"an unclaimed media server has been found on your network"

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
1

Hi,

I am running Ubuntu 18.04 with Plex. Everytime I restart the server I get the message from Plex “an unclaimed media server has been found on your network”.

I found this similar topic "an unclaimed media server has been found" every time I restart the server. but the solution didn’t work for me. plex:plex is now the owner of /var/lib/plexmediaserver but after a server restart I still got the message.

Plex Media Server Logs_2018-07-06_16-16-17.zip (3.3 MB)

Anyone any ideas?

2

User plex:plex should always have been the owner of /var/lib/plexmediaserver. That’s how it’s created when user plex in group plex is first added.

It’s saying it’s ‘unclaimed’ because there is no account information in Preferences.xml.

When you’re unable to 'Claim" a server by clicking in that orange bar, it means the tokens in your browser (from your plex/web session) can’t transfer the information to your server.

To remedy this you have two choices:

Method A

  1. Settings - Server - General
  2. Sign it in manually.

Method B

  1. Stop PMS
  2. Remove Preferences.xml
  3. Start PMS
  4. Proceed through the “Got it, sign in, and setup wizard” without creating new library sections. They will be there waiting for you.

Method B is a ‘soft reset’ of the permissions. You’ll need to check Settings - Server again after this to put all back those which were reset. (Not all get reset)

1 Like
3

Alright, I think I tried both methods but I can’t get it to work. I am a Ubuntu newbie so maybe I did something wrong.

I stopped Plex with this command

sudo service plexmediaserver stop

I then deleted Preferences.xml from /var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/

sudo rm Prefences.xml

Then restarted Plex with

sudo service plexmediaserver start

Then went to my local ip, 192.168.2.20:32400/manage and went through the setup without adding new libraries because they were already there.

Then I restarted my entire server. Logged into Plex but got the message again “unclaimed media server”. I then clicked on “Claim it now” and was redirected to Method A.

I can claim it successfully and make it accessible from outside my network. But still when I restart it I have to claim it again.

4

If that’s the case, then Preferences.xml is not being saved.

  1. Stop PMS
  2. sudo chown -R plex:plex /var/lib/plexmediaserver
  3. sudo find /var/lib/plexmediaserver -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;
  4. sudo find /var/lib/plexmediaserver -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;
  5. Start PMS
  6. Claim it again.

In the above I am forcibly resetting all ownership and permissions for everything in there.
I don’t know what has been mucking around but something has.

5

Got it! It works now, thanks so much :+1:

1 Like
6

When all else fails…

Get a bigger :hammer:

9

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