Minecraft Forums

if you are still having this problem, you need to check your hosts file.

go to start > run
type in 'notepad %windir%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts' (without the quotes)

look for a line with 'minecraft.net' or 'www.minecraft.net' and remove it & save the hosts file.

restart minecraft and you should be able to connect to servers.

as n3rf now knows, it is because of an entry in your HOSTS file which isn't allowing your computer to communicate with the minecraft servers. you will need to open it with notepad (on vista and windows 7, you will need to run notepad as an administrator - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923947) and edit out the line:
127.0.0.1 minecraft.net

the HOSTS file is located at:
%windir%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

if you get the warning about "Cannot create the C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file..." error, you will need to make sure the hosts file is not read-only by navigating to '%windir%\system32\drivers\etc' and right clicking on 'hosts', go to properties and then uncheck 'read-only' then 'ok'. then you should be able to save the file.

i posted this in the bug tracker report but just in case not everyone reads that:

just to throw it out there, looks like notch has acknowledged the issue:
http://twitter.com/notch/status/18618506488582144
"Naturally, since yesterday was a holiday, most paypal payments failed to process. We fixed the bug, and they're getting processed now."

well, he is the official response from a mojang employee over at the bug tracker:
http://getsatisfaction.com/mojang/topic ... ot_scammed

what would he call diamonds then if there were emeralds? clear stones? i am guessing that diamonds started out as emeralds but then he change them to diamonds and in the code, it used 'emeralds' and he just hasn't changed it.

what vicflo linked to will not work. you need to change the A record for your domain to point to the IP address of the server:
http://help.godaddy.com/article/680#arecs

check out the section Adding or Editing A Records > To Edit an A Record

1. Go to the Zone File Editor for the domain name you want to update.
2. In the A (Host) section, click the A record you want to edit.
3. Edit any of the following fields:
* Host — Enter the host name the A record links to. Type @ to map the record directly to your domain name, including the www.
* Points to — Enter the IP address your domain name uses for this host record.
* TTL — Select how long the server should cache the information.
4. Click Save Zone File, and then click OK.

Quote from Optimash »

The fact that I don't know the difference between the two worries me.

Do you have any recommendations on how to back things up?

basically i have cron jobs that do everything for me and everything is scripted to the max.

just very top level description... i have a script that disables server saving (so that the server does not modify the world files when taking a backup), then i tar up the world file and re-enable server saving. i then remove backups older than 2 days. i have a shell script called 'screen_cmds' that will send commands to a screen session with minecraft running. here are the scripts that run most things (yes i know that my scripts are sloppy and probably poorly written but they work for me):

backup_worlds

#!/bin/bash

screen_cmds=/opt/minecraft/scripts/screen_cmds
date=`date +%F_%H`

$screen_cmds save-all
sleep 2
$screen_cmds save-off

# create backup of latest world file
cd /opt/minecraft/worlds
tar cf ./backups/octeams2/octeams2_$date.tar ./octeams2

$screen_cmds save-on

gzip ./backups/octeams2/octeams2_$date.tar

# remove backups older than 2 days
find /opt/minecraft/worlds/backups/octeams2/* -mtime +2 -exec rm {} \;

screen_cmds

#!/bin/bash

type="$1"
sn=octeams2

function argument_check {
        case "$type" in
                save-off)
                        save-off
                        ;;
                save-on)
                        save-on
                        ;;
                save-all)
                        save-all
                        ;;
                render-msg)
                        render-msg
                        ;;
                restart)
                        restart
                        ;;
                start)
                        start
                        ;;
                stop)
                        stop
                        ;;
                *)
                        echo "Usage: $0 {render-msg|restart|save-all|save-off|save-on|start|stop}"
                        exit 1
                        ;;
        esac
}

function save-off {
        screen -S $sn -p $sn -X stuff "`echo -e \"save-off\r\"`"
}

function save-on {
        screen -S $sn -p $sn -X stuff "`echo -e \"save-on\r\"`"
}

function save-all {
        screen -S $sn -t $sn -X stuff "`echo -e \"save-all\r\"`"
}

function render-msg {
        screen -S $sn -p $sn -X stuff "`echo -e \"say new maps have been rendered!\r\"`"
        screen -S $sn -p $sn -X stuff "`echo -e \"say http://minecraft.mbentley.net/maps/\r\"`"
}

function restart {
        screen -S $sn -p $sn -X stuff "`echo -e \"say server going down for restart in 30 seconds!\r\"`"
        sleep 30
        screen -S $sn -p $sn -X stuff "`echo -e \"say server restarting...\r\"`"
        sleep 2
        screen -S $sn -p $sn -X stuff "`echo -e \"stop\r\"`"
        sleep 10
        /opt/minecraft/scripts/start_server $sn
}

function start {
        /opt/minecraft/scripts/start_server $sn
}

function stop {
        screen -S $sn -p $sn -X stuff "`echo -e \"say server going down for an upgrade in 10 seconds!\r\"`"
        sleep 5
        screen -S $sn -p $sn -X stuff "`echo -e \"say server stopping...\r\"`"
        sleep 2
        screen -S $sn -p $sn -X stuff "`echo -e \"stop\r\"`"
}

start_server

#!/bin/bash

type="$1"

function argument_check {
        case "$type" in
                octeams|octeams2)
                        start_server
                        ;;
                *)
                        echo "Usage: $0 {octeams|octeams2}"
                        exit 1
                        ;;
        esac
}

function start_server {
        cd /opt/minecraft/mc_server_$type
        screen -S $type -t $type -d -m java -Xmx1024M -Xms128M -jar minecraft_server.jar nogui
        exit 0
}

argument_check

these are definitely not scripts you can drop in without modifying fairly heavily to get working with your own environment and will require some some scripting and command line knowledge.

Quote from Optimash »

Awesome. This is exactly what I need. Thanks so much!

Do I need to worry about the update overwriting the game saves?

short answer: no
long answer: most likely no but it could depend on what you mean by 'game saves'. do you mean whole world backups or just how the server saves the world to disk?

Quote from Optimash »

Bit of a noob question but I couldn't find anything on this in the forum.

I currently have minecraft_server.jar running on a linux box in screen mode. I'm completely new to ssh commands but know my way around enough to add/remove files and such - can someone give me a quick walk-through of the update process?

- resume your screen session
- stop the currently running server
- rename currently 'minecraft_server.jar' file to something like 'minecraft_server.jar.bak'
- use wget to download the newest jar
- restart your server

ie

screen -r
stop (in the minecraft server console)
mv minecraft_server.jar minecraft_server.jar.bak
wget http://www.minecraft.net/download/minecraft_server.jar
<whatever command you use to start your server with>

Quote from ilike2killu2 »

i followed all this and CMD said unable to access jarfile

that is because the file 'minecraft_server.jar' apparently isn't in the current working directory. you need to either specify the full path or change directory to where the .jar exists.

if you are not willing to change your path to include java, you will have to call java by it's full path. the full path may depend on which version you have installed. for me, i can just replace 'java' with:
"C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\java.exe"
or if you are running 64 bit windows:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre6\bin\java.exe"

so your script would be like:

cd C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\Server

"C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\java.exe" -Xmx1024M -Xms1024M -jar minecraft_server.jar

pause

you can also call "C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\javaw.exe" which will allow the command line window to close but the java console window will remain open:

cd C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\Server
"C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\javaw.exe" -Xmx1024M -Xms1024M -jar minecraft_server.jar

there is a error in the launch.sh. it seems that there is a new line character in the file that is causing the error. copy out the contents of the file and create a new one then it should work.

have you considered moving all of the settings for simple server to the properties file with different sections for each type of setting instead of multiple txt docs? I realize that the minecraft server app uses multiple txt docs but things start to look like a huge mess really quickly. it would also make it easy to differentiate between your settings file and others for the server itself and also other mods that people may be using.

i think what he is trying to say is that it isn't a standard utility on linux distributions and probably isn't open source.

i too am having the same error when playing in smp:

--- BEGIN ERROR REPORT a1dce528 --------
Generated 9/25/10 5:55 PM

Minecraft: Minecraft Alpha v1.1.2_01
OS: Windows 7 (x86) version 6.1
Java: 1.6.0_21, Sun Microsystems Inc.
VM: Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (mixed mode), Sun Microsystems Inc.
LWJGL: 2.4.2
OpenGL: GeForce 8800 GTS/PCI/SSE2 version 3.3.0, NVIDIA Corporation

java.lang.NullPointerException
    at fz.b(SourceFile:58)
    at fz.a(SourceFile:54)
    at bn.a(SourceFile:152)
    at e.a(SourceFile:942)
    at iq.c(SourceFile:342)
    at iq.b(SourceFile:284)
    at net.minecraft.client.Minecraft.run(SourceFile:608)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
--- END ERROR REPORT d05e8f3c ----------