setting you edit in the panel takes effect at the next restart rather than immediately. See Changing your server settings.

2. Set up a schedule

You need to be the owner or a co-admin of the server.

1. Open Rebetchi Manage at manage.rebetchi.com and select your server.
2. Choose Automated Tasks in the left sidebar.
3. Select Add schedule.
4. Under How often, choose *Every day* or *Once a week*. A weekly schedule also asks which day.
5. Set the Time. Hours are on the 24-hour clock and minutes are in five-minute steps.
6. Choose the Timezone. It starts on your browser's own zone. The time you set is the time in that zone, and it stays correct across daylight-saving changes.
7. Optionally turn on Take a backup before restarting — see section 4.
8. Select Add schedule.

A sentence under the form describes what you have set, in plain language, before you save it.

Saving a schedule does not restart your server there and then. The first run is the next time that matches. Rebetchi checks schedules once a minute, so a restart can start up to about a minute after the time you set.

You can add more than one schedule to the same server.

3. What your players see

At the start of the countdown, the server sends one message to everyone in the game and then shuts down when the countdown ends. With the standard settings the countdown is 15 minutes and the message reads Server is shutting down in 900 seconds.

Note that the summary line in the panel says players get warnings at 15, 5 and 1 minute. Today only the first of those is sent — one notice at the start of the countdown, not three separate reminders. There is also no control for changing the wording of that message yet.

When the countdown ends, everyone is disconnected. The server is shut down gracefully rather than killed, then started again. Your join address does not change, so players reconnect with exactly the same address they used before. In the panel the status moves to *Restarting* and then back to *Running*.

4. Taking a backup first

The Take a backup before restarting switch is off when you add a schedule. Turn it on and Rebetchi archives your world first, waits for that archive to finish, and only then restarts. This usually adds about a minute to the maintenance window.

Two things worth knowing:

• These archives are system backups. They never use one of your manual backup slots. Rebetchi keeps the two most recent pre-restart snapshots for a server and removes older ones.
• If the backup fails, or your server has not reported back within 30 minutes, the restart goes ahead anyway. The restart is the point of the schedule, and a failed backup is visible on the Backups screen rather than silent. See Backups and restoring your world.

5. Editing, pausing and deleting

Each schedule is a row on the Automated Tasks screen, with a plain-language summary and either *Last run* or *Has not run yet*.

• The switch at the left of the row turns a schedule off without deleting it. Turn it back on whenever you want.
• Edit changes the frequency, time, timezone or backup switch. After an edit, the next run is worked out from the new settings — the old time is discarded.
• Delete removes the schedule. Your server stops restarting on its own; nothing else about it changes.

6. When a scheduled restart does not run

• The server is not running. A restart only fires while the server is up. If it is stopped, or suspended because of an unpaid invoice, that run is passed over and the schedule waits for the next one. It will not start a server you deliberately stopped.
• The run is more than 10 minutes late. If something delays Rebetchi past that, the run is skipped rather than fired at the wrong hour, and the schedule moves on to its next time.
• The machine is unreachable. The restart is queued and runs once the machine your server runs on reconnects.

7. Checking that it ran

The Recent restarts table at the bottom of the Automated Tasks screen lists the last 15 restarts with when each was requested, the outcome, and when it finished. It covers every restart of that server, whether it was scheduled or you asked for it — the record does not distinguish between the two.

If a restart shows as failed, or your server does not come back, see If your server will not start, or email support@rebetchi.com.