I am new to hosting a Rust Server. i have a private one untill I can understand how it all works together so i can write mods.

The server received the update from Face Punch.
I downloaded the latest file from this site for this release.
Unzipped the file and put the Folder in my server's root just like I did the last time.
Restarted the server and no oxide load, no oxide.version command.

Then I started a brand new server. Followed the install Umod steps described above..unzip and copy folder into server root and overwrite existing.
When I went through this process 2 weeks ago it seemed like it just worked. I feel really stupid right now but what am I missing here?

depending on how you unzip... and what OS your on.. could be several factors here..

Check your server logs for errors, but generally if the command does not work Oxide is not installed.

Hi Wulf, thank you for the quick reply.

So my server logs don't mention oxide or umod at all.
This is what I did:

downloaded the Rust Server zip from FacePanch and copied it to my SSD drive.
downloaded your latest zip file
Copied the folder to the root of my server and overwrote any existing files of the same name
Launched my server

At one point I did get the oxide diectory but it was not installed.
I don't remember having to do anything else except that in order to get oxide installed. I of course edited the server startup batch file just so the server has a name and I am using a procedural map.

Sounds like your startup script is uninstalling Oxide by running Steam updates each start.

Okay, I figured it out. I feel really stupid because i used to do this type of stuff as a profession.
If I overwrite the folder to get oxide it's all good until I run my batch file "without" remarking out the update stuff. All i am doing at that point id restoring the vanilla files that were there before.

It works now, thank you for your patience with me. i am an old school, command line UNIX programmer so I am unaccustomed to using windows programs like this.

No worries, glad you got it resolved.