Update mods on your Valheim server

Valheim mods need new releases whenever the game or a library they depend on changes, and a server running last month's version of a mod is the usual reason a modded world stops loading or a player is turned away. Your Mods tab checks Thunderstore for newer versions of the mods you've installed and updates them in place, keeping your settings.

Check for updates

1. Open the Mods tab and switch to the Installed view. The tab looks for newer versions as soon as the list loads.
2. A mod with a newer version gets an Update button on its row, and the toolbar button reads Update all (3), with the number of mods that have one.
3. If the toolbar reads Check for updates, nothing newer was found the last time it looked. Click it to ask Thunderstore again. The tab remembers an answer for ten minutes, so this is how to refresh it sooner.

The tab only checks mods it can match to Thunderstore. A mod you uploaded by hand that it doesn't recognise has no update button, so update that one yourself in the File Manager and see Install BepInEx and mods on your Valheim server. BepInEx itself isn't part of Update all either: the panel installs the version it has tested, 5.4.2351.

Update one mod or all of them

1. Take a backup in the Backups tab first. If you have no successful backup from the last 14 days, the tab warns you (No backup yet on a single mod, You don't have a recent backup on Update all) and offers Go to Backups. You can carry on without one, but an update that breaks the server is much easier to undo with a backup.
2. Click Update on a mod's row, or Update all in the toolbar. Update all always asks you to confirm, and says each mod "is swapped for its newest version, and your settings are kept".
3. Confirm, and wait. The panel downloads each new version and swaps it in. When it finishes, a message says what happened: <mod> updated to <version> for one mod, or a count such as 2 of 3 updated for Update all, naming any that failed with the reason.
4. Restart the server. Updated mods only load on the next start.
5. In the Console, look for one Loading [...] line per mod and Chainloader startup complete with no failures.

What an update changes and what it keeps

• A mod's settings files in BepInEx/config are never overwritten. An existing file stays as it is.
• Files the old version installed and the new version doesn't are removed.
• A mod you've turned off with Disable stays off after it updates.
• If a newer version needs a mod the old one didn't, that mod is installed first.

There is no button to go back to an older version of a mod. If an update goes wrong, restore the backup from the Backups tab, as in How to create and restore backups.

Keep your players in step

Most gameplay mods refuse a player whose version differs from the server's. After you update:

1. In Installed, click Export for players, then Create code.
2. Players paste the code into r2modman or the Thunderstore app with Import profile, From code, and get the same versions.
3. Do this the same day, before people try to join.

The message after a single-mod update ends with the reminder "Every player needs the same mods in their own game."

After a Valheim update

Our servers fetch the newest Valheim build when they start, and Iron Gate warns that mods take time to catch up with a game update. If a mod fails after a patch, check for updates, but the author may not have released a fix yet. In that case leave the mod disabled with Disable until they do. Play Valheim Ashlands on your server explains how our update works.

Common problems

1. A mod has no Update button. Either it is already on the newest version, or the tab couldn't match it to Thunderstore, as with a mod you uploaded by hand.
2. A message says Couldn't update <mod>, or 1 of 3 updated. It gives the reason, often a download that didn't finish. Try again, and if it repeats, install the new version by hand.
3. A mod updated but behaves the same. You haven't restarted yet. Restart the server.
4. A player is refused after an update. Their version doesn't match yet. Send a new code.