The map crashed, stopped or rolled back: progress since the last save is gone (and a transfer just before it)

A crashed or stopped map comes back from its last save. This guide covers that rollback, restart loops, and a transfer made minutes before.

Everyone on the map is disconnected. When it returns, the last minutes of building, crafting, taming or trading are undone.
The map stays offline much longer than a normal restart, or keeps coming back and dropping everyone (a restart loop, often after an ARK update).
You transferred, the map went down within minutes, and when it came back you were at the survivor-creation screen.
After the rollback, transfers are refused or the game asks for a new survivor.

A crashed or stopped map comes back from its last save. This guide covers that rollback, restart loops, and a transfer made minutes before.

Everyone on the map is disconnected. When it returns, the last minutes of building, crafting, taming or trading are undone.
The map stays offline much longer than a normal restart, or keeps coming back and dropping everyone (a restart loop, often after an ARK update).
You transferred, the map went down within minutes, and when it came back you were at the survivor-creation screen.
After the rollback, transfers are refused or the game asks for a new survivor.

ARK writes each map's world to disk at an interval — AutoSavePeriodMinutes, 15 minutes by default, set per server — and a crash loses everything after the last save (ARK Wiki).

What we have seen on our own maps:

On 06/09/2026 Genesis: Part 2 (ASE) crashed twice in one evening; the first crash took it back 40 minutes.
On 28/10/2026 every map stopped at the same moment, and each came back from its own last autosave.
On 27/09/2026 a survivor arrived on Genesis: Part 2 seconds before it crashed and was lost. A downloaded survivor exists only in the new map's memory until that map saves, while the download has already used up the transfer copy.
The map you left can come back from a save made before your upload, so your sleeping body with its items can still be there — seen once, on 28/10/2026, not a rule.

After a rollback of the map you left, the game's anti-duplication rule can force a new character (ARK Wiki). Restart loops after ARK updates have been traced to crashes in the new build and to mod conflicts (Steam, 2024). A map that does not come back by itself waits for an admin to start it.

Fixes over time: ASA forces a save and a restart when a server runs out of memory (26.32) and fixed a crash while saving (73.25); ASE fixed a crash with saves over 4 GB (349.1).

Check the map's card on the Servers page. A red dot means offline, and the admins can already see it; a blue dot means closed on purpose for maintenance. Both come back by themselves.
Give a restart time: one of our ASE maps needs about ten minutes to start.
When the map is back, check what is missing and note the last time you saw it. Do not repeat a transfer or a trade until the map stays up and you have checked both maps.
If the game asks you to create a new survivor after a crash, do not — see the guide Character missing after a transfer.
If you transferred just before the crash, ask a tribe mate to look on the map you left for your sleeping body: your items may still be on it.

When something is missing after the map came back, or a map stays red for a long time. An admin can:

start the map from the server manager and check that the right world came back;
read the crash logs, and see whether an ARK or mod update set it off;
for a survivor who arrived just before a crash, compare the save before the crash with the hourly backup and return items proven lost through the admin delivery queue, which counts every give — nothing that is not proven lost is given;
give specific items or creatures back from an older save with Restore from backup or a Time Stone server, instead of rolling back the whole map. A whole-map rollback and any compensation are 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.

Here, add the time of your last action and when the map went down.

Avoid big trades, transfers and breeding hand-offs right before an announced restart or maintenance.
Do not upload yourself, tames or items toward a map that is down or keeps restarting; wait until it stays up.

The map crashed, stopped or rolled back: progress since the last save is gone (and a transfer just before it)

What you see

Related guides

The map crashed, stopped or rolled back: progress since the last save is gone (and a transfer just before it)

What you see

Related guides

Why it happens

What you can do

When to ask an admin

Avoid it next time

Sources