Minecraft You’re probably here because Minecraft has come out with a new version with exciting new features you want to use, however there are some important things to keep in mind before you jump into the new update.
The first thing you need to know is that the 3rd party server software, IE Spigot and Paper, will likely take some time to update, and probably won’t come out with a stable release on the same day as Mojang. There’s no way to tell exactly how long it will take, but expect at least a couple of weeks for some of them.
While that doesn’t mean you can’t update immediately, it does mean that it may be a good idea to wait.
It’s also important to remember that if you make use of any mods, plugins, and/or datapacks, that those will also take time to update after the loader they rely on updates. So expect to wait at least a few more days after your server software updates for your plugins/mods to catch up.
Your datapacks will also need updated, but the time frame for them to update varies a lot more than it does for 3rd party mods/plugins.
Finally you need to remember that you can not revert a world to an earlier version after updating it. So always take a manual backup before attempting any kid of update.
Plugin/Mod Updates
Once a new version of your preferred server software releases, you’ll need to make sure that all of the plugins/mods your server uses support the version you want to update to.
The easiest way is to check the page you’ve downloaded it from. If they’ve released an update or changed the supported versions, then you can download the plugin/mod again and swap out the one on your server.
If the page hasn’t changed, you’ll have to try your luck by testing it with a local server or while you’re updating.
Updating Server Software
If you’re ready to try out the latest release of your preferred server software, you can download and install it on your server. Our automatic installer may not have the latest release of 3rd party software yet, especially if it isn’t marked as a stable release, so we’ll include instructions for both manual and automatic installations.
Spigot
Spigot makes use of a system known as “Build Tools” in order to share it’s server jar. While we generally recommend Paper over Spigot for it’s increased performance, Spigot tends to release slightly faster than Paper since Paper is a fork of Spigot.
If you want to use an experimental version of Spigot for your server you’ll need to follow the instructions here to use Build Tools to download the server jar file for the version you want to update to.
Installing
After downloading the version of Spigot you need, you’ll want to Stop your server, then upload the file to your server’s root directory /(the first place you see when opening the File Manager/ using SFTP or the File Manager and then update the Server Jar File startup parameter.
You can now Start the server and watch the console for any errors coming from your plugins. Once started you should join and test the features from your plugins, datapacks, and configurations before opening your server to the public.
Paper
Paper has a publicly available downloads page here that lists all of the downloads available, including experimental releases.
You’ll first see their latest stable release, but when an experimental version is available there will be a banner asking if you’re looking for version 1.XX.X.
Installing
After downloading the version of Paper you need, you’ll want to Stop your server, then upload the file to your server’s root directory /(the first place you see when opening the File Manager/ using SFTP or the File Manager and then update the Server Jar File startup parameter.
You can now Start the server and watch the console for any errors coming from your plugins. Once started you should join and test the features from your plugins, datapacks, and configurations before opening your server to the public.
Forge/NeoForge
We have a dedicated article for Installing Forge and NeoForge that covers using the Edition Installer and manually installing a version not listed there.
Fabric
We have a dedicated article for Installing Fabric that covers using the Edition Installer and manually installing a version not listed there.
Vanilla
The use of a 3rd party server software is not a requirement to play Minecraft, and Mojang does release it’s own server software when it releases a new version. If you really want to play on a server on release day, the Vanilla server software is the way to go, but there are things to keep in mind.
- The Vanilla server software lacks a lot of the performance improvements made by community developers
- This means it may crash more frequently than even an unconfigured Spigot/Paper server, especially when generating new chunks.
- Paper often adjusts the DFU /(Data Fixer Upper/ to perform better and fix minor bugs. We recommend waiting until Paper is released for this and many other reasons.
- You won’t be able to use any of your server-side mods/plugins until you switch back to the server software that supports them.
- Datapacks will work if they’ve been updated.
- You can use a Spigot/Paper world on a Vanilla server, but you’ll need to shift some files around.
- We have guide on this here.
- You can switch back to Paper/Spigot after they’ve released.
- If you had mods on a Forge/Fabric server that added items, blocks, or entities, you can not switch to vanilla without loosing that data and risking world corruption.
Installing
If you’re fine with the above caveats, then you can either use our Edition Installer, or if that’s not working, download the server jar file manually from the bottom of the release announcement, normally under the header “Get the Release” > “Cross-platform server jar”.
Then you’ll want to Stop your server, then upload the file to your server’s root directory /(the first place you see when opening the File Manager/ using SFTP or the File Manager and then update the Server Jar File startup parameter.
You can now Start the server and join the server.