How sleeping servers work: sleep, waking up and the queue

A free Cobbly server does not run around the clock. When nobody is playing, it goes to sleep: it saves your world, stores it safely, and hands the machine it was using back to a shared pool. When someone tries to join, it wakes up again. That is the trade that makes the free tier possible — hardware only costs money while it is running, so servers only run while someone is using them. Nothing about sleeping deletes or damages your world.

When a server goes to sleep

After 5 minutes with nobody online, the server shuts down. The timer is fixed and shown under Configuration on the server page; it is not something you can change, and there is no "never sleep" option — a server that never slept would hold a slot other people are waiting for.

Only players count. A server with one person online, even standing still, stays awake. A server with nobody online goes to sleep even if you have farms or redstone running, because nothing loads those chunks without a player nearby.

What happens to your world

1. The server saves the world, exactly as /save-all would.
2. It shuts down cleanly — the same as pressing Stop.
3. Your world, settings, mods and plugins are uploaded to storage.
4. The slot it used is freed for someone else.

When it next starts, everything is restored before Minecraft boots, so you pick up exactly where you left off. While it is asleep you can still download the world from the World tab, and browse and edit your files in the Files tab. If you want an extra safety net on top of that, backups keep separate restore points.

How to wake it up

There are two ways, and both do the same thing:

• Try to join from Minecraft. The attempt itself wakes the server. You are disconnected with a message saying it is starting — reconnect once it has booted.
• Press Start on the server page. Useful when you want it ready before your friends arrive, and it skips the disconnect.

Waking usually takes under a minute on Vanilla or Paper. It is slower the first time a particular version or loader runs on a machine, because the server software has to be downloaded first. Modded servers take longer on every start, and large modpacks can need several minutes before they accept players.

Who can wake your server

By default, anyone who knows your address can wake it by trying to join. If the whitelist is on, it is checked before the server wakes, so only the players on it can start it. That keeps strangers from spinning your server up, and it is the main reason to turn the whitelist on even for a small private server — see Controlling who can join.

What "In queue" means

Free servers share a pool of machines. At busy times, every slot in that pool can be in use when you try to start. Instead of failing, your server joins a queue.

• You do not need to do anything. It starts automatically as soon as a slot frees up.
• Your position is shown on the server page, and in your Minecraft server list as Queue # and a number.
• Slots free up constantly, because other servers go to sleep when their players leave.
• To leave the queue, press Stop. That gives up your place — it does not affect anything else.

Making sleep work for you

• Press Start a minute or two before your group gets on, so nobody waits.
• On a modpack, start the server early — big packs are the slowest to boot.
• Turn on the whitelist so random connection attempts cannot wake the server or hold a slot.
• If you need a server that is always on — a public community server, or one running farms around the clock — that is what the paid tier is for. One click on the panel copies your world and settings to a paid Spawnly server with no sleeping, and your free server keeps running, so you can change your mind.