ASA: mod structures, Dino Depot terminals, Dinoballs or stacked resources vanished after a restart or a mod update

On our ASA maps some buildings and items come from mods. If a map starts without one of them, or the mod fails to load, those things can disappear at once. A later mod update restored them in one reported case below, but that does not guarantee recovery; the admin must inspect the affected mod and available saves.

After an update or a restart, structures or items made by a mod are gone, large stacks of resources are gone, or mod engrams are missing from your list.
Dino Depot terminals are gone, and Dinoballs or the creatures in them are missing, right after a Dino Depot update or a restart.
Crafted mod items vanished after an update while the engrams remain (Steam, 2017).

After an update or a restart, structures or items made by a mod are gone, large stacks of resources are gone, or mod engrams are missing from your list.
Dino Depot terminals are gone, and Dinoballs or the creatures in them are missing, right after a Dino Depot update or a restart.
Crafted mod items vanished after an update while the engrams remain (Steam, 2017).

If a server starts without a mod that was active before, or the mod fails to load, the buildings and stacked items that depend on it disappear (Steam, 2023). A stack mod's own page warns: "When this mod is removed by server, all resources made with it will also disappear" (TG Stacking Mod — a different mod from the one we run, Alfa Stack 5k -90%, which also remaps resources).

On one server, after a Dino Depot update, the terminals, the learned engrams and about 900 creatures in Dinoballs disappeared; the missing engrams showed the mod had not loaded properly, and a further Dino Depot update brought everything back (Steam, 2024). The Dino Depot author says every creature a player captured has its data stored in a backup that an admin can restore (CurseForge). On ASE servers, a mod that failed to load before the world took all of its structures with it (Steam Workshop, 2022).

Our ASA maps run Dino Depot, FarmAutomation, AP: Death Recovery, Alfa Stack and Vanilla with Sprinkles, which own a small share of the structures; our ASE maps run no mods.

Stop: do not rebuild, re-craft or demolish anything yet. On the server above, the next fixed version of the mod brought everything back (Steam, 2024).
Report it at once with the map, the time and what is missing.

Right away. An admin can:

confirm that the mod actually loaded — missing mod engrams are the tell — and move to a fixed version (Steam, 2024);
restore from a backup taken before the bad start; backups made after the loss do not help (Steam, 2024), and our hourly copies reach back about two days;
for Dino Depot, use the mod's own backup of captured creatures (CurseForge);
keep Alfa Stack first in the load order, as its author recommends.

Whether anything is replaced is the owner's decision.

Tell an admin the map, the time (the clock in your profile menu shows the server's time), your character's name, what you carried or had uploaded, and the exact message on the screen. For a transfer: both maps and both times. Report the same day — the backups reach back only about two days. Contact admin is in your profile menu; the Guides page has a question box.

Report the same day: only a backup from before the loss helps (Steam, 2024).
On the server side: back up before every mod or game update and shut maps down cleanly (Steam Workshop, 2022; G-Portal).

ASA: mod structures, Dino Depot terminals, Dinoballs or stacked resources vanished after a restart or a mod update

What you see

Related guides

ASA: mod structures, Dino Depot terminals, Dinoballs or stacked resources vanished after a restart or a mod update

What you see

Related guides

Why it happens

What you can do

When to ask an admin

Avoid it next time

Sources