AASM v0.9.7: The “Fleet Toolkit” Update

What’s new in v0.9.7

v0.9.6 was fixes only. v0.9.7 brings the features we held back, plus the fixes for everything you reported since 0.9.6 shipped.

The theme is running a fleet: finding things fast across all your servers, seeing every player in one place, scheduling what happens and when, and copying what works on one server to the rest. Alongside that, one serious bug is fixed (an import plus delete could wipe several installs), and a long list of backup, maintenance, sync and Linux problems from your reports are fixed too.

Most of the fixes started as a bug report in our Discord. Thanks for the logs.

New features

Find and see across the fleet

• Global search (Ctrl+K). One search box for servers, settings, mods, backups, scheduled RCON commands and plugins. Pick a result and AASM takes you straight to it.
• Players panel. The new Players button opens a read-only list of players across all your servers, with search, who’s online now and when each player was last seen.
• NETWORK card on the dashboard. Upload and download for the whole PC have their own card in the stat row, with disk read and write underneath. CPU USAGE now shows only CPU.
• Server passwords are masked with a reveal toggle and a copy button, for the server and admin passwords.
• The Mod Manager remembers grid or list view, and shows the Sync Group follower notice when a server’s mods come from its leader.

Scheduling and automation

• Timed events and mod rotation. The Maintenance tab has a Timed events panel with up to 10 events. Each event applies a settings overlay and a mod overlay while the server is stopped, and puts your normal settings and mods back afterwards. Use it for weekend events, rotating maps’ mods, or a temporary rates boost.
• Scheduled RCON commands can repeat every N hours, days or weeks, with a preview of the next 3 runs.
• Maintenance announcements use a selector: ServerChat (a normal chat line) or Broadcast. If you had saved something else (for example say), it shows as “Unsupported saved value” and isn’t changed until you pick one.
• Auto-unlock all known engrams. In Overrides, unlock every known engram at its natural level, or all of them at a level you choose (0 to 155). You get a preview first, then apply, and you can undo it. This covers vanilla engrams only (see Worth knowing).

Backups

• “Every N hours” backups. A new interval backup tier with its own Keep N Backups and an optional Backup Folder, alongside the regular schedule.
• Planned backup timing. Start backups at a set minute and second after each mark, with a per-server offset in seconds, so a fleet doesn’t back up all at once.
• Backup drive panel. A server’s Backup & Restore tab shows used and free space on its backup drive under Statistics, with a “Backup drive warning (%)” threshold you set (50 to 100). The server card stays clean and only shows a red line once the drive is past that threshold. It works for a new server whose backup folder doesn’t exist yet: it shows the drive the folder will be created on.
• Leave out .arkrbf rollback copies. A new switch (off by default) keeps ARK’s .arkrbf rollback files out of world backups, which can make them much smaller.
• Another server’s backup tells you how to use it. Restoring a backup that belongs to a different server is refused, with the two ways to use it: restore it from the owning server’s tab, or copy it as imported_<name>.

Server setup and mods

• Create a server from existing INI files. “Create from INI” in the Install Wizard’s first step (and in the Web UI) builds a new server from your existing Game.ini and GameUserSettings.ini, including the ports from [SessionSettings].
• Reinstall All Mods. Maintenance > System Operations can reinstall every mod on a stopped local server. The old mod files go to a quarantine you can restore from or delete. Admin only.
• ASA API plugins: “Copy to servers” and a Plugin config editor in the ASA API tab.
• Mod maps that save under another folder. Custom Map Mods has an optional “Save Folder Name” (for example Scorched Earth Reborn saves to ScorchedEarthExpansion), so backups and Player Characters find the right saves. A custom map can also reuse a stock map’s name now.
• Forglar Part II (Forglar2_WP) is a predefined map. Reset custom maps also brings back The Island Reforged and The Volcano.
• New creatures in the creature pickers: Acrocanthosaurus, Cryolophosaurus, Aureliax, Gigadesmodus, Gloon, Malwyn, Solwyn, Neophyte, Ossidon, Alpha Ossidon, Revenant, Bloated Revenant, Hulking Revenant, Revenant Ossidon, Revenant Malwyn, Revenant Veilwyn, Veilwyn, plus Umbra and Lumina (Dragontopia content). They aren’t in the spawn-weight picker yet.
• MultiHome IP field next to Console Arguments, with a warning if you enter a public IP.
• Console windows (Windows): show, hide or minimize a server’s console from Console window… in its card’s ⋮ menu (desktop or Web UI), and choose how the next launch opens it.
• Advanced Config: Shift grouping is now a saved preference you can switch off, and typing a number edits only the field you typed in.
• A server that never reached ready says why, using the end of its ShooterGame.log.

Important fix: import and delete

• Importing the parent folder of several installs, then deleting that record with “delete files”, wiped every install under it. AASM now refuses to import a folder that holds several installs, and the delete, move and update paths refuse to touch another server’s install, cluster folder, backups or whitelist. Installs nested deeper than two levels are found too. A shared-install instance’s folder can’t be imported as a separate server. Records AASM won’t delete, move or update show a notice on their card, and pressing Delete twice runs one delete, not two.

Fixes

Backups & Restore

• The Restore button is always visible, even with long backup names, and says why it’s greyed out. A failed listing shows an error instead of “No backups found”.
• Backups recover after a crash on a busy PC. Lock recovery no longer gives up when Windows is slow to answer, and backups run faster.
• Backing up a map with two save folders (for example TheIsland_WP and TheIsland after a rename) gets a clear message naming both folders, instead of “Ambiguous populated save domains” and a raw dump. The full reason stays on screen instead of being replaced by “Failed to create backup”. Player Characters shows the same clear message. A full restore of such a map is still refused before anything is written, with the older technical message.
• The “Scheduled backup failure” banner clears after the next good backup. Backup Now errors show a readable message instead of the raw “Error invoking remote method” text.
• Player Characters on a UseStore server explains why the list is empty. On a server that has never run, it shows the normal empty state instead of a red error.
• The map dropdown no longer shows two “custom maps” headers.

Server control & maintenance

• Maintenance no longer leaves a server down when its start is refused once. If the start is refused because the PC was too busy to check processes, AASM retries it for up to 9 minutes. If it still can’t start safely, the card says why instead of “start action returned false”.
• Every start applies settings queued while the server ran. Before, only Restart did; a stop followed by a start (maintenance, bulk restart, Web UI or Discord) launched with the old values.
• A new server keeps its settings through its first boot.
• Maximum Players set on the Server Settings page is applied when the server starts. Before, the server kept the player limit stored in its server record, whatever the page showed.
• Cancel stops a mod-update countdown from the server card, the Web UI and a remote window.
• Repair mods checks the server itself and refuses while its ARK process is still running, even if AASM shows it stopped.
• The Cryofridge setting is correct now: “Cryofridge Activation Time (Seconds)”, default 90 like the game, range 0 to 600. It used to say minutes and show 0 on servers where the game used 90 seconds.
• Allow Flyers Speed Leveling shows the right value, and a queued change can be undone after a reload.
• A dino wipe with an invalid “Every X Days” interval falls back to 1 day with a warning, instead of firing over and over.
• A server whose saved map name matches more than one map entry stays Stopped and its card says why, instead of just showing Error.
• Players with a dot or comma in their name are counted and reach Player History. A player whose id is still blank is counted online again.
• INI files keep their own line endings, RCON settings no longer add a second [ServerSettings] section, and INI files saved as UTF-16 are no longer garbled when creating a shared-install instance or importing. A UTF-16 INI file (classic Notepad saves that way) is also read correctly now: the RCON tab shows the file’s port instead of the default, and saving RCON settings no longer garbles the file.

Sync groups and copying

• The message of the day stays per-server when a Sync Group syncs game settings.
• A running follower only queues real differences for restart, instead of every captured setting.
• Copy dialogs disable sync-group followers and say to copy to the leader instead. Mod copies skip followers whose group syncs mods, and remote copy dialogs judge each target separately.
• An empty sync group can be deleted.

Discord

• Discord-to-game chat reaches every server in a chat group, even when one server’s RCON doesn’t answer.
• The bot checks its channel permissions. The Discord dialog shows any channel or category setting that blocks the bot, with a Re-invite button. The bot now asks for Attach Files.
• Admin commands are listed only to members with Manage Server by default. /setup admin list-for: Everyone lists them for everyone; your admin role still decides who can run them.

Web UI

• One Web UI. The old standalone Web UI console is removed; the default Web UI is the only one.
• Refreshing the page no longer signs you out after a network hiccup or server error.
• Creating a Shared Install Instance works from the Web UI.
• No more false “REINIT LOOP SUSPECTED” errors in the browser console.

ASA API

• Servers on ASA API 2.03 are offered 2.1. The version check read 2.03 as 2.3 and reported every server as up to date.

Performance & privacy

• Much less disk and CPU from the audit log. Every audit entry used to rewrite the whole day’s file, which could mean hours of heavy disk writes and 5 to 20% CPU.
• Passwords are no longer written to the console log, and the player poll no longer logs player names.

Linux

• A distro-installed steamcmd (for example /usr/games/steamcmd from apt) is recognised, so servers can be installed with it.
• A data folder with a space in its path works: servers launch, and boot and crash restarts start them.
• “Start Servers at Boot” is the Linux name for the boot switch, and it says what it does: it starts the servers marked “Start with App” when the computer boots.
• Turning on Start Servers at Boot no longer starts a second copy of a server that’s already running, keeps the server’s last launch arguments and environment instead of bare defaults, and turning it off finds every enabled server.
• A server that keeps failing stops after 5 starts in an hour instead of restarting forever. Starting it yourself resets that.
• A deleted server no longer starts at boot. Deleting a server now turns off its boot entry, and deleting it with its files also clears its state folder (Proton prefix and launch files).
• Linux packages no longer carry a leftover build file from the build PC.

Companion RCON Manager

• The bundled ASA RCON Manager updates to v0.9.7.
• A crashed or frozen window comes back by itself and the crash is logged. Logging no longer stalls the app on a slow disk.
• It remembers its window size and position.
• Exported config files carry the right version.
• Licence logging no longer includes your email, key or hardware ID.

Worth knowing

• Console show/hide/minimize is Windows only. A console set to Hidden shows for about 20 seconds before it hides. With AsaApiLoader, ARK’s console still shows for 1 to 2 seconds before it’s minimized.
• Auto-unlock covers vanilla engrams only. Modded engrams aren’t included.
• Existing Cryofridge activation values in your INI aren’t changed.
• On Linux the log shows “Process cleanup only supported on Windows” during installs. It’s harmless.
• If a bulk start only starts some of your servers, send us the AASM debug log of that start.
• Still true from 0.9.6: the safety copy holds the world file only; with {date} or {timestamp} folder templates the safety copy drops out of the list; Skip Countdown When Empty restarts early on purpose; a stopped Discord bot comes back with Retry connection; SMB “Test connection” needs the share’s username and password; SMB backups without a local folder are reported failed and not retried.

Known issues

These are still open in v0.9.7, unchanged from 0.9.6. Each has a manual step: AASM stops with an error and leaves the lock where it is. Close AASM, then delete the leftover lock by hand.

• Linux: a backup lock left behind by AASM v0.9.5 isn’t cleared automatically (“Legacy backup lock present”). Close AASM, then in that backup folder delete the hidden .aasm-backup-*.lock file (and the hidden .aasm-backup-directory.lock folder, if there is one).
• A lock whose old process number is now in use isn’t cleared automatically (“Legacy backup lock present” or “live-or-pid-reused”). If it’s still there after restarting AASM, close AASM and delete the hidden lock files and folder in that backup folder.
• SFTP: a stale lock on the backup destination isn’t cleared automatically (“remote directory lease”, or “Restore failed:” for remote-only restores). Close AASM on every PC that backs up there, then delete the .aasm-backup-directory.lock folder on the SFTP server.
• Network backup folder (SMB/NFS): a leftover lock isn’t cleared automatically. Close AASM on every PC that uses the folder, then delete the hidden .aasm-backup-directory.lock folder and any .aasm-backup-*.lock files in it. On Linux the same applies to backup folders on drives that aren’t ext2/3/4, Btrfs, XFS or F2FS.

Upgrade notes

• Every start now applies queued settings. If you changed settings on a running server and haven’t restarted it, the next start (not only Restart) applies them.
• Repair mods is refused on a sync-group follower whose group syncs mods. Repair mods on the group’s leader instead.
• Saved announcement commands other than ServerChat or Broadcast show as “Unsupported saved value”. Pick one of the two in the Maintenance tab.
• The standalone Web UI console is gone. If you used it, the default Web UI at the same address replaces it.
• Discord admin commands are hidden from members without Manage Server by default. Run /setup admin list-for: Everyone if you want everyone to see them. Re-invite the bot from the Discord dialog if it reports a missing permission (it now needs Attach Files).
• The message of the day is no longer synced from a Sync Group leader. Each follower keeps its own.
• Linux: a server that crashes 5 times within an hour stays down until you start it. Installed systemd units are rewritten the next time you toggle Start Servers at Boot or a unit starts.

Platform and file details

For either platform, use at least 16 GB RAM. AASM recommends 32 GB when running multiple ASA servers, plus SSD storage and sufficient free space for server files, staging data and backups.

How to update

1. Stop active server maintenance and wait for backups or updates already in progress to finish.
2. Create a current backup of every world and any shared cluster data.
3. Read the Upgrade notes and Known issues above: every start now applies queued settings, saved announcement commands and Discord admin command visibility changed, and on Linux a server that keeps crashing now stays down.
4. Update in-app through Settings → Check for Updates, or download the correct file from this domain and verify its SHA-256 fingerprint. A .deb or AppImage install is updated by downloading the new file.
5. Confirm AASM shows v0.9.7 before restarting the fleet.