Why do FiveM resources fail to start?

FXServer validates a resource's fxmanifest.lua before running any of its code, so the most basic failure class is a manifest problem: a missing `fx_version` or `game` line, a Lua syntax error in the manifest itself, or a UTF-8 byte-order-mark left at the top of the file by an editor that shouldn't be there. These produce a parse or validation error naming the resource before a single script file loads.

The second class is dependency and order failures. FXServer processes server.cfg largely top to bottom, so a resource whose code runs on start and immediately calls another resource's export — a database driver, a framework core, a shared library — will error if that dependency hasn't started yet. This is the failure that looks like a bug in the resource but is actually a server.cfg ordering problem one line away from fixed.

The third class is mundane but common: the resource folder isn't in the server's resources directory at all, its folder name doesn't match what its own code or docs expect, or it was never added to server.cfg with `ensure` or `start`. The console message itself is usually the clue — FXServer typically distinguishes "couldn't find resource" (placement) from a manifest parse error (the file itself) from a runtime error after the resource starts (usually a missing dependency).