Infinity Initialization Fix

To understand what we are doing and what we are working with, keep in mind that:
In my case, the game is installed on the “C” drive. If you have Steam on a different drive, the path will be different. Usually it is D:\SteamLibrary\

The folder where mods are downloaded, aka the default Steam download folder is
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\workshop\content\108600

The folder where the game gets mods for the server
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\ProjectZomboid\steamapps\workshop\content\108600

Because when you download mods through Workshop, they are installed in the first folder. That's why when we start the server, we see “Initialization” — the server loads the mods into a different folder, the second one, and doesn't transfer them from the existing first folder, just simply starts downloading them from the internet via a questionable and slow resource. That's why we see endless loading. If you go to
C:\Users\<your-username>\Zomboid ,
you can find the coop-console.txt file, and if you open it and scroll down a bit, you can find
LOG : General> Workshop: item state CheckItemState -> DownloadPending ID=<id of the mod>
This confirms that certain mods are simply being downloaded, which especially affects the time in large builds. In theory, you can just wait, but most likely it will take you A LOT of time.

To solve the problem, you need to tell the server that the mods have already been downloaded. Then it will skip re-downloading and re-checking them and proceed directly to launch. After using this method, the “Initialization” message will still be there, but it will mean that the server has already launched with the mods and is loading the territory.
The method:

1. Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\workshop\content\108600

2. Copy all the files from there (folders with mod IDs from the workshop)
3. Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\ProjectZomboid\steamapps\workshop\content\108600

4. Paste the previously copied folders

The next step is the most important! This file contains the verification and loading of all mods:

5. Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\workshop

6. Copy appworkshop_108600.acf - the file that confirms the download of all mods.
7. Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\ProjectZomboid\steamapps\workshop

8. Paste the copied appworkshop_108600.acf there

After completing all these steps, you should no longer have any problems launching the server. If you are interested in what happens at a certain point during server launch, you can follow the path from the beginning of this guide - C:\Users\<your-username>\Zomboid, and at the end of the coop-console.txt file, you will always find a description of the process that is taking place. If there is no “item state CheckItemState -> DownloadPending,” consider it as a victory.

If you found this guide helpful or liked it, please give it a like and 5 stars. So that many people know about this problem with the logic of the Project Zomboid!