That's my setting and the server won't unpause...
-- NEW: will allow a mission rotate/restart announcement to appear. 3 examples below:
-- NOTE: Order must be incremental, smallest numbers first.
-- miz_rotate_announcement = { 1,2,3,4,5,10,15,60,120,180 }, -- at 3 hours, 2 hours, 1 hour, 15 mins, 10 mins, and every min from 5 to 1 min
-- miz_rotate_announcement = { 1,5,10,15,60 }, -- at 1 hour, 15 mins, 10 mins, 5 min and final call at 1 min.
--miz_rotate_announcement = { 0 }, -- disabled
miz_rotate_announcement = { 0 },
--If true the current mission will be paused once all players left the server. Set to false to disable.
pause_if_server_empty = true,
--If true the current mission will be unpaused when a new player enters an empty server. A mission will also be
--resumed ~1min after loading if the server is not empty. Set to false to disable.
resume_if_server_not_empty = true,
--If true the server automatically restarts the current mission when all players left the server.
--Set to false to disable.
restart_if_server_empty = true,
--Number of human teamkills after which a player will be kicked automatically. Set to 0 to disable.
kick_after_teamkills = 2,
And yes, the pause_on_load = true
Once I set it to false the server is not paused if nobody is joined.