Palworld Save Corruption Recovery

Recognizing Corruption

Common symptoms of save corruption: the world refuses to load, loads to a blank state, the launcher reports "save not found," or Level.sav is missing or zero-byte.

Corruption usually happens when the server is killed during a save - either a crash, power loss, or force-killing the process. Using fast SSD storage helps prevent this, as slow storage can corrupt saves during write operations.

Recovery Steps

Try these in order. Stop at the first one that works.

1. Check for rotation files. Look in the save folder for Level.sav.tmp or numbered backup files. These are temporary files the server creates during saves. Rename one to Level.sav and try starting the server.

2. Use the GameGrid Backups tab. Restore the most recent backup in the "verified" state - only those offer a Restore button. This is the fastest and most reliable recovery method. Note it rolls back PalWorldSettings.ini too, so re-apply any settings you have changed since.

3. Restore from the backup/ subfolder. Navigate to Pal/Saved/SaveGames/0/<WorldGUID>/backup/world/ and find dated backup folders. Copy Level.sav, LevelMeta.sav, and Players/ from the most recent one into the main save folder.

4. Use PalworldSaveTools. This is a community tool that can fix corrupted saves without resetting. Search for "PalworldSaveTools" on GitHub. It can repair Level.sav files that have partial corruption.

5. Start fresh. If all else fails, delete the corrupted world and start a new one. You can preserve player data by keeping the Players/ folder - even if the world is dead, individual player data can be transferred to a new world.

Preventing Corruption

Run Save in the Console tab before stopping the server by hand - without a leading slash; the Console tab takes "Save", not "/Save". It forces a clean save.

Do not force-kill the server process. Use the Stop button in the panel, which triggers a graceful shutdown. Palworld gets a 90-second budget here so a large world finishes writing rather than being killed mid-save.

Use fast SSD storage. GameGrid servers use SSDs by default - if you're self-hosting, don't run a Palworld server on an HDD.

Enable automatic backups (bIsUseBackupSaveData=True). The server creates rotating backups in the backup/ subfolder.

Use the "Automatic Daily Restart" card on the Admin tab (6, 12 or 24 hours) to mitigate the memory leak. A server that crashes from memory exhaustion can corrupt saves. It only restarts when nobody is connected, so a permanently busy server needs a manual restart at a quiet hour.

Data Loss Warning

If you restore from a backup, you lose all progress made after the backup was taken. This includes base building, Pal captures, player levels, and world changes.

If you start a fresh world but keep the Players/ folder, players keep their levels and inventory but lose their base buildings and world-related progress.

If you delete the Players/ folder, all player character data is permanently lost. Players start as new characters when they rejoin.

Always try the least destructive recovery method first. Don't jump straight to deleting everything.