Hey guys. I just want to include a short prefix to all of this... A friend and I, both are in our mid 20's and relatively bright with backgrounds in gaming/computers/and even other basic modding, have spent the last 48 hours damn near continuously scouring the internet (google, youtube, minecraft forums, you name it...) and cannot seem to find ANY complete or coherent tutorial on how modding a minecraft server works. All videos and/or tutorials we have found almost all leave out massive steps or go in to instruction under pretenses that you MUST already know how to do what they are showing you... so please... if anyone can help... please do so here so I can do it and then turn around and write a GOOD tutorial for anyone else in my shoes.

Here's how it goes... I have Minecraft 1.1 and run a server on my home Mac computer. I dont use bukkit and im not looking to use the options it allows. We just want mods liek redpower and arrows and things of the like. Nothing too crazy (we think). I run the server simply by having the minecraft_server.jar file in a folder on my desktop and then running it properly through terminal.

The server runs great and has for some time.

I have opened the .jar and inserted the modloader files that i need... i think. This may be where my first error is. I have no idea how to tell if this part went through properly. After inserting the files, I select and compress all the files within the minecraft_server folder and rename the archive.zip to minecraft_server.jar and replace the original file with it. IF I DON'T SELECT AND COMPRESS THE FILES AND ONLY RENAME THE FOLDER I GET A CORUPT JAR FILE MESSAGE. This seems to not be explained but by very VERY few instructionals.

This part usually goes well (I think)... I run the server, start the game, jump in to multiplayer and all's well. I then stop the server and close minecraft. I start to add ANY mod to the .jar file and when i recompress, rename, then attempt to run the server, I see a TON of exceptions and errors and then the server cannot be found. like this...

2012-02-02 11:30:51 [INFO] Starting minecraft server version 1.1
2012-02-02 11:30:51 [INFO] Loading properties
2012-02-02 11:30:51 [INFO] Starting Minecraft server on *:25565
2012-02-02 11:30:51 [INFO] Preparing level "World1"
2012-02-02 11:30:51 [INFO] Default game type: 0
java.lang.VerifyError: (class: gx, method: <init> signature: (Lkm;)V) Bad type in putfield/putstatic
at km.a(SourceFile:90)
at km.<init>(SourceFile:69)
at as.<init>(SourceFile:6)
at km.<clinit>(SourceFile:17)
at yc.<init>(SourceFile:22)
at yc.<init>(SourceFile:30)
at xk.a(SourceFile:44)
at xk.a(SourceFile:28)
at fq.<init>(SourceFile:144)
at fy.<init>(SourceFile:26)
at net.minecraft.server.MinecraftServer.a(SourceFile:235)
at net.minecraft.server.MinecraftServer.s(SourceFile:172)
at net.minecraft.server.MinecraftServer.run(SourceFile:317)
at cz.run(SourceFile:465)
2012-02-02 11:30:51 [SEVERE] Unexpected exception
java.lang.VerifyError: (class: gx, method: <init> signature: (Lkm;)V) Bad type in putfield/putstatic
at km.a(SourceFile:90)
at km.<init>(SourceFile:69)
at as.<init>(SourceFile:6)
at km.<clinit>(SourceFile:17)
at yc.<init>(SourceFile:22)
at yc.<init>(SourceFile:30)
at xk.a(SourceFile:44)
at xk.a(SourceFile:28)
at fq.<init>(SourceFile:144)
at fy.<init>(SourceFile:26)
at net.minecraft.server.MinecraftServer.a(SourceFile:235)
at net.minecraft.server.MinecraftServer.s(SourceFile:172)
at net.minecraft.server.MinecraftServer.run(SourceFile:317)
at cz.run(SourceFile:465)

??? WTH? this is the closest I can get after 2 days of searching. My friend had successfully modded his single player game but I am the one running the server. Any ANY help will be truly appreciated. Please... for the love of God... help... before I destroy my computer in to tiny little pieces...