Minecraft Forums

I made a server for my friend and I to play on. From the second one of us connected the server spat out this error:

[WARNING] Can't keep up! Did the system time change, or is the server overloaded?

I thought at first this would be a simple fix. A little Googling and some server.properties editing and this 'warning' should be gone in no time, right? WRONG! And I'm sure many of you that have encountered this error had these false hopes as well. But hope falsly no more! For I have a fix that will hopefully work for you as well!


For me the problem must have been the 'system time' part of that error. So here's a little explanation of why this error is happening, from the website with part of our fix:

The AMD Dual-Core Optimizer can help improve some PC gaming video performance by compensating for those applications that bypass the Windows API for timing by directly using the RDTSC (Read Time Stamp Counter) instruction. Applications that rely on RDTSC do not benefit from the logic in the operating system to properly account for the affect of power management mechanisms on the rate at which a processor core's Time Stamp Counter (TSC) is incremented. The AMD Dual-Core Optimizer helps to correct the resulting video performance effects or other incorrect timing effects that these applications may experience on dual-core processor systems, by periodically adjusting the core time-stamp-counters, so that they are synchronized.

I'm assuming that the Minecraft Server is one of those applications that bypass the Windows API for timing so there is a change that the 'system time' (the processor core's Time Stamp Counter (TSC)). Now, I'm not 100% sure that this is the case, as I have no concrete proof that the server does this, I'm just making an assumption because this is what fixed my problem.

Here's what I assume is happening: the Server does not check in with the processor's TSC and for some reason this cause it to freak out. That is why updating your actual system clock(that you see in the corner and the one that (hopefully) connects to the internet to update) does not fix this problem.


Go to the website below (the website of the above quote) and download that AMD Dual-Core Optimizer Version 1.1.4!
http://support.amd.com/us/Pages/dynamic ... ItemID=153
BAM! That's it!

"But I dont have an AMD processor... *sob*"
You shut up.. and you download that software. It doesn't matter what processor you have (I think. ;P I have an NVIDIA processor).

"B-b-but it didn't work.. *sob*"
There, there. Don't fret, for there is still one thing more I did that I haven't mentioned yet.
Instead of running Minecraft_Server.exe download the Minecraft_Server.jar (download here: . Run it and see that it says 'Not enough RAM' or something like that.
Create a new folder and put the server in there.
Open notepad and put this in it:

java -Xmx1024M -Xms1024M -jar minecraft_server.jar

Now save it with any name you want just make sure it ends in .bat For example: run.bat
This will allow the server to run with more ram (1024mb to be exact).
Run the run.bat and your server should launch along with a command prompt and you can use your server.

WAAHHH!! It's still not working!
Here's a few more things for you to try:

[*:2e6drtnq]Let your server run for a few minutes. It might still be loading a few things.
[*:2e6drtnq]Try turning off monster spawning in your server.properties file and maybe even animal spawning, just to be safe.

That's all I have for you guys and hopefully this works. Sorry to those who don't have a Windows OS. I would translate and add things for you guys to do but I really don't know what you guys have to do.

Lastly, I must let you guys know that I took a few methods I found on the forums and through Google and compiled them into this one guide. I did this not to take anyone's idea but to put the information into one place and give a little instruction on how I got things to work. I know I had trouble figuring this stuff out, so hopefully I have saved you guys time and frustration.

If you have a problem or a question, post it and I'll try my best to help you. If I have no idea what to do, I probably won't reply to your post. Hopefully some other member will be able to help you. Sorry in advance.
Thank you for reading and I hope this guide has helped you!

And this is my first post! So hi to all of you!

Small flaw, my processor is a Intel Xeon 3.2ghz single core.... and I get that message often. Even with no one connected to the server. And running Linux, so no windows API to bypass....

Thanks for trying though.