Hello. I recently got a refurbished iMac 2017 and it is updated to the latest software. I cannot access the server. I tried deleting the app and reinstalling it, I also deleted the server. However, it crashes (the app) when I try to open it. on mobile, it says the user couldn’t be authenticated and this IP seems to be having trouble connecting and signing in to the account. I am not running any VPNs. It detected repeated failures. I tried to find a way to contact plex support by email but I was not successful. So I decided to try this forum. Please help me if you can. Thank you!
is the PMS icon still showing in your menu bar or does it crash right after you started it? Can you see any records of those failed starts in your server logs (given the server isn’t running you’ll need to find them manually in ~/Library/Logs/Plex Media Server/)?
If there’s no entries in the logs… try to start the PMS through Terminal to see any error messages it sends to the OS:
Go to /Applications/
Right-Click the Plex Media Server app and click Show Contents
Go to Contents/MacOS
Open Terminal
Drag the Plex Media Server executable from #3 into Terminal and hit return (⏎)
As for the iOS client…
Anything other than a VPN that could prevent the app from authenticating to plex.tv?
Ok… that tells us the server is failing to start because the database has been (badly) corrupted.
If this is a new server, simply delete the server data directory (~/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/). If you were trying to migrate an existing setup you can try to repair the database.
I am not that much of an IT person. Is fixing the server pretty easy? I can always look on YouTube. Not sure if I mentioned but in addition to getting a new computer my external hard drive had failed and I moved my data to a new one. Do you think could add into the problems?
Moving your media to a different drive doesn’t impact the server database or cause it to get corrupted.
Did you have a look at the support article?
I consider those instructions to be pretty straight-forward… then again that’s obviously my subjective perspective
In the end you’ll only need to do this if you had previously setup that server and created libraries, customizations… – if you just want to start over, it’s even easier (simply delete the server data directory; see above).
This worked for a few days. Now I am getting the error something went wrong please try again. Sometimes, I can access the library but when I click on the title I get that error again. Should I just try the same steps we did before or is there another fix?
Let’s take another look at your server logs. If you keep getting your database corrupted over and over there’s probably something else wrong to cause this (e.g. an HDD dying a slow death).
I just tried your steps again deleting the plex media folder. I will tell you that I am in the process of copying new items into the folder which is the library I’m trying to add to my tv show folder (the folder that has been crashing most often). Do you think that because I am copying new items to that folder that plex is being overworked looking for new items therefore crashing and freezing?
Database corruption isn’t usually related to your server being overworked but e.g. being interrupted while writing data to the database. I’ve seen this happen when users did “backup copies” of their database while their server was active. It can happen if your system crashes while the server is busy…
You best do the database checks and repair attempts while your server is stopped.
