How long does it take for a server restart? How do I know if one has?

[Shuriken333 20]

I was playing on a server and couldn't pick up any items. Started picking off zombies that were around me so I could go loot somewhere else. The z's died, I still could not pick up any items. Couldn't put them in my inventory nor my backpack, so I decided to disconnect and attempt to reconnect. Could not reconnect to the server, let alone even filter the list to find it. I found the IP and port, but no server response. Checked gametracker and the server is in it's "dead" state. Nothing was announced about a restart, and the server has been dead for 20+ minutes.

Just wondering, how long does it take for a server to restart? If this is a case of the server just going offline without the owner's knowledge, then that's fine, but I'm just asking in general from other server owners or people who have waited for a specific server.

[torturedchunk 22]

Server restarts usually take 5 minutes. Sounds like the server was shutdown instead. Could be for maintenance.

[DarkEnergy 4]

As a server owner i can say that the server you where connected to is not down.

Hive (main server) is. if you pick up items or load into or out of a server it gets written to Hive.

ergo if hive craps out your actions wont be saved,you cannot load into a server because the server can not fetch your char from hive and it also handles the server list if I am correct. etc.

as for a server restart it takes a couple of minutes to get the server restarted connected to hive and the mission loaded. i would say about 2-4 minutes.