How to Read the Server Log of Your SCP: Secret Laboratory Server

The logs show you what happens on your SCP: Secret Laboratory server: the startup, the loading of plugins, player connections and the actions of your admins. When something goes wrong they are the first place to look – and exactly what our support team needs from you.

There are three sources:

Source	Content
Console in the dashboard	Live output of the server while it is running
LocalAdmin logs	The complete console output as a file – one file per server start
Round logs	One log per round with connections, kills, Remote Admin actions and game events

Follow the log live in the console

The console in the dashboard is the LocalAdmin console of your server. Besides the output, you can also enter commands there – more on this in Use console commands and Use Remote Admin.

1. Open the dashboard
   Open the dashboard of your server and switch to the Console.

2. Start the server
   Start your server. From now on the console shows the output of the server directly.

3. Follow the output
   Read the messages from top to bottom. During startup, EXILED and LabAPI report every plugin they load here. Pay particular attention to the lines just before a crash or a failed start – that is usually where the cause is.

Download the log files

The server stores both kinds of logs in subfolders named after the game port. You can find the game port in the dashboard under Overview.

1. Find out the game port
   Open the dashboard of your server and note the game port shown under Overview.

2. Connect via SFTP
   Connect to your server via SFTP.

3. Open the log folder
   Go to the matching folder – replace <Port> with your game port:

   /.config/SCP Secret Laboratory/LocalAdminLogs/<Port>/
   /.config/SCP Secret Laboratory/ServerLogs/<Port>/

   The LocalAdminLogs folder contains the LocalAdmin logs, the ServerLogs folder the round logs.

4. Choose the right file
   The file names contain the date and time at which the file was created:

   LocalAdmin Log 2026-10-02 18.30.05.txt
   Round 2026-10-02 18.31.12.txt

   You can recognize the newest file by the most recent date and the latest time in its name.

5. Download the file
   Download the file to your PC and open it with any text editor.

Note

The .config folder starts with a dot and is therefore a hidden folder. If you cannot see it in your SFTP program, enable the display of hidden files there.

Structure of the round logs

Each line of a round log consists of four parts, separated by |:

Time | Type | Module | Content

• Time: date and time with milliseconds. If the time ends with Z, it is given in UTC; otherwise the offset from UTC follows (e.g. +02:00).
• Type: the kind of entry, e.g. Connection update, Remote Admin, Remote Admin - Misc, Kill, Game Event, Teamkill, Suicide, AdminChat or Internal.
• Module: the area of the game, e.g. Networking, Administrative, Class change, Warhead or Game logic.
• Content: the actual message.

Example

2026-10-02 18:31:12.402Z | Internal            | Game logic     | Started logging.
2026-10-02 18:45:37.918Z | Remote Admin        | Administrative | Admin (76561198000000001@steam) banned player Max (76561198000000002@steam). Ban duration: 1d. Reason: Cheating.

What to look for in the log

Plugin errors

Error messages from plugins appear in the console and in the LocalAdmin logs. EXILED and LabAPI mark them with [ERROR], followed by the name of the plugin DLL (without .dll) in square brackets, e.g. [ERROR] [MyPlugin] .... You can recognize warnings by [WARN]. Internal errors of LabAPI itself start with [LabAPI INTERNAL ERROR].

Whether a plugin was loaded at all is shown by the load messages during server startup: for EXILED Loaded plugin <Name>@<Version>, for LabAPI [LOADER] Successfully loaded <Name>. What the individual error messages mean and how to fix them is explained in Plugins not loading.

Tip

Use the search function of your text editor to search the downloaded file for [ERROR] or the name of the plugin DLL (without .dll) – this way you find the relevant lines faster.

Blocked countries

If you have set up geoblocking, the server writes every rejected connection attempt to the console and therefore also to the LocalAdmin logs:

Player 76561198000000002@steam (203.0.113.10:51234) tried joined from blocked country US.

The message contains the UserID, the IP address including the port, and the country code.

Note

These messages only appear as long as display_preauth_logs is not set to false. The key is not in the default config_gameplay.txt, so the messages are active. If a large number of connections are rejected at once, the server temporarily suppresses further messages of this kind.

Kicks and bans

Bans and kicks via Remote Admin end up in the round log with the type Remote Admin and the module Administrative. The line names the admin, the affected player, the duration and the reason (see the example above). A kick also appears there as banned player – with the duration 0.

If a banned player tries to join again, the round log and the console show a line such as:

Banned player 76561198000000002@steam tried to connect from endpoint 203.0.113.10:51234.

You can find more about moderation in Kick and ban players.

How long logs are kept

LocalAdmin cleans up old logs automatically while your server is running. This is controlled by the LocalAdmin configuration – the config_localadmin.txt file in the /.config/SCP Secret Laboratory/config/<Port>/ folder or, if there is none, the config_localadmin_global.txt file in /.config/SCP Secret Laboratory/config/.

Entry	Default	Meaning
la_delete_old_logs	true	Delete LocalAdmin logs automatically
la_logs_expiration_days	90	Age in days after which LocalAdmin logs are deleted
delete_old_round_logs	false	Delete round logs automatically
round_logs_expiration_days	180	Age in days after which round logs are deleted
compress_old_round_logs	false	Compress round logs automatically
round_logs_compression_threshold_days	14	Age in days after which round logs are compressed

So by default, LocalAdmin logs are deleted after 90 days. Round logs, on the other hand, are kept until you delete them yourself. If you set delete_old_round_logs to true, they are deleted after 180 days. With compress_old_round_logs: true, LocalAdmin packs round logs older than 14 days into one ZIP archive per day named Round Logs Archive <Date>.zip.

How to change the retention:

1. Find out the game port
   Open the dashboard of your server and note the game port shown under Overview.

2. Stop the server
   Stop your server via the dashboard.

3. Connect via SFTP
   Connect to your server via SFTP.

4. Edit the LocalAdmin configuration
   Open the file /.config/SCP Secret Laboratory/config/<Port>/config_localadmin.txt – replace <Port> with your game port. If there is none, open /.config/SCP Secret Laboratory/config/config_localadmin_global.txt. Adjust the entries from the table, e.g.:

   delete_old_round_logs: true

5. Start the server
   Save the file and start your server via the dashboard.

Note

You can find more about editing configuration files in Edit configuration files.

Warning

Download logs you need for a problem right away – before they are deleted automatically.

If you get stuck

If the log does not tell you enough, simply attach the matching file from LocalAdminLogs and – if it is about events within a round – the round log from ServerLogs to a support ticket and briefly describe when the problem occurred. That way we can look into it directly.

Note

You can find solutions for typical errors in Troubleshoot server.