Troubleshooting
Nothing happens when players die
Work through these in order:
Is the plugin loaded?
Does it show up green in /pl? If it isn't there, the jar is in the wrong place or the server hasn't been restarted.
Is keepInventory on?
This is by far the most common cause. The plugin only acts on deaths where the inventory is already kept — if the death drops the player's items, it does nothing at all.
/gamerule keepInventory true
The gamerule is per-world, so check the world you actually died in.
Is anything configured?
Every mode ships as NONE, which means "leave this alone". A fresh install is deliberately a no-op. Run /bki info — sections showing VANILLA are switched off.
Is main.enabled true?
/bki info says so outright if it isn't.
Is an override in the way?
Stand where the deaths happen and run /bki test. Anything marked ✔ is switched off there. See Overrides.
Does the player have a bypass?
betterkeepinventory.bypass skips everything. Operators are not granted it by default, but check your permissions plugin for wildcard nodes like betterkeepinventory.*, which would.
Are they still in their grace period?
A death within main.grace seconds of the previous one is ignored entirely. Check %BetterKeepInventory_grace_timer_active% or set grace: false while testing.
Turn on debug
Set main.debug: true and reload. Every death then logs which slots were handled, the damage that was rolled, why an item was skipped, and every override that was evaluated.
My config lost all its comments
Expected on the first migration. Your settings were kept and the previous file is sitting next to it as config.old.yml. See Installing.
Money isn't being taken
eco.enabledmust betrue— it ships asfalse.- Vault and an economy plugin must both be installed. Without Vault the console logs a warning on every death.
- Players below
eco.min_balanceare never charged.
Known issues
1.6.2 is unmaintained, so these are documented rather than fixed. All of them are resolved in 2.x.
grace: 0 does not disable the grace period
It leaves a window of up to one second. Use grace: false instead.
Creative-mode players are still punished
Deaths in creative mode are logged as ignored but processed anyway.
The Essentials integration does nothing
The plugin lists Essentials as a soft dependency and looks for the essentials.keepinv permission, but the check never takes effect — deaths that don't already keep the inventory are always skipped, whatever Essentials says.
hunger.extra_removed_on_death does nothing
The option ships in the default config but is never read.
eco.max_amount does nothing
The option ships in the default config but is never read, so percentage-based losses are uncapped.
potions.duration_penalty is missing from the config
The plugin reads it and /bki info reports it, but it isn't in the default file. Add it under potions: yourself if you want a flat duration penalty.
betterkeepinventory.bypass lists a node that doesn't exist
Its child list names betterkeepinventory.bypass.econ while the real node is betterkeepinventory.bypass.eco. See Permissions.
Still having issues?
Feel free to join the Discord for help! Just #create-a-ticket and i'll help you out!
Do keep in mind that 1.6.2 is only supported for servers that genuinely cannot run anything newer.