autoFS and PMS initial mount issue

Plex Media Server
1

Server Version#: Latest Stable
Player Version#:Latest Stable

I recently made the move to autofs, which is working well except for one annoying issue with PMS:

PMS needs to access one share on a HP-Proliant micro-server on the LAN. The share is supposed to mount on demand as /cifs/proliant/shared, which it does except with PMS. That is, if other applications request to access the share it will automount as it is supposed to.

However, if the share has not yet been mounted and PMS requests access, nothing happens. If an attempt is made to access a PMS multimedia file, PMS says the file is not available, indicating that the automount request did no succeed.

It seems PMS requests to access a autofs share not yet enabled are ignored.

If I ssh into the PMS server and issue a basic command (ls /cifs/proliant/shared) to access that share or if another application request access, the share is mounted and PMS works again.

Currently I’m forcing a scripted “ls /cifs/proliant/shared” command as a cronjob to ensure get the share to be available when PMS needs it. It’s OK, but not elegant.

So, what am I missing? Is there an issue with PMS and autofs that I ought to be aware of?

Thanks

.

2

The problem isn’t PMS, it’s the nature and delays inherent with autofs meaning the use of autofs is problematic with PMS

  1. As you’ve found, the media isn’t mounted until after the request which is too late. There is no guarantee the mount will complete before the request times out. (most cases it will not which is why /etc/fstab completes before processes and PMS launch)

  2. When your media becomes unmounted, a notification will be sent (inotify) and PMS will mark the media as unavailable. (leading back to problem 1)

The solution here is to permanently mount the media share(s).
If you have more than 255 shares to mount, respectfully suggest you examine how your media is structured.

( I mount /vol/media. All my media are subdirectories of /vol/media resulting in things like /vol/media/animated (animated movies) )

1 Like
3

OK, refined and sorted out a few things and it’s working now. PMS is activating automount…

4

See my other post. I think whatever it was, it was me.

Cheers

5

I was previously also using a single mount point, using the examples from guides as in /cifs/server/share . I tidied up since my original post and the share is now mounted in /media/user/server/share - i don’t see how it should have mattered, but PMS now mounts remote shares as expected.

I think the Linux Gods were testing me…

Cheers.

6

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.