Cannot play media after metadata library move

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
1

Hello all,

I recently moved plex’s metadata from its default location to another internal drive using Moving PMS 'Library' as reference. After restarting the service I was prompted to name a new server and plex was once again able to add items to the database but media playback fails 100% of the time on all the clients I’ve tested (web, android, roku). Media just loads infinitely but sometimes I can coax a “Conversion failed. The transcoder exited due to an error.” out of it.

Attaching logs. Running on Ubuntu 16.04
Plex Media Server Logs_2018-07-30_21-38-11.zip (2.7 MB)

Any help would be very appreciated.

2

What customizations did you select?

Move the data only?
Did you use tar or cp ?

Your logs are indicating a number of “not found” (404) errors indicative of not all the data having been transferred over.

3

I’m not sure what customizations is in this case. Can you provide more context?

I moved the data using tar like in the referenced article. Should I rerun the command?

1 Like
4

In my guide, I showed 3 things:

  1. Moving to a new location
  2. Changing the username PMS runs as (to my username in the example)
  3. Relaxing the default Linux file creation flags

These are what I speak of

5

Ah, in that case I took customizations 1 and 3 and did not change the PMS username. I left the user to the default “plex” and chowned the moved library files accordingly.

I should also mention that plex made me create a new server after moving the files. Adding to OP.

6

The only thing I can think of which would lead to this situation is attempting to do the transfer with PMS running.

Do you still have the original PMS instance (/var/lib/plexmediaserver) available?

7

I’m fairly certain the service was stopped before the transfer was made but I could be wrong.

I do still have the original PMS instance.

8

this is really easy to do now that you’ve done the system-level work. (if you’re willing)

We’re going to open a terminal session window and run as root (easier)
I would like to undo the change to file permissions for this first step. (back to basics)

sudo sh

# Stop PMS
systemctl stop plexmediaserver

# edit the configuration override file
systemctl edit plexmediaserver

# Please comment out (#) the UMask= line & save
systemctl daemon-reload

# Save what we have so far
cd /home/plexdir
mv Library Library.save

# get a fresh copy of it
cd /var/lib/plexmediaserver
tar cf - ./Library | (cd /home/plexdir | tar xf -)

# when that completes,  we're ready to continue
systemctl start plexmediaserevr

# leave this terminal window open and off to the side until done

If this doesn’t correct the problem, we will need go back to the original and verify it doesn’t already exist there.

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9

Still saw the same behavior unfortunately. I was able to verify I could play media if I used the original metadata location.

I guess this means that some files are not getting copied over as expected?

Attaching newer logs just in case. Plex Media Server Logs_2018-07-31_18-39-28.zip (1.2 MB)

10

please paste, (highlight then format with the pre-formatted text </> tool) , exactly what your /etc/systemd/system/plexmediaserver.service.d/override.conf looks like

11 
# Customize Plex's config
[Service]
Environment="PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_APPLICATION_SUPPORT_DIR=/media/jMedia/plex_metadata/Library/Application Support"
#
# These values are only needed if you wish to change user & group
# User=chuck
# Group=chuck
#
# This is needed to change the default umask
# UMask=0002    # this must be 4 digits of octal
12

Thank you.

/media is off limits for user plex because Gnome & Nautilus take exclusive* control of it when you log in.

This is why I show /home. /home/plex is a completely safe location because /home/plex is not reserved by any other service.

13

Ah I did see this warning for Gnome but did not for Nautilus. Thanks for all the help!

14

Nautilus is Gnome’s file browser. Part of the suite. The ‘nasty’ part is “Gnome Session Manager”

1 Like
15

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