'Outdated Server' when trying to connect

What to do if a new version of Minecraft is available and the players on your server have updated and can't connect to your server.

The Problem

Whenever the minecraft_server.jar and minecraft.jar receive a major update, users may find that they cannot connect to CraftBukkit servers, typically receiving an 'Outdated Server' message. Major updates contain significant changes that would cause issues like server and client instability or even data corruption should the server allow a client of an incompatible version to connect.

The Bukkit team cannot start work on a release to work with the new client until they have access to the new minecraft_server.jar. The Bukkit team need to create a new CraftBukkit server JAR, doing their best to make it compatible with both the new client as well as maintaining and extending the new features to the plugin support. Once they've done that they release it to the Bukkit development community who test the new BukkitCraft server with their plugins, the developers then have to update their plugins if necessary or request changes to the new CraftBukkit.

Once the Bukkit team is satisfied that it is stable and provides the desired plugin support, then they can release it. The whole process can take anything from a few days to weeks or even months depending on the scope and scale of the Minecraft update. Mojang's recently introduced practice of releasing weekly development builds should ease the burden as the Bukkit team and the Plugin developers have had an advanced look at the new code.

What can I Do?

• Create a profile in your Minecraft Launcher to connect to older servers
• Revert to the official Minecraft Server (Quick, easy but you will lose the plugin functions)
• Wait until the new CraftBukkit release arrives (Unknown wait time, players need to have the old minecraft,jar)
• Install the BukkitCraft development build, if available (Unadvisable, could be unstable, no guarantee of plugins working, corruption a possibility)

Reverting to Official Minecraft

This is as simple as changing the jar file that's run from CraftBukkit.jar to minecraft_server.jar. You wont need to remove any plugins as the minecraft_server.jar does not look for the files, re-instating a CraftBukkit server should detect the plugins and their settings once again. There are drawbacks though. Firstly you will lose all Plugin support most vitally you will lose any of the protection offered by a permissions plugin. It'd be in your interest to set the server to use the whitelist functionality. Also, if you use mods that add new items or blocks to Minecraft then they may disappear or start to behave strangely. Server stability may suffer or corruption could occur.

Wait for the new CraftBukkit

When a new release build is ready and it works with the most commonly used plugins, we will update the CraftBukkit.jar used by the MultiCraft Control Panel. As soon as we do that your server will run the new server the next time it is started. Plugins that are not compatible with the new build will not run, you can see which plugins succesfully load by looking at the console window after starting the server. In most cases where a plugin no longer works there will be a new version to install, we will be placing those into the MultiCraft Control Panel. All you will need to do is uninstall and reinstall the plugin, plugins packaged in an archive with directory structure may require you to backup any plugin config files first.

The CraftBukkit team will update their progress on their front page at http://bukkit.org

In the meantime players will have to run the old Minecraft client in order to connect. It is possible to roll back to previous client versions. I suggest using the Digiex Minecraft Launcher tool

http://digiex.net/minecraft/mcvtool/

Using it you can download and run old versions of the Minecraft client. The Digiex Minecraft Launcher downloads the client files directly from the official Minecraft server. Downloading Minecraft files from an untrusted source is both not advised and a violation of the Minecraft license agreement.

To download the Minecraft 1.2.5 client jar file:

1. Run the Launcher
2. Click on Options
3. Click on JAR Downloader
4. A new window called Download Manager will appear (it may be hidden behind other windows), go to that window
5. Open the drop-down box at the top, find and select Minecraft Final 1.2.5
6. Click Add Download, the download should begin immediately
7. When the download has ended, close the Download Manager

To run a specific version of the Minecraft Client

1. Run the Launcher
2. Select the desired JAR file from the drop-down at the bottom
3. Click Login

The Launcher will also find any custom JAR files in the Minecraft bin folder, so you can run modded clients using the tool.

You can also rename any of the client JAR files to minecraft.jar which will let you use it with the Official Minecraft Launcher.

Install the latest BukkitCraft Development build

Pretty much the same as waiting for the proper release but you will have to manually configure MultiCraft to run it. With so many unknowns about whether plugins will work and the stability of the development build, this is not something we would suggest you try. We would only consider helping customers who required a development build to test out plugins. Development builds are for testing, they are not suitable for running a community game.