Garry's Mod Update Arrives September 16: What Server Owners Should Check Now

If you run a Garry's Mod community server, September 16 is worth preparing for now. Facepunch is releasing a major update at 3 PM GMT and is specifically asking server owners and modders to use the current test builds to identify compatibility problems before the public rollout.

For most community administrators, the main concern is not how the game server software itself is deployed. It is whether your addons, gamemode, Workshop collection, permissions and custom configuration continue to work correctly once players receive the new version.

Your server will not suddenly become inaccessible

The most reassuring part of Facepunch's announcement is network compatibility. When the September update goes live, a server still running the previous public build should not immediately reject players who have updated their game.

That is particularly useful for heavily customized DarkRP, Trouble in Terrorist Town, Sandbox and roleplay communities. You should have some room to check that everything behaves normally rather than being forced into an immediate emergency maintenance window.

However, network compatibility does not mean every addon or custom script is automatically guaranteed to work. A server may accept connections while a specific addon, administration tool or gamemode feature behaves differently after the client update.

What is changing on the server side

Facepunch's preview changelog includes several improvements to the dedicated server itself. Most of these changes are handled at the hosting level, but they are useful context for community owners because they can improve stability, maintenance and compatibility.

The update also improves Lua and network safeguards. Cyclic table references are now detected in functions such as net.WriteTable, while several console commands capable of crashing a dedicated server have been fixed.

As a community owner, you do not need to manage these low-level changes yourself on a managed hosting service. The part you should concentrate on is everything your community has added on top of the standard Garry's Mod server.

What should you actually test before September 16?

Facepunch has already published the upcoming build on its Pre-Release, Dev and x86-64 branches so that problems can be detected before release. If you have access to a separate testing environment or a pre-release option through your hosting setup, this is the safest place to validate your community configuration.

You do not need to reproduce every technical server-side test performed by Facepunch. Instead, focus on the features that your players actually use every day.

Garry's Mod server owner checklist

A quick connection test is not enough for a heavily customized community. Spend a few minutes reproducing the actions your players and moderators perform most often.

• Make sure you have a recent backup before the update;
• Check that your usual gamemode starts and loads correctly;
• Verify your Workshop collection and the addons your server depends on;
• Join the server as a player and test reconnecting and changing maps;
• Check administration tools, ranks, permissions and moderation commands;
• Test important jobs, weapons, vehicles, entities or custom systems used by your gamemode;
• Look for new Lua errors or unusual behaviour in your server console;
• If possible, run a short multiplayer test with several members of your community.

If one particular addon stops working, check whether its author has already published an update or reported an incompatibility. Problems caused by the game itself can be reported to Facepunch through the official Garry's Mod issue tracker.

Most communities should be able to prepare without panic

The backwards-compatible network protocol makes this update considerably easier to manage than a release that immediately separates old servers from updated clients.

The real risk lies in Garry's Mod's greatest strength: its enormous customization ecosystem. A community running dozens or hundreds of addons naturally has more components that can react unexpectedly to a major game update.

A recent backup and a quick check of your most important addons, gamemode features and administration tools should therefore be the priority before September 16. The server software update itself can remain the job of your hosting platform.