# Cannot transcode music; hard drive full

**URL:** <https://forums.plex.tv/t/cannot-transcode-music-hard-drive-full/902355>\
**Category:** Plex Media Server\
**Tags:** server-linux\
**Created:** [January 15, 2025, 12:54am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/cannot-transcode-music-hard-drive-full/902355 "2025-01-15T00:54:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![rswart1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85e7bf/32.png) [@rswart1](https://forums.plex.tv/u/rswart1)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2025, 12:54am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/cannot-transcode-music-hard-drive-full/902355/1 "2025-01-15T00:54:46Z")

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Server Version#:  
Player Version#:  
\<If providing [server logs](https://support.plex.tv/articles/200250417-plex-media-server-log-files/) please do NOT turn on verbose logging, only [debug logging](https://support.plex.tv/articles/201643703-reporting-issues-with-plex-media-server/#toc-1) should be enabled\>

There is no player nor server version because I had to remove them to shut down the computer.

I reinstalled Plex today and set about rescanning my music files. All was going well until I was away from home, listening to music and I got a message that transcoding was no longer possible because my hard drive was full.

Indeed it is.

I do not know how to proceed. I don’t know where the transcoded media is kept on my hard drive - and I had to uninstall Plex just to be able to run a shutdown command.

Before I did, I looked where the transcode folder is located - that field was blank so I assume it was the default location for an Ubuntu server - wherever that is.

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**Author:** ![JKalchik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@JKalchik](https://forums.plex.tv/u/JKalchik)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2025, 1:22am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/cannot-transcode-music-hard-drive-full/902355/2 "2025-01-15T01:22:39Z")

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On Linux (or Unix, but that’s practically dead,) whenever you’re getting a drive/volume full error, I always start with ‘df -k’ and look for entries that show a 90% or more usage. Might be a good idea to paste that output here.

Secondly, now that you’ve uninstalled Plex Media Server, you’ll need to manually collect the logs.

cd /path/to/logs # usually var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media S  
erver/Log, you will need to escape the spaces  
sudo tar czf /tmp/pms.logs.tgz \*

Copy/paste /tmp/pms.logs.tgz here. If the df output doesn’t give an indication of where the issue is, then the logs may be useful.

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**Author:** ![rswart1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85e7bf/32.png) [@rswart1](https://forums.plex.tv/u/rswart1)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2025, 3:56pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/cannot-transcode-music-hard-drive-full/902355/3 "2025-01-15T15:56:08Z")

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Hi. Thank you for this information it has been saved.

I finally discovered the problem using ncdu on the Ubuntu server. It had nothing to do with Plex - an rsync back up was filling up the main drive instead of a data drive. My apologies.

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**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/2/a/2acb9765406f63293d357b4ec509ec39aa28f2ad.png) [@system](https://forums.plex.tv/u/system)\
**Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 3:56pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/cannot-transcode-music-hard-drive-full/902355/4 "2025-04-15T15:56:30Z")

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