A Puzzler -Plex reporting a movie is 'unavailable' when it is located where the link has always been

General Discussions
1

I’ve recently ran into a problem where I try to play a movie (that I’ve played recently with no issues), Plex reports that the file is unavailable. However the file is there (on my server) and playable via a network share outside of Plex no issues.

TV episodes play within Plex with no problem. Music plays no problem. I looked at a couple dozen movies. I found one that didn’t have the red ‘unavailable’ indicator. All reported an ‘error’ when trying to play the movie.

Playback Error
Please check that the file exists and the necessary drive is mounted.

And yet, when I look at the server status. It actually shows the movie is streaming! It plays like this for a few minutes then disappears and the message “nothing is currently being played” displays in the Now Playing window.

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Attached is a screenshot of plex reporting “unavailable”, file is located in a proper share (via SMB) and being played with VLC attached.

I’ve restarted the server a couple of times. I’ve retired rebuilding the metadata for that movie, but didn’t make any difference (didn’t think it would since its just the info about the movie…). Any other ideas on how do diagnose this issue?

2

You could try doing a database clean…empty bundles etc…

3

Is Plex Server running on your NAS?
It may be running under a different user account (usually plex on Linux-based NAs’s. This is a different account than the one which you are using to access the files on the NAS from your workstation.)
Make sure this plex user account has at least ‘read’ access to all your movie files.

If your NAS is a QNAP, you might want to read this: http://forums.plex.tv/discussion/287902/special-announcement-qnap-codexpack-4-5-0-issues-with-pms#top

4

@OttoKerner said:
Is Plex Server running on your NAS?
It may be running under a different user account (usually plex on Linux-based NAs’s. This is a different account than the one which you are using to access the files on the NAS from your workstation.)
Make sure this plex user account has at least ‘read’ access to all your movie files.

If your NAS is a QNAP, you might want to read this: http://forums.plex.tv/discussion/287902/special-announcement-qnap-codexpack-4-5-0-issues-with-pms#top

I’m using unRaid and a Plex Docker. Not had any problems with it before. I’ve ended up rebuilding the Plex Database and it seems to be working. Don’t understand what the cause could be… Will repost if it returns… For now … waiting as 3000+ movies rebuild…