Can't reinstall Plex using Ubuntu 64-bit

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
1

Plex was having multiple problems…dvr not working right and not parsing movie metadata correctly so I uninstalled Plex by doing:
sudo dpkg -r plexmediaserver
sudo rm -r /var/lib/plexmediaserver

Then I try to install it using:
sudo dpkg -i plexmediaserver_1.11.3.4803-c40bba82e_amd64.deb

From the logs:
Mar 6 10:32:22 Zarkov systemd[1]: Starting Plex Media Server for Linux…
Mar 6 10:32:22 Zarkov systemd[1]: Started CUPS Scheduler.
Mar 6 10:32:22 Zarkov systemd[1]: Started ACPI event daemon.
Mar 6 10:32:22 Zarkov sh[6191]: /bin/mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/var/lib/plexmediaserver’: Permission denied
Mar 6 10:32:22 Zarkov systemd[1]: plexmediaserver.service: Control process exited, code=exited status=1
Mar 6 10:32:22 Zarkov systemd[1]: Failed to start Plex Media Server for Linux.
Mar 6 10:32:22 Zarkov systemd[1]: plexmediaserver.service: Unit entered failed state.
Mar 6 10:32:22 Zarkov systemd[1]: plexmediaserver.service: Failed with result ‘exit-code’.

If I manually create the /var/lib/plexmediaserver I just get another error…not sure what kind of quality control is going on…the next new error is:
Mar 6 10:45:09 Zarkov systemd[1]: Starting Plex Media Server for Linux…
Mar 6 10:45:09 Zarkov systemd[1]: Started Plex Media Server for Linux.
Mar 6 10:45:10 Zarkov systemd[1]: Reloading.
Mar 6 10:45:10 Zarkov systemd[1]: [/etc/systemd/system/plexmediaserver.service:11] Invalid escape sequences in line, correcting: “/bin/sh -c ‘LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/plexmediaserver /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Plex\ Media\ Server’”
Mar 6 10:45:11 Zarkov sh[6998]: Error in command line:the argument for option ‘–serverUuid’ should follow immediately after the equal sign
Mar 6 10:45:11 Zarkov sh[6998]: Crash Uploader options (all are required):
Mar 6 10:45:11 Zarkov sh[6998]: --directory arg Directory to scan for crash reports
Mar 6 10:45:11 Zarkov sh[6998]: --serverUuid arg UUID of the server that crashed
Mar 6 10:45:11 Zarkov sh[6998]: --userId arg User that owns this product
Mar 6 10:45:11 Zarkov sh[6998]: --platform arg Platform string
Mar 6 10:45:11 Zarkov sh[6998]: --url arg URL to upload to
Mar 6 10:45:11 Zarkov sh[6998]: --help show help message
Mar 6 10:45:11 Zarkov sh[6998]: --version arg Version of the product

1 Like
2

@brorean said:
sudo rm -r /var/lib/plexmediaserver

That was a bad idea :wink: Next time please just remove the Library sudo rm -r /var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library.

Fix is easy:

# stop plex
sudo systemctl stop plexmediaserver
# recreate the missing directory
sudo mkdir /var/lib/plexmediaserver
# give plex access to this directory
sudo chown plex:plex /var/lib/plexmediaserver
# start plexmediaserver
sudo systemctl start plexmediaserver

And while you are at it, please also fix your Plex service file. /etc/systemd/system/plexmediaserver.service is not the packaged version. Did you edit this file? if not please do the following:

# stop plex
sudo systemctl stop plexmediaserver
# remove this service file
sudo rm /etc/systemd/system/plexmediaserver.service
# reload service files
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
# enable plex
sudo systemctl enable plexmediaserver
# start plexmediaserver
sudo systemctl start plexmediaserver
2 Likes
3

Thank You!

4

It Worked for me as well!

Thank you!