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My Nether/End Reset After Switching Server Versions

Category World Last updated 2 min read

If you’ve switched server software and your Nether or End looks completely empty, like you’re loading into a brand new world, don’t panic. In almost every case, nothing was actually deleted. Your old Nether and End are still there, the server is just looking in the wrong folder for them.

Why Did My Nether/End Reset?

Section titled “Why Did My Nether/End Reset?”

The folder Minecraft reads the Nether and End from is different depending on your server software:

Server software Nether folder End folder
Vanilla and Forge /<world name>/DIM-1/ /<world name>/DIM1/
CraftBukkit and Spigot (and Paper) /<world name>_nether/ /<world name>_the_end/

If you switch from, say, Vanilla to CraftBukkit, the server starts looking for your Nether and End in /<world name>_nether/ and /<world name>_the_end/, folders that don’t exist yet since you were previously on Vanilla. Since nothing is there, the server just generates a brand new, empty Nether and End instead. Your original dimension data hasn’t gone anywhere, it’s still sitting in the old DIM-1 and DIM1 folders, just not where your new server software is looking for it.

Note: Minecraft 26.1 also changed where Vanilla and Forge store dimension data, moving it from DIM-1/DIM1 into a dimensions subfolder instead. If your server is on 26.1 or newer, check our guide on resetting a dimension for the updated folder paths, since the table above reflects the older, pre-26.1 structure.

How Can I Fix My Nether/End?

Section titled “How Can I Fix My Nether/End?”

You just need to move your dimension files from the old location to the new one. This is done with an FTP/SFTP program like WinSCP.

  1. Make sure your server is stopped. Moving world files while the server is running can corrupt them.
  2. Connect to your server using WinSCP or another SFTP client. See our guide on connecting to your server using SFTP if you need help setting this up.
  3. Download the dimension files from their original location (for example, DIM-1 and DIM1, if you’re moving from Vanilla to CraftBukkit) to your computer, so you have a safe copy.
  4. Delete whatever is currently in the new location (for example, the empty, freshly generated <world name>_nether and <world name>_the_end folders).
  5. Upload the old files you downloaded in step 3 into the new location, renaming or placing them to match what your new server software expects (see the table above).
  6. Start your server and check that your Nether and End have returned.

Tip: Keep a copy of the files you downloaded in step 3 somewhere safe until you’ve confirmed everything loaded correctly. If anything goes wrong during the upload, you’ll still have your original data to try again with.