Fix Minecraft 'Can't Keep Up! Is the Server Overloaded?'
The Console message "Can't keep up! Is the server overloaded? Running 5000ms or 100 ticks behind" means the server took longer than 50 milliseconds to finish a tick. The game targets 20 ticks per second, so falling behind shows up as lag, rubber banding and delayed blocks.
What it really means
It is not an error in itself. It is a warning that something is consuming too much processing time. Occasional single warnings after startup or a world save are normal. Constant warnings are a problem.
Common causes
- Too many entities, such as farms, villagers or dropped items stacked in one place.
- High view-distance and simulation-distance.
- Exploring new terrain, which forces chunk generation.
- A slow plugin or mod.
- Big redstone machines or hopper chains.
- Not enough RAM, leading to constant garbage collection.
Fixes to try
- Check the Console right after the warning. Find what was happening, such as a player teleporting far away.
- Lower view-distance and simulation-distance in server.properties and restart.
- Pre-generate the world with Chunky so chunks are not generated while players explore.
- Find laggy entities. Use a profiler such as the spark plugin to see which plugin or chunk is heavy.
- Remove or limit mob farms and clear dropped items.
- Update plugins and your server software. Paper is usually faster than vanilla.
- Remove plugins or mods one by one if the problem started after adding something.
- Make sure your RAM allocation matches your player count, but do not assign every bit, as the JVM needs headroom.
When it only happens at startup
If the warning appears only while the world loads, it is generally harmless. Wait for the server to finish.
Still lagging
If you cannot find the cause, open a ticket on Discord with a spark profiler report link and your plugin list. Our guide to reducing Minecraft server lag covers more settings.