How to keep chunks loaded on DonutSMP 24/7

Updated August 2026 · 5 min read

Minecraft only ticks the chunks near a player. When you log off, your farms stop - hoppers stop moving items, mobs stop spawning, crops stop growing. Keeping a chunk loaded means keeping a player in it, which is exactly what a cloud AFK client does: it holds your account in position on donutsmp.net so the area stays active while your computer is off.

Why your farms stop when you log off

A Minecraft server does not simulate the whole world at once. It simulates the chunks - 16x16 block columns - that have a player near them, and lets everything else sit frozen. This is what keeps a server with hundreds of players from melting.

The practical consequence is that a farm is only a farm while someone is standing near it. Log off and your iron farm has no spawning, your furnaces stop smelting, and your item elevators stop moving. Nothing breaks; it simply pauses until a player comes back.

So "keeping chunks loaded" is not a setting you enable. It is the side effect of having a player present. Every method of doing it overnight comes down to the same thing: leaving an account logged in and standing in the right place.

What counts as loaded

Not every loaded chunk is fully simulated. Servers distinguish between chunks that are merely kept in memory and chunks close enough to a player to have entities, redstone and block updates actually running. The simulation radius is smaller than the view radius, and it is set per server.

The rule of thumb that matters: the closer your account is to the farm, the more reliably it ticks. Parking on the far edge of your base is not the same as standing in it.

Keeping the chunk loaded with your PC off

The setup is the same as any DonutSMP AFK session, with one extra step that people skip - positioning.

1. Sign in to afkclient.pro with Discord and link your Minecraft account via Microsoft.
2. Add the server address donutsmp.net and connect: the version is detected automatically.
3. Before you disconnect your own client, walk your character to the farm you want kept running. The bot resumes from where the account is, not from spawn.
4. Set an anti-AFK action or a command on a schedule so the server does not treat the account as idle.
5. Close the tab. The account stays in position and the chunk stays active.

Auto-reconnect matters more here than anywhere else. If the server restarts overnight and your account does not come back, the chunk unloads and every farm in it stops until morning.

How far does one account reach?

One account holds one area. If your farms are spread across a base, or across separate bases, a single bot will keep some of them ticking and leave the rest frozen.

There are two honest answers. Consolidate your farms into one chunk cluster so a single account covers them, or run an account per area - the Standard plan connects up to 8 and Pro up to 30. Consolidating is free and worth trying first.

Will DonutSMP kick me for being AFK?

Servers commonly disconnect players who show no activity, and DonutSMP's rules on AFK and automation can change. Check the current rules and the server Discord before running any AFK tool.

On the technical side, afkclient.pro includes anti-AFK actions and a command scheduler so the account registers as active within normal limits rather than sitting perfectly still. That is a kick-avoidance feature, not a rule-avoidance feature - if a server bans AFK accounts, no client makes that allowed.