Fix "Flying is not enabled on this server" in Minecraft

The server counts how many ticks a player spends in the air without moving down. Past 80 ticks, which is four seconds at a normal 20 ticks per second, it disconnects the player with this message. The same check exists for a player riding a vehicle, such as a boat or a horse, that floats too long.

In the console you see the kick as one of these lines:

Steve was kicked for floating too long!
Steve was kicked for floating a vehicle too long!

The check is skipped for players who are allowed to fly anyway: creative and spectator mode, players with the levitation effect, and players who glide with an elytra.

1. Open the Settings tab of your server.
2. Scroll to the Gameplay group under Server settings, or type "flight" in the Search settings box.
3. Switch Allow flight to On.
4. Press Save changes.
5. Restart the server with Restart at the top of the panel. Minecraft reads the setting only when it starts.

The players who were kicked can join again straight away; there is no ban or cooldown attached to this kick.

You can also change the line by hand. Open the Files tab and click server.properties in the top folder of the server.

Find the line and change it to:

allow-flight=true

Save the file and restart the server. Every other line in server.properties stays as it is.

Anything that keeps a survival player in the air without creative flight can trip the check. These are the usual causes:

Most modpacks with flying items tell you in their own setup notes to turn the setting on. If you install a modpack and players get kicked the first time they use a jetpack, this is the reason.

Plugins that give /fly

A plugin such as EssentialsX that gives a player /fly turns on flight for that player only. The server then skips the check for them, so /fly works with allow-flight=false. Who may use it is a permission, essentials.fly, which you hand out with LuckPerms.

The check runs on the server, so it sees what the server thinks the player is doing. When the server or the player lags, the two can disagree for a few seconds.

• Server lag. When the server falls behind, the player's movement arrives in bursts. A player who jumped off a cliff can look like they hovered for several seconds.
• A slow connection. A player with a bad connection sends movement late. On the server they stay in the air until their next update arrives.
• Elytra. Gliding itself is allowed. Players can still be kicked when the server and client disagree about the glide, for example during heavy lag or when a plugin stops the glide on the server side.
• Slime blocks, bubble columns and pistons. Fast vertical movement from contraptions can look like floating when the server is busy.

When the kick happens to several players at once, the server is the likely cause. Check the console for "Can't keep up!" lines and see reduce lag. When it happens to one player only, their connection is the more likely cause.

With allow-flight=true, the server no longer kicks anyone for hovering. A player with a hacked client can then fly in survival without being stopped by the game itself.

On a whitelisted server the risk is low; whitelist and operators shows how to close the server to strangers.

An anticheat plugin on Paper watches movement, speed and combat far more closely than the single fly rule in Minecraft. Most of them ask you to set allow-flight=true, because the built-in check otherwise kicks players before the plugin has decided anything, and it produces kicks that the plugin would not.

1. Install the anticheat plugin on a Paper or Purpur server. Install plugins covers uploading a plugin jar.
2. Read the plugin's own setup notes about allow-flight.
3. Turn on Allow flight in the Settings tab if the plugin asks for it.
4. Restart and test with a friend: fly in creative, switch to survival, and see that the plugin flags it.

An anticheat can also produce false kicks during lag. If players report kicks after a busy moment, check the anticheat's own log or alerts before changing settings.

Anticheat is one part of keeping a public server fair. Stop griefing covers block logging and land claims for the damage that gets through.

• The server was not restarted. The setting only applies after a restart. Check the line in server.properties reads allow-flight=true.
• The kick message is different. A plugin can kick for flying with its own text, often with the name of the plugin in it. That kick comes from the plugin, and allow-flight does not change it.
• The message says the player moved too quickly. A line like Steve moved too quickly! in the console is a separate check for speed, and the player is pulled back instead of kicked.
• A proxy sits in front of the server. On a server network, set allow-flight on the backend server where the player plays.