Cannot get media files to display, wondering if it is permissions or something else

[randyvolters]

Server Version#: Unsure, but I just intstalled it today - 12/3/2024 from the repo
Player Version#: Web Version 4.140.0
Linux Distro: Kubuntu 24.10
HDD - 12 TB Seagate physical drive in my system.

See attached partitions screen cap.

I have partition sda5 (ext4) set aside for the media content.
Named “plex” mounted as /media/randy/plex.

I have assiged myself and the user, plex to the group plex.

First Issue: when I try to browse to this location in the “add library” I cannot see it. So, instead, I type “/media/randy/plex” into the location then append a folder such as “Movies”, then type Add.
First question: is the fact that /media/randy/plex is not showing up in the add library interface significant? Is there some problem with having a separate partition on the HDD as I have done?

Second Issue: I wanted to avoid permissions issues initially so I did the following:
sudo chown -R plex:plex /media/randy/plex/
sudo chmod -R 777 /media/randy/plex (I intend to change this to 755 once I have resolved having media files show up in the media server).
Second question: Are these permissions OK? Will changing them to 755 cause problems?

Third issue: I see on the forums where folder and file names can be an issue -
Here is an example of Videos…
folder: /media/randy/plex/Videos/BABYLON5
file: BABYLON 5 S1E1 - Midnight on the Firing Line.mp4
folder: /media/randy/plex/Movies/1941
file: 1941.mp4
Is there anything wrong with these folder/subfolder/file names?
NOTE: I can play these files fine in Haruna, so I do not think it is a media issue.

Other than these things, I cannot see why the media isn’t showing up.
Thanks in advance to anyone who can help a noob out.

[pshanew]

@randyvolters

First question: is the fact that /media/randy/plex is not showing up in the add library interface significant?

Yes. It means that the user under which Plex Media Server is running (usually plex) doesn’t have permission to access that path.

@randyvolters

Second question: Are these permissions OK? Will changing them to 755 cause problems?

Yes and no. If you were in some other path those permissions (777) would would likely work. However, /media/<user> is special. In Ubuntu in particular (and other distros too) paths under /media/ are used by the system to mount removable volumes. In doing so, ACLs (Access Control Lists) are applied. ACLs are a different form of access control which supercede standard Unix-style permissions. If you ls -al /media, you’ll see a ‘+’ at the end of the permissions list of the user folders. Those indicate ACLs are being used.

There are ways to adjust the ACLs to allow other users to access the path(s) in question (see the man page for setfacl). However, it’s generally better to create static mounts. There’s some guidance here regarding how to setup static mounts for disks for use with Plex:

Linux Tips

Using other hard drives (Windows or Linux) with PMS This How-To is written to help with Internal and External drives. It also is written to demonstrate how to cope with NTFS and EXT4 formatted drives. By logical extension, any format supported by Linux can be handled using the technique shown here. In all cases, the goal is to give user plex permission to read your media files which Linux doesn’t allow by default due to its strict security model. We will walk through the steps needed …

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@randyvolters

folder: /media/randy/plex/Videos/BABYLON5
file: BABYLON 5 S1E1 - Midnight on the Firing Line.mp4
folder: /media/randy/plex/Movies/1941
file: 1941.mp4
Is there anything wrong with these folder/subfolder/file names?

Yes, a few things:

• TV series folders should be the actual name of the show with the year of the first episode’s release in parentheses appended, e.g. “Babylon 5 (1993)”
• While not strictly necessary (but generally considered best practice), the filenames for the episodes should be in the form “Show Name (release year) - SxxEyy - Episode Title.ext.” Though a bare minimum is “SxxEyy.ext” for an episode to be recognized correctly, assuming its containing folder is named correctly.
• A season folder should be included; the episodes will live in their appropriate season. So a full path from the show’s folder down would be “Babylon 5 (1993)/Season 01/Babylon 5 (1993) - S01E01 - Midnight on the Firing Line.mp4”.
• For movies, it’s considered best practice to include the release year in parentheses after the movie name (in both the folder name and file name: …/1941 (1979)/1941 (1971).mp4

The full naming and organization guidelines can be found in the appropriate sections here:
https://support.plex.tv/articles/#cat-your-media

[randyvolters]

Thanks so much!!!

I will have a look at these replies tomorrow and will study up on resolving them.

Really appreciate the prompt responses and the details on each.

Thanks again.

[ChuckPa]

If I may add a few points?

1. Don’t let the automounter put anything under your username ( /media/USERNAME) . It automatically cuts off Plex from seeing it. This is intended for thumb / usb drives and not for permanent media.

2. When setting permissions -
   – You keep ownership (chown) of everything
   – You assign Unix permissions which give you full control and everything else is read-only (for now)

– Looks like this:

• cd /nas/movies
• sudo chown -R chuck.chuck .
• find . -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;
• find . -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;

1. I’m in the /nas/movies mount point
2. I take ownership of everything under that point
3. I change all directories so I have full RWX (full control) of them and everything else has read permission.
4. I change all the files so I have full RW permissions of them and, again, everything else has read permission.

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I name series (use FileBot), this way:

[chuck@lizum tv.2022]$ ll -R /glock/media/tv/Silo/
/glock/media/tv/Silo/:
total 8
drwxr-xr-x  4 chuck chuck   52 Nov 14 21:39 ./
drwxr-xr-x 65 chuck chuck 4096 Dec  2 21:17 ../
drwxr-xr-x  2 chuck chuck 4096 Jun 29  2023 Season 01/
drwxr-xr-x  2 chuck chuck  127 Nov 26 21:30 Season 02/

/glock/media/tv/Silo/Season 01:
total 39517260
drwxr-xr-x 2 chuck chuck       4096 Jun 29  2023 ./
drwxr-xr-x 4 chuck chuck         52 Nov 14 21:39 ../
-rw-r--r-- 1 chuck chuck 4879430091 May 10  2023 Silo - S01E01 - Freedom Day.mkv
-rw-r--r-- 1 chuck chuck 3887760921 May 10  2023 Silo - S01E02 - Holston’s Pick.mkv
-rw-r--r-- 1 chuck chuck 5072676042 May 12  2023 Silo - S01E03 - Machines.mkv
-rw-r--r-- 1 chuck chuck 3669574404 Jun 10  2023 Silo - S01E04 - Truth.mkv
-rw-r--r-- 1 chuck chuck 4158794770 May 25  2023 Silo - S01E05 - The Janitor's Boy.mkv
-rw-r--r-- 1 chuck chuck 4126540751 Jun  1  2023 Silo - S01E06 - The Relic.mkv
-rw-r--r-- 1 chuck chuck 3879223910 Jun  8  2023 Silo - S01E07 - The Flamekeepers.mkv
-rw-r--r-- 1 chuck chuck 3522173611 Jun 15  2023 Silo - S01E08 - Hanna.mkv
-rw-r--r-- 1 chuck chuck 3607923628 Jun 22  2023 Silo - S01E09 - The Getaway.mkv
-rw-r--r-- 1 chuck chuck 3661545964 Jun 29  2023 Silo - S01E10 - Outside.mkv

/glock/media/tv/Silo/Season 02:
total 11208952
drwxr-xr-x 2 chuck chuck        127 Nov 26 21:30 ./
drwxr-xr-x 4 chuck chuck         52 Nov 14 21:39 ../
-rw-r--r-- 1 chuck chuck 3680555101 Nov 16 02:07 Silo - S02E01 - The Engineer.mkv
-rw-r--r-- 1 chuck chuck 3368438441 Nov 21 21:25 Silo - S02E02 - Order.mkv
-rw-r--r-- 1 chuck chuck 4428964348 Nov 26 21:29 Silo - S02E03 - Solo.mkv
[chuck@lizum tv.2023]$

Some of the movies look like this:

There are a lot of details to learn. Take your time, don’t rush

[randyvolters]

Thank you very much as well - this amplified my understanding of the previous reply nicely.
Been a long time since I have used linux. How long? I was using Red Hat before there was a fedora distro… (Old guy).

[randyvolters]

Thank you both for your help!
added fstab entry to have HDD partition properly mounted
re-checked, corrected permissions
Followed media naming conventions suggested on site for naming TV show.
Added first episode of Babylon 5
Added library to Plex and BOOM, immediately saw it being scanned and the episode added.
Pulled it up in the Plex app and it works!!!

[pshanew]

@randyvolters

Thank you both for your help!

You’re welcome, glad you got it working!