I was just reading a thread about the /reload command with Bukkit. I didn't understand it completely, since I'm new to all this stuff. Apparently, servers that use the command lag more than those who don't. If I restarted my server, would the lag be fixed? I've reloaded tens of times and I'm regretting it now. Do I have to start fresh and reinstall all of my plugins to fix the 'memory leaks?' Reload Thread: http://forums.bukkit.org/threads/petition-to-remove-the-reload-command.43212/
Do not use /reload unless you have no choice or testing changes. It can cause countless issues, not to mention if you have PEX forget it you will probably crash. I sometimes need it cause I am testing a change in a plugin that doesn't offer a /plugin reload command. And rather not restart the server a dozen times.
Is /reload that bad? No. It's worse. I've actually tested this MANY times... even just randomly typing /reload throughout the day. I use PEX... never had it crash. WillThGreat For testing, yes you are probably safe to use /reload sparingly, but after you are done... shut down and restart the server or you are begging to have issues. EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.
I used to use PEX on my actual and testing server, saw many server breaks with it because of /reload. Many plugins notably are simply not written with reload in mind. It's preferable to use a plugin manager to disable/enable plugins if you really need to. 9 times out of 10 you don't need to reload every plugin anyway, just the ones you are working with/updating. If possible however, it is better to just restart altogether. Minecraft (and subsequently Bukkit and Bukkit plugins) in general is not known for its solid memory performance.
It does depend on the side conditions, like plugins, online-players and server-concept/setup. A general problem is that when you do /reload, players might still be online. If your plugins then check permissions while the permissions plugin has not yet been enabled, it might have unwanted effects (depending on server-setup up to disastrous effects, thinking of plugins default permissions being overridden by a permissions setup or "kill-zones" leading to inconsistent states). Probably a solution to this would be to allow some generic dependencies and plugin properties like loading a plugin after all plugins that are "a permissions plugin" have been loaded. Naturally adding an option to set "i am a permissions plugin". Another attempt could be to introduce a load-order-priority for plugins, similar to event handling - dependencies would of course rule over it, but it could be an attempt to give plugins some possibility for mutual ordering. Another point is that some plugins might not be coded optimally, so /reload with players online (or even without) might change some plugin behavior. Usually you have to blame the authors for this, on the other hand it can be very inconvenient to do a considerable amount of extra coding just for /reload, while /reload has not been working for ages anyway. Quite some CraftBukkit versions before 1.4.7-R1.0 simply contained a bug that might have caused a lot of trouble with /reload (tasks not being cancelled).
PEX + reload? Or do you mean just PEX in general. If the latter than yea its fine, but if you ever did a /reload most likely it will crash your server.
I've been reloading and haven't had any problems. But now I definitely won't anymore. Does reloading cause any permanent issues? Just asking because that's what it sounded like on the thread I read. (linked in the main post)
No i mean pex... and /reload. Sorry, but it's not a universal thing to say "PEX will crash if you use /reload"... maybe there are other factors on your server that contribute to this. I've never seen it crash my server.
I use /reload all the time. I never seem to run into any problems with it.. I can see it happening if a server has a lot of plugins though.. mine has about 7 or 8 :/
Each reload will use more ram that you can't get back until a full restart. Other than that, most plugins handle it correctly.
Everytime you install a plugin, do /reload. Nothing else, you can if you have permissions and changed some groups or important config changes No danger. In port forwarding the server might mess up in Java and delete players etc, but thats not often happening to people.
Ok, thanks guys. That's all I needed to know: If whatever reloading does can be fixed by a restart. that is not always true. depending on the plugin, doing a /reload while installing it would cause it to fail to start correctly. most plugins dont support reload as a configuration reload, and will overwrite their config sometimes by the /reload. you should always use the plugin given reload command (if needed) if you edit a configuration file. EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.