AutoRestart+ documentation

What it does.

AutoRestart+ does two things: it restarts your server on a timer, and it wipes whichever world folders you list so they regenerate fresh next boot. That's it.

It's for servers where the map is meant to reset. Practice arenas, PvP events, minigame rotations, biome-rotation setups. Drop the jar in, paste your license key, list the worlds to wipe, and you're done.

Small and simple.

No dependencies, no GUI, no API calls to weird services. The whole jar is under 30 KB.

Should work everywhere.

Three steps.

1. Drop the jar in plugins/

   Put AutoRestartPlus-1.0.jar in your server's plugins/ folder. Nothing else needed.

2. Start the server once

   This creates plugins/AutoRestartPlus/config.yml. The plugin will shut itself off with a license error on this first boot. That's normal.

3. Add your license, then restart

   Open the config, paste your BBB key on the license.key line, save, and do a full server restart. Step-by-step in License Activation.

One-time setup.

The plugin checks your license key every time the server starts. If the key's missing or wrong, it shuts itself off and prints an error in the console.

1. Get your key

   Open your BuiltByBit purchase page and grab the key from the Licenses tab.

2. Paste it in the config

   Open plugins/AutoRestartPlus/config.yml and replace the placeholder on the license.key line:

   config.yml YAML

   license:
     key: 'YOUR-LICENSE-KEY-HERE'

   Keep the single quotes around the key.

3. Full restart

   A /reload won't work. The license check runs in onEnable, so you need a full server restart.

Five commands.

One permission node.

The four manual commands all use restart.use. Give it to whoever you trust to restart the server.

/restartinfo has no permission, anyone can run it.

One config file.

plugins/AutoRestartPlus/config.yml. Every line has a comment explaining what it does.

# License key from your BuiltByBit account
license:
  key: 'PASTE-YOUR-KEY-HERE'

# Auto-restart timer in minutes (0 to disable)
auto-restart-minutes: 0

# Switch the server list MOTD during a restart
dynamic-motd: false

# MOTD shown during normal operation
default-motd: "AutoRestart+\n By Heuxil"

# MOTD shown when a restart is in progress (only used if dynamic-motd: true)
restart-motd: "§x§B§1§D§6§F§F⌚ ʀᴇꜱᴛᴀʀᴛɪɴɢ..."

# World folders to delete and regenerate on each restart
worlds-to-delete:
  - world_minecraft_badlands
  - world_minecraft_desert
  - world_minecraft_mushroom
  - world_minecraft_plains
  - world_minecraft_snowy_fields

How the wipes work.

Every restart, AutoRestart+ goes through your worlds-to-delete list. For each name, it finds the matching folder in your server root and deletes it. Next time the server boots, Minecraft regenerates the world from scratch using your normal world generator settings.

For a biome-rotation server, the defaults look something like this:

worlds-to-delete:
  - world_minecraft_badlands
  - world_minecraft_desert
  - world_minecraft_mushroom
  - world_minecraft_plains
  - world_minecraft_snowy_fields

If a folder in the list doesn't exist, the plugin just logs a warning and moves on. If the list is empty, the wipe gets skipped (the server still restarts).

Set it once.

The auto-restart-minutes setting controls how often the server auto-restarts. The first restart happens N minutes after the server starts, and then it repeats on the same interval.

To change it without touching the config, OPs can use:

/setrestart 300   # every 5 hours
/setrestart 60    # every hour
/setrestart 0     # turn auto-restart off

The change is saved to config.yml right away and replaces any pending restart with the new schedule.

What players see.

When a restart starts (either from /restartcooldown or automatically), the plugin runs a 5-minute (300-second) countdown. Warnings fire at: 5m, 3m, 2m, 1m, 30s, 10s, then every second under 5.

Each notification includes:

• An action bar message in red
• A chat broadcast with the same message
• A pling sound (BLOCK_NOTE_BLOCK_PLING) on every player

At T-zero, the plugin:

1. 1. Saves all loaded worlds.
2. 2. Kicks all online players with a "Reconnect in 2 minutes" message.
3. 3. Sets max-players to 1 and enables the whitelist (restart-mode lock).
4. 4. Deletes the world folders listed in worlds-to-delete asynchronously.
5. 5. Waits 60 seconds for cleanup, restores max-players and the whitelist, then calls spigot().restart().

Optional. Off by default.

Set dynamic-motd: true and the plugin will swap the server-list MOTD based on whether a restart is happening. While the server's restarting it shows restart-motd, otherwise it shows default-motd.

Both fields support legacy hex color codes (§x§R§R§G§G§B§B) and \n for line breaks. Just remember to keep the values in quotes.

If something's not working.

Plugin disabled with "invalid or missing license"

• Check that license.key is your real BBB key, not the PASTE-YOUR-KEY-HERE placeholder.
• Make sure you did a full restart, not just /reload.
• Make sure your server can reach the internet. A firewall blocking outbound HTTP will fail the check.

Server stays offline after a restart

The plugin tries spigot().restart(), and if that's not available it falls back to shutdown(). If your server stays offline, your start script isn't relaunching after the process ends. Either wrap your start command in a loop, or use a panel that handles restarts (Pterodactyl, Pufferpanel, etc.).

Worlds aren't getting deleted

• Look in your console for World folder not found: .... The folder name in the config has to match the actual folder name next to your server.jar exactly.
• If you see Cannot delete file: ..., the JVM still has files open in that world. The kick step normally fixes this, but on some setups it might not.
• If worlds-to-delete is empty, the plugin logs No worlds configured for deletion! and just restarts without wiping anything.

Players see "Server is restarting NOW!" mid-game

That's the safety fallback. If the kick task can't clear everyone within 60 seconds, it force-kicks them so the restart doesn't get stuck. If this happens often, another plugin is probably swallowing the kick messages.

Common questions.

Need help?

Open a ticket on Discord and I'll get to it. When you do, please include your server software (Paper, Spigot, etc.), the plugin version, and any error lines from the console. Saves a ton of back and forth.

Thanks for using AutoRestart+. Bug reports, feature ideas, weird questions, all welcome.