Hello!
I’ve had my Plex Server running on my Synology NAS. It’s been working fine, but it was a bit weak to recode some of the media.
I thus decided to get myself a NUC and as such did so and attempted by all guides I could find transfer my server from NAS to NUC.
However, it failed…
Because of above attempt, my old server is shut down and I can’t seem to get my new one to accept the files and folders I moved from my NAS-installation.
It’s a rather large set of media and thus all META-data and such will take a long long time to complete. Not to mention all my statuses of what I’ve seen and not is inaccurate/non-existent.
I checked these guides, but the second is for PC to PC.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/201370363-move-an-install-to-another-system/
Any brilliant mind who is able to help me? Also if this post is in the wrong place of the Forum, please let me know / move it to the right place!
Sorry for any inconvenience!
Thanks!
Hello!
Thank you for your quick reply!
I shut down both sides of the server and then moved the information from the folder mentioned to the folder mentioned.
I then turned on my NUC-side server and there was nothing there. No libraries. I then tried to add one, thinking the library itself needed adding but the content/META/etc should remain intact due to the move, but alas so was not the case.
I did however move the preferences. No plexmediaserver.pid was found though.
I’ll try redo the whole thing.
I’ve now uninstalled Plex server on the NUC and removed all data under AppData\Local. Reinstalled the server again and will again try to migrate all data from Plex/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server on the NAS to the NUC.
Or do you see any other miss I’ve done? The Empty trash was disabled on the source server, but not on the NUC. I’ll make sure to do so!
Thanks!
I have done what you are doing too many times to count.
NAS as PMS , NUC as new server. ++++
But I just pointed the NUC to the NAS
And the NUC became the server and left PMS on the NAS as a backup.
As long as you have this file somewhere (and it’s like 50,000-500,0000 KB) you will have the what was watched etc.
com.plexapp.plugins.library.db
You will have to point your sections (TV etc) to the new folder locations (as you did originally)
Send me a PM if you need as I have been where you are!!
@trumpy81 said:
Using your method @spikemixture requires re-downloading of all of the metadata. The OP wanted to avoid that, hence you should copy the contents of Plex Media Server and not just the database.
Yep I agree
For me the most important is the watched and unwatched that cannot be replaced. The metadata is replaceable.
Also my PMS folder has over 1,000,000 files!
It takes as long to copy the PMS folder to another box as to d/l new metadata.
Ok not really but it does take a bloody long time to move a million files!!
I have done it for 40k tv episodes, 4k movies and 50k mp3 many many times.
If you’re moving from the Syno to the NUC, the TL;DR technique:
- In PMS, prior to shutdown, Settings - Server - Library – Turn off “Empty Trash after each Library scan” (keeps all the metadata)
- Open the Plex share in FileStation (Give yourself R/W permission in Control Panel - Shared Folders if needed)
- Right-click
Library and Compress to Library.zip
- While completing, install PMS on the NUC and let it start once but do not initialize PMS (you’ll be trashing that empty DB anyway)
- Stop PMS in Package Center
- Copy the ZIP to
/var/lib/plexmediaserver on the NUC
- Unzip it in place resulting in the familiar
./Library/Application Support/..... structure
-
sudo chown -R plex:plex Library (most important)
- Turn your attention to the mount points for the media shares. Make certain all are mapped and user
plex minimally has read permission
- Start PMS
- Open http://127.0.0.1:32400/web and step through all settings. Do not yet change anything in
Settings - Server - Library
- For each Library section currently defined,
Edit the folders list and ADD the new path to the media. DO NOT remove the old path yet. Scan files and observe there are no red trash cans (the indicator for missing media). When all are again found, you can Edit the library section and remove the old synology-specific path.
- Repeat the above until all sections are complete.
- When all media has been found, verified and metadata is correctly showing the new path, re-enable emptying the trash in Library settings.
Task complete.
Hello again!
Thank you for all the suggestions! What a helpful community. Love it!
As I tried simply network share copy all files to my NUC I got an error about permissions. Which is weird, as I’m logged into the share with a user with full permissions.
Anyhow, I’m now trying to archive the PMS from the NAS side now. Hoping that will solve the problem!
It would be a possibility just to save the “watched” data, but as I tried rescanning for META things got weird.
A few movies turned up as they should, all data looking good. However, a few showed up as duplicates, one showing “1 movie” with no additional info, and the other showing up as it should.
Thus I would like to move the old library from NAS to NUC to keep it looking good and intact.
On the NUC-side, do I need to keep the same structure as on the NAS-side? Folder-wise?
@ ChuckPA: Step 8, just “Action -> Stop” on GUI, yes?
Also not quite sure how you mean at step 9. Mount points? You mean map drive for the NAS-network shares where the files are located for the old PMS?
Permission wise, how can I give the NAS folder “Plex” user permission?
Setting all up at first run was rather easy. Moving this was a lot more difficult than I first expected it to be!
Thank you all for your amazing help!
Yes, All ZIP creation must be done with PMS stopped. Sorry for that omission.
Re ‘mount points’: The location on the local system where the remote directory is ‘mounted/mapped’
Take a look here. Backup/restore and moving are both applicable
https://forums.plex.tv/categories/linux-tips
It feels like I’m being thick atm. Sorry!
NAS side: \NAS\Plex\Library\Application Support\Plex Media Server
NUC side: C:\NUC-Folders\Program Installations\Plex\Plex Media Server
NAS side has been zipped. Should I extract and write over NUC side on that path or make another?
The movies/pictures/music/series are all being stored on the NAS, btw. Currently two shared folders for “Movies” and “Series”. Those have no permissions for a “Plex” user.
Nor is there any user “Plex” on the NUC-side.
Am I missing something?
We need some Windows help here. I have no appreciable skills.
The most versed in Synology and Windows is @trumpy81 This ping should bring him around
Well, something doesn’t seem to go right, that’s for sure.
I zipped the PMS on NAS, moved it to NUC, extracted. The extracted version is 3,2 GB, the folder on NAS is 4,6 GB.
Somethings missing.
After extracting the files to the NUC PMS, and starting PMS, I have no libraries to scan. I can only choose to add a new one.
Finally, when I was copying over all PMS data to NUC; i got this error on “com.plexapp.dlna.dn-shm”:
“Error 0x800704C8: The requested operation cannot be performed on a file with a user-mapped section open.”
Nothing is open except for the folder from which I’m copying the files from.
Hello again!
I solved the problem. After googling, not quite knowing what to look for, I focused no why the libraries didn’t show up after the move. I then stumbled upon someone who had accidentally deleted his libraries and found out which files was associated with the library.
That would be the files under Plex Media Server\Plug-in Support\Databases
Closing the PMS and moving these 3 files out of the folder (saving them in case):
com.plexapp.dnla.db-shm
com.plexapp.dnla.db-wal
com.plexapp.plugins.library.db
And then copy one of the backup “library.db” files and renaming it to follow the above file-name as to restore the backup.
Then starting Plex again, all my meta and libraries as well as “watched status” was there!
Thank you all for your patience with this Plex amateur!
I’m so happy for all the help and quick replies. But most of all, happiest over the fact that I again can enjoy the pleasures of Plex on my new, more powerful machine!
Thanks all!
