A common situation for server owners on the Expanse Panel is encountering a bug that isn’t caused by the server JAR, configurations, or external factors—but is instead caused by a plugin. When you know the issue is plugin-related but don’t know which plugin, a binary search method is one of the most effective ways to find the culprit.
⚠️ Warning: Using dynamic plugin unloaders or hot-swapping plugins is technically possible, but unreliable and very likely to break something. We strongly recommend shutting the server, moving plugins manually, and restarting.
Here’s how to proceed:
Step 1: Rule out the server JAR & external causes
Ensure that the bug is not coming from your server software (e.g., Paper, Forge, Fabric), your startup flags, proxy setup, database, port bindings, etc. If you’re using a fork of Paper or any modified JAR, consider switching back to vanilla Paper temporarily to verify.
If external setups (proxies, ports, DB) are clean and under control, you can proceed to narrow down to plugins.
Step 2: Remove half of the plugins
Shut down your server via the Expanse Panel, then move roughly half of the .jar files from your plugins folder into another folder (e.g., plugins-hold/). After that, restart the server.
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If the bug disappears → the culprit is among the removed plugins.
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If the bug is still present → the culprit is among the remaining plugins.
Step 3: Narrow down further
Whichever group (removed or remaining) has the bad plugin, split that group in half and repeat Step 2: remove half of them, restart, check again.
Continue this “half-split” approach (binary search) until you isolate one plugin causing the issue.
Step 4: Fix the culprit and restore your setup
Once you identify the problematic plugin:
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Remove or update it.
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Restore the rest of your plugins back into the
pluginsfolder. -
Restart the server and verify the bug is resolved.
Additional suggestions
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Take a backup of your
pluginsfolder (and optionally your world/server.properties) before starting the process. -
Use the Versions tab in the Expanse Panel to verify you are running a clean, supported version of your server software before testing plugins.
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Keep a log of plugin versions (date, version number) so when you find the culprit you can check whether a recent update triggered the issue.
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If you use a proxy (e.g., BungeeCord / Waterfall / Velocity) and the bug appears only across sub-servers, you might want to isolate plugin groups per sub-server rather than the whole network.
Please contact us if you face any difficulty.