Fixing "Can't keep up! Is the server overloaded?"

This legendary error message means your server took longer than 50ms to process a single tick. Here is how to fix it.

1. Pre-generate Your World

Exploration kills performance. The server has to generate chunks on the fly.

Solution: Install the Chunky plugin and run:

2. Lower View Distance

In server.properties, view-distance is the biggest performance eater.

• 10: Default. Heavy.
• 6-8: Recommended for balanced performance.
• 4: Potato mode. Extremely fast, but players can't see far.

Pro Tip: Use `simulation-distance` to reduce tick processing range while keeping visual view distance higher (if using Paper).

3. Profile with Spark

Don't guess. Measure.

1. Install Spark plugin.
2. Run /spark profiler start.
3. Wait 10 minutes.
4. Run /spark profiler stop.
5. Click the link to see exactly which plugin or entity is lagging your server.