Palworld 'Friends Forced to Make New Character' Bug — Fix

Palworld 'friends forced to make new character' bug — recovery and prevention

You and a friend played on a Palworld dedicated server yesterday. Today they log in and the game prompts them to create a new character — but yours still exists. Their levels, Pals, base contributions, all of it is gone from their view. This page covers what is actually happening (the server still has their data, in most cases) and how to bring it back.

What is happening

Each Palworld player has a .sav file inside the world's Players/ directory, named with their Steam ID or platform ID. When a player joins:

1. The server reads the player's ID from the connecting client.
2. The server looks for a matching .sav file in Players/.
3. If found: the player resumes their existing character.
4. If not found: the server treats it as a new join and prompts for character creation.

The "friends forced to make new character" symptom means step 3 failed — the lookup did not find a matching file. The data probably still exists; the link between player ID and save file is what's broken. Three common causes:

• The .sav file was moved or renamed. An overzealous cleanup, a backup-restoration that pulled in stale files, a folder rename.
• The player ID changed. Steam family sharing, switching between Steam and Game Pass accounts, or migrating from peer-hosted to dedicated server can shift the ID the server sees.
• The world ID changed. If the SaveGames folder was renumbered (0, 1, 2 subfolders), the server now reads from a different directory and the player files appear missing.

Step 1: Find the lost character files

On the dedicated server, navigate to:

/home/u<port>/pal/data/Pal/Saved/SaveGames/0/<WorldID>/Players/

List the directory. Each file is named like 00000000000000010002000076561198XXXXXXXXX.sav — a 32-char hex string ending in a Steam ID.

If you can identify your friend's Steam ID (they can find it on their Steam profile URL or with a quick Google), look for a matching file. If it's there, the character is still on disk; the server just isn't finding it. Move to Step 2.

If their file is genuinely not there, check the other numbered WorldID directories and any tier-2 backup snapshots. The file probably exists somewhere on the server's disk.

Step 2: Match the file to the connecting player

If the character file exists but the server can't link it, the cause is almost always a player-ID mismatch. Two paths:

Path A: Player has switched accounts (Steam → Game Pass or vice versa)

The two platforms produce different IDs. If your friend used to play through Steam and is now joining through Game Pass (or vice versa), their server-visible ID changed. Solutions:

• Have them connect using the original platform.
• Or accept the character loss and start fresh — Palworld does not currently support manual ID remap.

Path B: Save file was restored to wrong slot or after a guild change

If the server's SaveGames directory was restored from backup or had folder renames, the world ID number (the directory containing the save) may have changed. The .sav file lives in the wrong directory now.

1. Stop the server.
2. Identify the current active world ID directory (the one the server is reading from).
3. Copy or move the player's .sav file from wherever you found it into the active world's Players/ directory.
4. Start the server.
5. Have the player reconnect. The character should resume.

Step 3: Restore from backup if the file is truly gone

If the player's .sav file is not in any directory on the live server, restore from a tier-2 daily backup. Most hosts retain 5-7 days of backups; the file from a backup before the disappearance contains the character data.

Restore just the player's .sav file, not the entire SaveGames directory — that way other players' progress and the world state remain unchanged.

Step 4: As a last resort, give the character back via admin commands

If the file is completely lost and no backup exists, the character data cannot be recovered. The best you can do is recreate the player's progress via in-game admin actions:

• RCON / in-game admin: add levels via XP grants
• Spawn the Pals they had (if you know what they had)
• Grant items they had crafted

This is a workaround, not a recovery. Communicate clearly to the player that the original character is gone and you're rebuilding what's possible.

Prevention

1. Daily backups that include Players/

Some backup setups exclude the Players/ subdirectory thinking it's redundant. Don't — that's the directory that breaks on this bug. Daily backups must include the full SaveGames folder.

2. Never rename world directories

Once the server has been started with a SaveGames/0/<ID>/ directory, leave that directory name alone forever. Renaming it changes the world ID the server reads from, orphaning all player files.

3. Document Steam IDs for your regular players

Keep a list in your Discord pinned message: player name → Steam ID. When this bug fires, you can immediately match the player to their .sav file without asking them to find their ID from scratch.

4. Be careful with backup restores

If you restore from backup, restore the entire SaveGames directory as a unit. Mixing files from different backup points can produce exactly this bug — a world from Wednesday with player files from Friday means the world doesn't know the players exist.

5. Lock the SaveGames directory permissions

On Linux dedicated servers, ensure SaveGames/ is owned by the server user and not writable by anyone else. Accidental file deletion is one of the failure modes; permissions reduce the surface area.

Running on a managed host with proper backup discipline removes most of this risk. See Palworld plans — daily save snapshots include the full Players/ directory by default.