Server Provisioning Explained: What Happens After Your Order?

You just ordered a game server from game-serverhosting and are waiting for your first login? This guide explains step by step what happens behind the scenes, how long each phase takes, and what you can do if something gets stuck.

The 6 Provisioning Phases at a Glance

In practice, your server is ready to use within 2–5 minutes for most games. With large modpacks (e.g. ATM10, FTB Skies) or ARK, the software installation can take longer — up to 30 minutes is normal.

Phase 1: Payment Received (payment_received)

As soon as Stripe confirms your payment, our webhook endpoint immediately signals the server provisioning pipeline. During this phase:

• The payment is linked to your order (idempotent — even if Stripe sends the same webhook multiple times, provisioning only happens once)
• Your account is marked as a paying customer
• The next job (CreateServerJob) is pushed to our server queue

If it gets stuck here: Very rare. If your Stripe payment has been stuck in this phase for more than 5 minutes, contact support — that usually means the webhook got stuck at the provider level.

Phase 2: Server Being Created (creating_server)

Now our system looks for a free node in your region (default: Falkenstein/Germany) that has enough RAM, CPU, and disk for your plan. Additionally:

• We reserve a free port (allocation) on the node
• For Minecraft, two allocations are requested: one for Java and one for Bedrock cross-play
• Pterodactyl creates the server entry with your egg variables (game version, RAM limit, startup parameters)

If it gets stuck here: If a plan has no more free nodes, the system falls back to a secondary region. If you're stuck in this phase for more than 5 minutes, we check manually in the background and contact you if we need to scale up.

Phase 3: Installing Software (installing)

This is the longest phase — and the one with the most variability. Here the Wings daemon on the node downloads and runs the installation script for your egg. Examples:

• Minecraft Vanilla: ~60 seconds (downloading server jar from Mojang)
• Modpacks (ATM10, FTB): 5–30 minutes (downloading multiple GB of mods)
• Rust: 5–15 minutes (Steam Workshop sync)
• ARK Survival Ascended: 10–25 minutes (large game image)
• CS2: 3–8 minutes (SteamCMD downloads CS2)
• Palworld: 4–10 minutes

During this phase you'll see a progress indicator in the dashboard ("Installation in progress…"). You can safely leave the page — we'll notify you when things move forward.

If it gets stuck here: After >90 minutes the server is automatically marked as "stuck". Our monitoring job (servers:detect-stuck) checks every 5 minutes and triggers a recovery attempt if needed. You don't need to do anything.

Phase 4: Configuring DNS (creating_dns)

To make your server reachable via a nice subdomain (e.g. myserver.game-serverhosting.de), we automatically create two Cloudflare DNS records:

• A record: myserver.game-serverhosting.de → IP address of your node
• SRV record: Game-specific, e.g. _minecraft._tcp.myserver → your server's port

The SRV record is the reason players don't need to type a port number — Minecraft, TeamSpeak, and other clients automatically read the port from DNS.

If it gets stuck here: Cloudflare API issues are extremely rare (<0.1%). If the DNS phase fails, your server still runs — you can reach it via IP + port directly.

Phase 5: Game-Specific Setup (setting_up)

Some games need additional steps not covered by the egg install script:

• Minecraft: We automatically accept the EULA (eula.txt), install Geyser + Floodgate for Bedrock cross-play, and patch server.properties with the correct port.
• CS2: Your GSLT token (Game Server Login Token from Steam) is set in the STEAM_ACC variable. If you didn't provide a token in the wizard, you can add it later under "Settings".
• FiveM: We prepare the txAdmin login URL.

If it gets stuck here: This phase is very fast. On errors you'll see a concrete error message in the dashboard (e.g. "GSLT token missing").

Phase 6: Server Online (ready)

Once this phase is reached:

• You receive an email notification with all access details (subdomain, port, Pterodactyl login)
• Optionally: Discord notification (if enabled in settings)
• The server appears in the dashboard with the green Online badge
• You can get started via "Start Server" — by default the server does not start automatically after installation, so you can adjust configurations first

What to Do If Something Gets Stuck

In >99% of cases everything runs automatically. If it doesn't:

1. Be patient in Phase 3 (installing) — this is the longest phase, no need to worry until 30 minutes have passed.
2. It's OK to close the browser tab — the server keeps provisioning in the background. You'll get an email when it's done.
3. Check the status page: game-serverhosting.de/status shows the current state of our infrastructure.
4. Contact support: If your server has been stuck in the same phase for >1 hour, open a support ticket via the dashboard.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I cancel if the installation takes too long? Yes — you can delete the server at any time via the dashboard. With an active subscription it will be paused; with a one-time purchase you'll receive account credit back.

Do I get a refund if provisioning fails? Yes, automatically. Our recovery system detects failed provisioning and credits the amount to your account credit. You don't need to do anything.

Why does it take longer for some games? Game downloads vary greatly in size — Minecraft Vanilla is ~30 MB, ARK is ~20 GB. We can't speed that up, but we use NVMe SSDs and 10 Gbit uplinks per node to make downloads as fast as possible.

Can I order multiple servers at the same time? Absolutely — each server provisions in parallel and independently.