Lag Only When a Specific Player Is Joining


After playing on your server for a while, you may experience performance issues or lag. This is normal, as the Minecraft world is getting bigger and bigger as you play, increasing the chances of a bugged item, entity, or block appearing near a player or in their inventory, creating lag on your server.

This guide will walk you through the process of troubleshooting and solving lag related to a player on your server.

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# Possible Causes and Identifying Them

* It may be possible that a ticking issue occurred with one of the items that the player has in their inventory.
* A ticking issue may have occurred with an item, block, or entity near the player’s current location.
* The player’s data files may be corrupted.

To see why a player is crashing your server, you can use the methods presented below.

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## Test Items in their Inventory

If the cause of the issue is an item from their inventory, it is recommended to first try to put all his items in a chest, then test and see if the server is still experiencing lag.

This way, you can test if one of the items is causing the issue.

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## Generating a Spark Report

On a plugin or modded server, it is recommended you set up Spark and generate a report to accurately identify why a specific player is causing lag.

When it comes to identifying performance issues on your server, you should always think of using the Spark profiler. It is a plugin and mod that will help you identify the source of your lag so you can handle it better.

Once a Spark report is generated, the profiler will list any processes that are causing lag on your server. This way, you can see if a block is at fault or if an item is at fault. Your player can be around that block, or it may have that specific item in their inventory.

||| [Here](https://help.ggservers.com/en-us/article/how-to-set-up-and-use-spark-tiuir7/) is our guide for setting up and using Spark. The guide also explains how to generate a Spark report and read it.

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## Ticking Entity

You should always check your server crash logs. For example, if there are crash reports taking place right after a player joins, then for sure he is the faulty one with a ticking entity near his location, a bugged item in his inventory, or something similar.

||| [Here](https://help.ggservers.com/en-us/article/how-to-use-the-crash-log-scanner-a0j34v/) is our guide for finding your server crash reports and also for using our log scanner tool.

Sometimes, the crash report will mention the exact block type that is producing lag and crashing the server and its location. With the X, Y, and Z coordinates of the block near the player, removing it will be a lot easier. Sometimes, the ticking entity is the player itself, meaning that an item from his inventory bugged out, making the player itself the ticking entity.

||| [Here](https://help.ggservers.com/en-us/article/how-to-fix-a-ticking-entity-error-1yjzxl7/) is our guide explaining how to solve ticking entity errors.

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**We recommend that you first teleport to the specific player’s current or last known location to see if you are experiencing great lag there as well. If yes, then a ticking entity or block may be in that specific area, and you should proceed to remove it.**

This way, you can test and see if the cause of the lag produced by the player is a ticking item, entity, or block in his vicinity.

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# ✔️ How to Solve ✔️

Depending on what is causing the lag, you can try solving it by removing the bugged item from the player’s inventory, deleting that specific player’s data, or removing the ticking block or entity in the chunk(s) near the specific player’s current location.

|| ⚠ **NOTE **⚠: If you are running a plugin or modded server, it is highly recommended to generate a Spark report as shown [in the steps above](2#-Generating-a-Spark-Report) before attempting to solve the performance issues, as the profiler will point you in the right direction, helping you identify if an item, ticking entity, or block is responsible. [Here](https://help.ggservers.com/en-us/article/how-to-set-up-and-use-spark-tiuir7/) is our guide explaining how to generate and read a Spark report.

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## Remove the Ticking Entity or Block

If the lag is caused by an item, block, or entity near the player’s current location, then removing it or the chunk(s) from that area will solve the issue. One way to do it is to note the coordinates after teleporting to the specific area and proceed to remove the nearby chunk(s) using MCASelector.

||| [Here](https://help.ggservers.com/en-us/article/how-to-remove-unwanted-chunks-using-mcaselector-8y672x/#1-how-to-remove-unwanted-chunks) is our guide for using MCASelector to remove a specific chunk from your world.
||| You can find [here](https://help.ggservers.com/en-us/article/how-to-fix-a-ticking-entity-error-1yjzxl7/) our guide regarding ticking entity errors and how to solve them.
|| ⚠ **NOTE **⚠: Be sure you first teleport to the specific player’s current or last known location to see if you are experiencing lag there as well.

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You will need to start the process by downloading your world to be able to load it on your client or in MCASelector. This way, you can remove the item, entity, or block causing the error.

After removing the specific entity, block, or chunk(s), you should upload your world back to the server, teleport again to the specific location, and see if you are not experiencing lag anymore.

||| [Here](https://help.ggservers.com/en-us/article/how-to-download-your-world-17ewr1r/) is our guide for downloading your world, and [here](https://help.ggservers.com/en-us/article/how-to-upload-a-world-to-your-server-2g0nyj/) is the one for uploading it back to your server.

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## Delete the Player Data

One way to solve this issue is to delete the player’s data for that specific player, as this will make the server see him as a new player, spawning him at the world spawn with an empty inventory.

||| Our guide for deleting a specific player’s data can be found [here](https://help.ggservers.com/en-us/article/how-and-when-should-you-delete-your-player-data-1wo9h3s/).
|| ⚠ **NOTE **⚠: If you delete a player’s data folder, only the inventory and level will be reset. But you can use console commands to add a player’s level and inventory after you delete the player’s data. Our guide explaining Vanilla commands can be found [here](https://help.ggservers.com/en-us/article/vanilla-commands-11xx8gv/).

* This way, the player’s inventory gets cleaned, so any item-related issue regarding the inventory is solved.

* Also, the player will be seen as a new one, so he will be spawned at the world spawn point the next time he joins, so issues related to items, blocks, or entities around him will be solved.

* If the player’s data is corrupted, deleting it will also solve the problem.

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## Remove Inventory

If you are running a plugin or modded server, you can use plugins or mods that can clear players’ inventories as a last resort. This way, if you are sure that an item from the player’s inventory is causing the issue, you can clear just the inventory, not the entire player’s data.

|| ⚠ **NOTE **⚠: Before attempting to delete your inventory, we highly suggest you first leave all items in your inventory in a chest, then see if the server is still experiencing lag.

For example, the [EssentialsX plugin](https://help.ggservers.com/en-us/article/how-to-set-up-and-use-essentialsx-li3327/) includes the `/clearinventory` command, which is an excellent addition to any plugin server.

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| Please contact us on live chat or via the [ticket system](https://help.ggservers.com/en-us/article/how-to-open-a-support-ticket-qjzuyd/) if you encounter issues troubleshooting lag produced by a specific player joining your server.
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# ❕ Useful Links ❕

– [Corrupted World Error Type](https://help.ggservers.com/en-us/article/corrupted-world-error-type-1uvg3ys/)
– [Types of Villages and Villager Jobs](https://help.ggservers.com/en-us/article/types-of-villages-and-villager-jobs-1bmrv08/)
– [How to Edit Your Server Configuration Files](https://help.ggservers.com/en-us/article/how-to-edit-your-server-configuration-files-gcnl58/)