So my friend uses a hosting manager called Multicraft, but it would seem that when essentials and MixedModeAuth are enabled together the manager will restart claiming that the server cannot be pinged or loses connection yada yada. I also tend to see some messages in the multicraft console saying x number of players with some very weird syntax. I don't see these things in a command prompt, but in the manager I do. So apparently it's more of a Multicraft+Essentials+MixedModeAuth issue. If you could look into this I'd appreciate it.