Binary Testing Your Plugins or Mods

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Binary Testing Your Plugins or Mods

Binary testing helps you isolate a single plugin or mod that is causing an issue on your server when the exact cause isn't immediately clear. This guide covers when to use binary testing, how to safely prepare your server, how to perform the test step-by-step, and how to restore your plugins or mods once the problematic one has been identified.

Binary testing is a last resort. Use it only when you can't identify the cause of a crash, lag, or an undesirable behavior — such as something affecting vanilla behavior in an unintended way — through the server's console logs or other troubleshooting steps.

Identify When to Use Binary Testing

Use binary testing when your server is experiencing a crash, lag, or undesirable behavior (such as vanilla mechanics behaving unexpectedly) and the Console tab doesn't show a clear error pointing to a specific plugin or mod.
If the console logs already reference a specific plugin or mod by name (for example, lines containing Caused by, Failed to load, or Duplicate mod), remove that plugin or mod directly instead. Binary testing is only necessary when no clear culprit is visible in the logs.
Binary testing works by removing half of your plugins or mods at a time, testing the server, and narrowing down the remaining half until only the problematic file is left.

Prepare for Binary Testing

Before removing any files, stop the server and take a fresh backup. This ensures you can safely restore the server to its current state at any point during the process.

Navigate to the Console tab and click 1 Stop. Wait until the server shows 2 Offline before continuing — do not perform binary testing while the server is running.

Create a manual backup before making any changes. See No access for full steps.

Do not skip the backup step. Moving or deleting the wrong files during binary testing can result in permanent data loss if you're unable to restore your original plugin or mod list. Removing mods (not plugins) WILL cause world corruption, so you will need to restore the backup and remove the culprit mod you found.

Perform Binary Testing

Open the Files tab and navigate to your plugins or mods folder.
Create a temporary folder outside of the plugins or mods folder (for example, disabled-plugins) to hold files you remove during testing. Move files here instead of deleting them, so you can restore them once the problematic file is found.

Move half of your plugins or mods into the temporary folder.

Start the server and reproduce the issue.

If the issue persists, the problematic file is in the half still installed. Move half of those into the temporary folder and repeat.
If the issue is resolved, the problematic file is in the half you removed. Move half of those files back into the plugins/mods folder and repeat.

Repeat this process, halving the active group each time, until only one plugin or mod remains as the suspect.

Be mindful of dependency plugins or mods. Removing a dependency required by another plugin or mod will also cause the server to crash, which can be mistaken for narrowing down the wrong half. If the server crashes immediately after starting with a missing dependency error, restore the dependency before continuing.

Confirm the Problematic Plugin or Mod

Once you've narrowed the issue down to a single suspect, move every other plugin or mod back into the plugins or mods folder, leaving only the suspect out.
Start the server and confirm the issue does not occur.
Move the suspect plugin or mod back in on its own, restart the server, and confirm the issue returns.
This confirms the plugin or mod is the source of the issue.

Restore Your Plugins or Mods

Once confirmed, move all other plugins and mods back into the plugins or mods folder.
Decide how to proceed with the confirmed plugin or mod:

Check for an updated version that may resolve the conflict.
Reach out to the plugin or mod's developer or community for support.
Leave the plugin or mod out of the plugins or mods folder if it isn't essential.

Restart the server once your final plugin or mod list is in place.

Contact Support

Our support team is happy to guide you through the binary testing process. However, in-depth troubleshooting of third-party plugin or mod code falls outside the scope of what support can assist with.

If binary testing doesn't resolve the issue, or you'd like assistance confirming a result, open a support ticket and include:

A description of the crash, lag, or behavior you're seeing.
The steps you've already taken, including which plugins or mods you've tested.
The relevant portion of the server's latest.log.

If you require further assistance, you can open a support ticket here.

Feedback and suggestions can be submitted here or further discussed on our Discord server.

Binary Testing Your Plugins or Mods
Identify When to Use Binary Testing
Prepare for Binary Testing
Perform Binary Testing
Confirm the Problematic Plugin or Mod
Restore Your Plugins or Mods
Contact Support