[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":203},["ShallowReactive",2],{"site-settings":3,"article:\u002Fresources\u002Fbriefings\u002Fchromiecraft-item-guid-limit-outage":16,"article-surround:\u002Fresources\u002Fbriefings\u002Fchromiecraft-item-guid-limit-outage":192},{"id":4,"description":5,"email":6,"extension":7,"footerNote":8,"legalNotice":9,"locale":10,"meta":11,"name":12,"stem":13,"url":14,"__hash__":15},"settings\u002Fsettings.yml","Compare World of Warcraft realms by expansion, region, population and play style.","listings@realmlist.org","yml","An independent realm directory.","Not affiliated with Blizzard Entertainment.","en",{},"RealmList","settings","https:\u002F\u002Frealmlist.org","QXaYspLUSxnrVumL6oFir6PInhNsRw-yJchxEYSe1AU",{"id":17,"title":18,"author":19,"body":20,"category":163,"description":164,"draft":165,"extension":166,"featured":165,"meta":167,"navigation":168,"path":169,"publishedAt":170,"seo":171,"sitemap":172,"sources":177,"stem":184,"tags":185,"updatedAt":190,"__hash__":191},"articles\u002Fresources\u002Fbriefings\u002Fchromiecraft-item-guid-limit-outage.md","ChromieCraft Hit the Item GUID Limit: What Actually Happened on October 14","RealmList Editorial",{"type":21,"value":22,"toc":154},"minimark",[23,33,43,49,54,71,75,97,101,104,108,111,139,143,151],[24,25,26,27,32],"p",{},"On October 14, ",[28,29,31],"a",{"href":30},"\u002Frealms\u002Fchromiecraft","ChromieCraft"," — the progressive AzerothCore WotLK server — suffered a string of shutdowns followed by roughly six hours of downtime (the duration figure comes from Private Server Hub's coverage; the official post-mortem does not state it). The strange part was what players saw when they logged back in between the crashes: their equipment was gone. The team published a post-mortem on October 15, and it describes one of the more instructive failures a long-running emulation server can produce.",[24,34,35],{},[36,37],"img",{"alt":38,"height":39,"loading":40,"src":41,"width":42},"A technician's desk dwarfed by a towering wall of numbered storage crates, one glowing crate cracking open as a counter above it rolls over to zero",1024,"lazy","https:\u002F\u002Frealmlist.org\u002Fimages\u002Farticles\u002Fbriefings\u002Fchromiecraft-item-guid-limit-outage.webp",1536,[24,44,45],{},[46,47,48],"em",{},"Original editorial illustration by RealmList, generated for this article. This is artwork, not game footage or official promotional material.",[50,51,53],"h2",{"id":52},"the-ceiling-was-4294967295","The ceiling was 4,294,967,295",[24,55,56,57,61,62,66,67,70],{},"Every item created on the server gets a unique GUID in the ",[58,59,60],"code",{},"item_instance"," table, and AzerothCore never recycles the ID of an item that is sold, consumed or destroyed. After nearly six years, ChromieCraft's highest item GUID had climbed to exactly ",[63,64,65],"strong",{},"4,294,967,295"," — the maximum value of an unsigned 32-bit integer — even though only around ",[63,68,69],{},"20 million items"," still exist in the database. At that point the server began forcing itself to shut down to prevent data corruption, which players experienced as crashes.",[50,72,74],{"id":73},"the-cleanup-routine-turned-a-stop-into-a-wipe","The cleanup routine turned a stop into a wipe",[24,76,77,78,81,82,85,86,85,89,92,93,96],{},"The second problem was a startup safeguard that is supposed to prevent GUID collisions. It reads the highest existing GUID, adds one, and deletes any rows in other tables whose item GUID is at or above that value — data that should never exist. With the highest GUID at the exact ceiling, \"highest plus one\" overflowed to ",[63,79,80],{},"0",", and the routine cleared the item-to-owner links in ",[58,83,84],{},"character_inventory",", ",[58,87,88],{},"mail_items",[58,90,91],{},"auctionhouse"," and ",[58,94,95],{},"guild_bank_item",". Bags, banks, mailboxes and guild banks were emptied in one pass.",[50,98,100],{"id":99},"the-backups-failed-at-the-worst-moment","The backups failed at the worst moment",[24,102,103],{},"Recovery then ran into a third, familiar problem. The team could not reach its primary backup during the instability, and its secondary backup had been malfunctioning for approximately two days without anyone noticing. Some data was rolled back to that stale secondary copy: items created between the backup and the outage survived in the database but were no longer linked to any player, and the team says those are being reconciled manually.",[50,105,107],{"id":106},"what-players-should-do","What players should do",[24,109,110],{},"Per the post-mortem:",[112,113,114,122,125,128],"ul",{},[115,116,117,118,121],"li",{},"If your last login was ",[63,119,120],{},"before October 12",", your character is unchanged.",[115,123,124],{},"If you logged in after that, items may be missing from bags, bank, mailbox or equipment. Restored items are arriving by in-game mail — only 50 mails display at once, so newer batches take a minute or two to appear.",[115,126,127],{},"Anything still missing goes in a ticket on the ChromieCraft Discord with as much detail as possible.",[115,129,130,131,134,135,138],{},"As compensation for the outage, ",[63,132,133],{},"Joyous Journeys"," is active until ",[63,136,137],{},"October 21 at 23:59 UTC (server time)",", granting 50% bonus experience.",[50,140,142],{"id":141},"why-it-matters-beyond-chromiecraft","Why it matters beyond ChromieCraft",[24,144,145,146,150],{},"ChromieCraft's stated mission is to find and fix AzerothCore issues, and the team's framing is that this failure class only surfaces on a server that has run for years — no fresh realm would hit a six-year-old ID counter. Now that the failure mode is documented, the startup cleanup logic is a known hazard for every AzerothCore deployment, and the team says servers using the core going forward will not have to worry about it. For players evaluating where to invest years of progress, it is also a concrete example of the operational risks our ",[28,147,149],{"href":148},"\u002Fresources\u002Fguides\u002Fhow-to-evaluate-a-wow-community-realm","community realm evaluation guide"," suggests looking for: backup discipline, not just uptime.",[24,152,153],{},"::note Facts here are verified against ChromieCraft's official October 14th Post-Mortem (published October 15, 2026) and Private Server Hub's same-day summary. The roughly six-hour outage duration and the wording of the crash sequence come from Private Server Hub; the official post does not give a downtime figure. Item restoration is ongoing, Joyous Journeys ends October 21 at 23:59 UTC, and backup-verification work is still in progress — details may change. ::",{"title":155,"searchDepth":156,"depth":156,"links":157},"",2,[158,159,160,161,162],{"id":52,"depth":156,"text":53},{"id":73,"depth":156,"text":74},{"id":99,"depth":156,"text":100},{"id":106,"depth":156,"text":107},{"id":141,"depth":156,"text":142},"briefings","Six years of never reusing item IDs pushed ChromieCraft to the 32-bit ceiling of 4,294,967,295 — and an overflow in a startup cleanup routine then wiped item links from bags, mail, the auction house and guild banks. The official post-mortem explains the failure, the backup gaps and what players should do.",false,"md",{},true,"\u002Fresources\u002Fbriefings\u002Fchromiecraft-item-guid-limit-outage","2026-10-18",{"title":18,"description":164},{"loc":169,"images":173,"changefreq":175,"priority":176},[174],{"loc":41},"daily",0.6,[178,181],{"label":179,"url":180},"ChromieCraft — October 14th Post-Mortem (official, published October 15, 2026)","https:\u002F\u002Fchromiecraft.com\u002Fen\u002Foctober-14th-post-mortem",{"label":182,"url":183},"Private Server Hub — ChromieCraft ran out of item IDs, and the 14 October outage emptied bags (October 15, 2026)","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.privateserverhub.com\u002Fnews\u002Fchromiecraft-ran-out-of-item-ids-and-the-14-october-outage","resources\u002Fbriefings\u002Fchromiecraft-item-guid-limit-outage",[31,186,187,188,189],"AzerothCore","WotLK","Server Outage","Post-Mortem",null,"yAs-TkMDiKi1U2PeQ7lJEH8E3WAPzpP9OrKEUiIvyug",[193,198],{"title":194,"path":195,"stem":196,"description":197,"children":-1},"Ion Hazzikostas Tells Shanghai's Infinite Party That China's Timewalking Servers Have No End Point — Plus a New Class and Legendary Sets","\u002Fresources\u002Fbriefings\u002Fwow-infinite-china-timewalking-no-endpoint-new-class","resources\u002Fbriefings\u002Fwow-infinite-china-timewalking-no-endpoint-new-class","At the WoW: Infinite launch party in Shanghai (October 17), WoW's game director reportedly announced that China's Timewalking Classic servers will continue past Phase 11 indefinitely, will receive a class that never existed in Wrath of the Lich King, and will get a three-piece legendary set across future phases — all as reported by Chinese media, with specifics still unannounced.",{"title":199,"path":200,"stem":201,"description":202,"children":-1},"Conquest of Azeroth Lives Again: GrimfallWoW Opens the Ascension-Inherited Class Realm","\u002Fresources\u002Fbriefings\u002Fgrimfallwow-conquest-of-azeroth-phase-1","resources\u002Fbriefings\u002Fgrimfallwow-conquest-of-azeroth-phase-1","GrimfallWoW's second realm opened on October 16 with the 21 custom classes that went offline when Ascension's WoW realms shut down in September. Phase 1 caps characters at level 20 with scaled Heroic and Mythic dungeons as endgame — and it is not the only place the classes survived.",1793551971748]