All my content on my storage device has become "unavailable"

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
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Hi everyone. First disclaimer - I am 60+ years old and struggle to understand tech speak, so please be patient! :grimacing:

Just in the last week or two, all my content on my Plex media server has become “unavailable”.

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I have done nothing new or different - in fact, I have done nothing - it just happened. I have changed nothing at all. I am using an iMac running Monterey 12.3.1, and my media is stored on a LaCie external hard drive. When I open the Plex media server, it opens on Google Chrome. The Plex version I am running is up to date.

Besides going nuts searching Google for a solution, this is what I have done to date:

  • Rebooted my computer
  • Rebooted by external hard drive
  • Cleared all caches and bins
  • Refreshed all my libraries
  • Deleted my libraries and relinked them
  • Deleted Plex, re-downloaded and re-installed it.

Plex can see all my content because all the thumbnails come up along with the meta data. But every single item (and there are hundreds of them) have come up as “Unavailable”. All items are sorted into folders, so I do not have TV series mixed with movies. I have all different formats (mkv, mp4, etc) which has never been a problem.

As I mentioned, this has only happened very recently. Does anyone have a solution I can implement?

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I think I saw a post earlier that stated the last macOS update undid the Files and Folders access permissions Plex Media Server needs to deal with external Hard Drives.

To check, open the System Preferences on your Macintosh (from the Apple menu in the upper left hand corner). Then open the Security & Privacy panel. Then you should be able to scroll down to the Files and Folders item. Then check that the Plex Media Server has Removable Volumes checked like in this screenshot:

You might have to restart the Plex Media Server application by quitting and restarting for the checkbox to take effect.

Good Luck

Chris

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Yeap, follow the link.

Good Plexing

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Thank you for your quick response.

I followed the instructions and noted that the box was already ticked. However, just above it is the “Full Disk Access” button, so I went exploring with that. I ticked the Plex box under THAT option and BINGO!!

Thank you so much CWallace for your help, and SE56 for your support.

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