Application Support symlink not working

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
1

Server Version#: Ubuntu 18.04
Player Version#: Web

I’ve read a lot of the instructions regarding the moving of the application data directory, however I am having an odd problem with a new server that I’m building.

On my previous server, I had all of the application data stored on a raid array that was mounted over NFS. On my new server, I am trying to symlink the /var/lib/plexmediaserver directory to that same folder mounted via NFS. I have changed all users and groups in /var/lib/plexmediaserver to be plex:plex and I’ve even gone as far as chmoding everything in the application data directory to 777 just for testing, but for some reason Plex will start, but is unreachable using http://127.0.0.1:32400/web. When I move the symlink and restore the original /var/lib/plexmediaserver, the program starts just fine, but obviously it does not have my configuration.

I am trying to troubleshoot the issue, however systemctl status plexmediaserver.service shows that everything looks good even when I have the symlinked /var/lib/plexmediaserver directory. The plex media server log does not show anything particularly valuable either. The log file in the nfs mounted directory does get modified, so I am under the impression that the plex user has the needed access to the application data directory.

Are there any other places I can check to see what plex is doing? All I get when I try to access the web interface is “This site can’t be reached” and I’m not sure where else to look.

Please let me know what information is needed to troubleshoot and I will gladly provide it. Thank you for your help!

2

Symlinks are always problematic.

If you want to move the Plex APPLICATION SUPPORT directory (/var/lib/plexmediaserver), the best way to do it is with an application override on Ubuntu .

1 Like
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Thanks for the quick response! I should have mentioned that I also did try modifying the systemd service file and reloading the daemon. I’ve changed the PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_APPLICATION_SUPPORT_DIR line to use the directory directly where I have it mounted instead of using the symlink. It behaves the same way as when I use the default PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_APPLICATION_SUPPORT_DIR via the symlink.

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Show me what you’ve done please.

There must be a permissions problem somewhere along the way

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It has to be a permissions issue, but it doesn’t make sense to me because I’ve used chown -R plex:plex on everything in the folder structure. I’m in the process of overhauling my entire setup, so I’ll probably just rebuild the application support directory from scratch to avoid the hassle.

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Before you do that, why don’t you try copying the folder to the new server with something like rsync?

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