Oops... looks like the spiders padded through here
Add products to your cart and remove them from here Lets buyPlugin Troubleshooting & Alternatives
Most Common Excellent Crates Issues (and Why They Happen)
If you are here, something with Excellent Crates went wrong. You are not the first one. These are the six issues server owners run into most often, and the honest explanation behind each of them.
1. TPS drops when players open crates
This is probably the most common complaint. Players open crates, the server stutters, and your MSPT spikes. It is easy to assume it is your hardware or your timings config. In a lot of cases, it is neither.
Crate open logic in Excellent Crates can be heavy on the main thread, with animations, reward selection, GUI rendering, and hologram updates all firing at once. When multiple players open crates simultaneously, that cost adds up fast.
What you can actually do: Run Spark or Paper timings during a busy period and look for crate open handlers near the top. Reduce animation intensity and high-frequency crate events as a short-term mitigation. If MSPT still spikes after that, you have confirmed it is a plugin-level architecture issue, not something config tuning can fully solve.
The honest reality: when the root cause is in the code, not the config, you are capping your improvement ceiling no matter how much you tune.
2. Config and configuration resets after updates
You update Excellent Crates (or your server version), restart, and suddenly crates are missing rewards, prizes are wrong, or sections of the config look like they got wiped.
What actually happened: placeholder names and config path structures changed between versions, and no legacy mapping was included. Your old config entries stop resolving correctly, so the plugin falls back to defaults or ignores them entirely. It looks like data loss. It is actually a compatibility gap.
Before anything else: back up your full plugin folder. Not just the config, all of it. Do this before every update, every time.
The fix is a manual diff between the old and new config format. Enable debug mode, read the logs for unknown placeholder or missing config-path warnings, and map old keys to new ones by hand. It works, but it takes time, usually 30 to 90 minutes per update cycle, sometimes more if your crate setup is complex.
3. Nightcore version mismatch and java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError
A lot of admins search for "Excellent Crates issues", but the actual breakage is usually a Nightcore dependency mismatch. Excellent Crates depends on Nightcore, so if the Nightcore version is missing or incompatible, the crate plugin can fail on boot.
Common console patterns include java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError, java.lang.ClassNotFoundException, and startup failures that mention Nightcore package paths. These errors are often what server owners paste directly into Google.
Action checklist: verify your Nightcore version matches the Excellent Crates build, remove duplicate Nightcore jars, restart cleanly, and re-check boot logs before changing crate configs.
If you fix Nightcore first, many "random" Excellent Crates failures disappear without touching rewards, GUI files, or placeholders.
4. GUI and animations break after a Minecraft update
After a server update, crate GUIs show blank items, animations stop mid-sequence, or holograms disappear. The crate still technically "works" but it looks broken to players, which from their perspective means it is broken.
The usual causes are old material names no longer valid in the new version, changed NMS/packet behaviour, or a dependency plugin (hologram library, animation framework) that is now out of sync. Excellent Crates can be sensitive to these shifts because parts of the visual layer rely on internals that change frequently between Minecraft versions.
The fix process: update dependency plugins first, test a single crate in a clean world, check Bukkit docs for current material names, then push to production once that one crate is confirmed working. Avoid doing bulk reloads until you have validated the first one.
5. PlaceholderAPI, Nexo, and ItemsAdder integration issues
Placeholders in crate titles or reward messages start showing as raw strings like %player_name%. Vault rewards stop triggering. Economy commands run but nothing is applied.
This is often a load-order or registration timing issue, with Excellent Crates trying to hook into PAPI or Vault before they have fully initialised. It can also be that the placeholder expansion you are relying on got updated and the keys changed.
Workaround: check your plugin load order, confirm PAPI expansions are installed and up to date, and verify Vault is loaded before the crate plugin. If things work on first load but break after a reload, you are almost certainly hitting a timing issue that requires a full restart rather than a hot reload.
Nexo and ItemsAdder compatibility issues
If your rewards use custom models or custom item namespaces, Nexo and ItemsAdder version drift can break reward delivery or display. Validate integration versions after each update and test one reward from each provider before reopening crates to players.
6. Spigot, Paper, and Velocity compatibility limits
On standard Spigot and Paper setups, Excellent Crates can run fine when dependencies are aligned. But cross-platform environments are where limits show up, especially when networks also include Velocity proxy layers, Bedrock compatibility, or modded components.
Hybrid and modded server setups (Forge/Fabric-adjacent) also run into instability with Excellent Crates because the plugin assumes a standard Bukkit/Spigot/Paper environment. If you are on any of these platforms and running Excellent Crates, the issues you are seeing are expected, not edge cases.
Worth knowing: Folia adoption is growing fast among performance-conscious servers. If your roadmap includes a migration to Folia in the next year, your crate plugin needs to support it.
7. Support is slow when your server is live
Excellent Crates is maintained by a solo developer in their free time. That is genuinely impressive, building and maintaining a plugin like this takes serious effort. But it also means support volume can outpace availability, especially right after a Minecraft update when everyone's crates break at the same time.
When your crates go down during peak hours and you are waiting on a response, the frustration is real. Most admins in that situation are not angry at the developer personally, they are stressed because players are spamming "crates broken?" in chat and the fix is out of their hands.
There is no workaround for slow support other than self-diagnosing using the steps above, leaning on community Discord threads, or pre-emptively testing updates in a staging environment before they hit production.
If these keep happening, there are alternatives
If you are hitting more than one of these issues on repeat, it is worth at least knowing your options. Phoenix Crates Lite is free, so you can run it side-by-side on a test server and compare stability before committing to anything.
If migration sounds scary, Phoenix Crates includes migration guidance and import workflows so you are not starting from zero. The full comparison breakdown is also available if you want details before deciding.
Ready to stop debugging your crates after every update?
Try Phoenix Crates Lite, free, no strings attached. See if your server runs smoother.
Excellent Crates vs Phoenix Crates
If you are evaluating options after recurring Excellent Crates issues, this quick comparison highlights the operational differences that matter most in production.
| Area | Excellent Crates | Phoenix Crates |
|---|---|---|
| Dependency risk | Nightcore mismatch issues are common after updates. | No hard dependencies. |
| Config migrations | Manual key and path remapping often required. | Migration guidance and import workflows available. |
| Platform coverage | Limited on Folia and cross-platform stacks. | Supports Spigot, Paper, Purpur, Folia, and Bedrock bridges. |
| Integrations | PlaceholderAPI works, custom-item stacks can be fragile. | PlaceholderAPI, Nexo, and ItemsAdder are actively maintained. |
| Support model | Solo maintainer bandwidth. | Team support and faster issue turnaround. |
FAQ
- Why does Excellent Crates have so many issues after updates?
- Excellent Crates is maintained by a solo developer without a dedicated QA or update compatibility pipeline. When Minecraft releases a major version, placeholder names and config path structures can change, and without a legacy mapping layer those changes break existing server configs.
- Does Excellent Crates support Folia or Bedrock?
- No. Excellent Crates does not support Folia, Bedrock (Geyser/Floodgate), or hybrid/modded servers. If your network uses any of these platforms you will need a different crate plugin.
- Is Phoenix Crates free?
- Yes. Phoenix Crates Lite is free on SpigotMC. It gives you a fully functional crates experience. Paid editions unlock advanced animations, additional integrations, and expanded feature sets.
- How hard is it to migrate from Excellent Crates to Phoenix Crates?
- Phoenix Crates includes migration documentation and import workflows for existing reward definitions. You can run Phoenix Crates Lite free alongside your current setup and test the migration before committing to it.
- What is the best crate plugin for Minecraft servers in 2026?
- For servers that prioritise stability, broad platform compatibility (Folia, Bedrock, 1.8 through latest), and reliable support, Phoenix Crates is a strong option in 2026. For servers on a strict zero-cost requirement who self-manage updates, Excellent Crates remains a viable free choice.