📘 Minecraft Server Auto-Restart Script with `screen` on Linux

🎥 Video Tutorial Available:
Set up explained step-by-step in this video:
👉 Watch the tutorial on YouTube

📥 Download Available:
Download the script files.
👉 Download here

📁 Folder Structure


server-folder/
├── app.jar          # Your Minecraft server JAR file
├── loop.sh          # Restart loop script
└── start.sh         # Entry point to launch the server in a detached session

📄 Files Overview

1. `start.sh`

This script checks if screen and java are installed, navigates to its own directory, and starts loop.sh in a detached screen session.

#!/bin/bash

# Check if required commands are available
command -v screen >/dev/null 2>&1 || { echo >&2 "Error: 'screen' is not installed. Aborting."; exit 1; }
command -v java >/dev/null 2>&1 || { echo >&2 "Error: 'java' is not installed. Aborting."; exit 1; }

# Change to the script's directory
BINDIR=$(dirname "$(readlink -fn "$0")")
cd "$BINDIR" || exit 1

# Start the server loop in a detached screen session named 'lobby1'
screen -dmS "lobby1" bash ./loop.sh

2. `loop.sh`

This script starts your Minecraft server and automatically restarts it if it stops.

#!/bin/bash

BINDIR=$(dirname "$(readlink -fn "$0")")
cd "$BINDIR"
echo -ne "\033]0;lobby1\007"  # Set terminal title to 'lobby1'

while true; do
    java -Xms1G -Xmx1G -jar app.jar

    echo "You want to stop the server? Then press CTRL+C before the counter reaches 1"
    echo "Reboot in:"
    for i in 5 4 3 2 1; do
        echo "$i..."
        sleep 1
    done
    echo "Server rebooting!"
done

Replace app.jar with your actual server JAR filename (e.g., paper-1.20.4.jar).

▶️ How to Start

Make both scripts executable:
```
chmod +x start.sh loop.sh
```
Start the server:
```
./start.sh
```
Attach to the screen session (optional):
```
screen -r lobby1
```
To detach again, press Ctrl+A, then D.

🧩 Known Issues

❌ `screen is terminating` Error

Sometimes, the screen session crashes immediately with a "terminating" message. This is usually due to misconfigured shell environments or permissions.

✅ Solutions

Check this SpigotMC forum thread for background: Spigot Forum – screen is terminating
Solution explained here: unix.stackexchange.com – screen is terminating

💡 Tips

To stop the server gracefully, attach to the screen (screen -r lobby1) and type stop in the console.
To kill the session completely:
```
screen -S lobby1 -X quit
```

👨‍💻 Ente_3
☕ Java 🐟Inocnnu Dev

🐙 GitHub

📘 Minecraft Server Auto-Restart Script with screen on Linux

Ente_3