Changed to SSD and now Plex wont find my library

Plex Media Server
1

Server Version#: 1.32.5.7349
Player Version#:
Linux Mint
**Never used forums before so please be gentle :slight_smile: **

I just upgraded my computer from a SATA drive to an SSD. All of my media files are on a second SATA drive directly connected in the tower.
After installing the latest Plex Media Server and mounting my 2nd drive by editing my /etc/fstab file and TRYING to adjust the folder permissions, when i open Plex Media Server it sees my media folder but not any of the content inside it.
My files are organized into their own folders.

If I plug back in my old SATA drive - it works fine. Please note that system is running 1.31.2.6810. I tried to install that on my new system as well but same issue.

Now if I move my media to the built in Plex folder (/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library) it works but I did not have to do this on my old drive.

Here are how my permissions are set:

Old:
drwxr-xr-x 5 doug doug 4096 Sep 10 12:18 Videos

doug@pcname:~$ ls -l Videos/
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 3 doug doug 4096 May 7 16:28 ā€˜Movie Nameā€™
drwxr-xr-x 2 doug doug 4096 Sep 10 12:18 Media
doug@doug-Aspire-TC-281:~$ ls -l /var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/
total 4
drwxr-xr-x 3 plex plex 4096 May 4 2019 ā€˜Application Supportā€™
doug@pcname:~$

New:
doug@pcname:~$ ls -l /home/doug
drwxr-xr-x 5 doug doug 4096 Sep 10 12:18 Videos

doug@pcname:~$ ls -l /var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 3 plex plex 4096 Sep 7 06:17 ā€˜Application Supportā€™

I changed my media folders permissions to plex:plex instead of doug:doug and that did not help either and I could not create new folders so i had to revert. Again - did not have to do this my old system.

Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you

2

Another thing i should note is that on my old system I have a icon for Plex Media server in my Start - Sound & Video menu.
I do not have this on my new system so I thought it might be a bad install. But i have reinstalled a few times and even reimaged the whole computer again but this issue remains as well.

3

Please post your server logs and an example path and file name of an affected video

4

  1. Never put media in /var/lib/plexmediaserver. Thatā€™s the Plex internal directory. If you make any kind of mistake, youā€™ll blow up Plex. (Iā€™ve seen it happen more times than I can count)

  2. You probably need to address using this again.
    ā€“ /media is owned by Nautilus and the automounter
    ā€“ unless expressly mounted by /etc/fstab, the automounter only grants permission to your username, Plex is excluded

  3. Linux Tips - #2 by ChuckPa

5

@ChuckPa Thanks but I have expressly mounted the drive in my /etc/fstab. Is there any kind of edit I need to make to this? This is the same entry on BOTH my old and new systems and it works on the old system ;(

#Mount for Plex
UUID=(hiding this) /home/doug/Videos ext4 defaults 0 0
/swapfile none swap sw 0 0

6

Donā€™t put media in /home/username. Youā€™re asking for trouble and Mint (not-supported) is famous for making a mess of putting media in $HOME.

  • Make /home/videos, permission 755, now mount there
  • Set your username as owner of the directory.

Rule of Linux:

  1. Set the mount point directory permissions FIRST
  2. Mount the filesystem
  3. Set the mounted filesystem permissions if needed LAST
7

Chuck - your a genius
I did as you said and now Plex can see my files.

I am curious as this is the same permissions I had set on my /home/username/Videos folder and it did not work.
Can you explain more?
Thanks again :smile:

8

Youā€™re using Mint.

  • Mint isnā€™t supported because itā€™s an unstable derivative of Ubuntu.
    Iā€™ve had many cases where Mint works great as a desktop Linux (which is true) but the moment it gets pressed to run a server then it falters.

  • I once spent about 2 full days tracking a phantom problem which I could not reproduce. When I confirmed the user was using Ubuntu/Debian/Redhat/Fedora is when I got ā€œMintā€ as the reply. When the user reinstalled using Ubuntu, ALL the problems were immediately gone. No anomalies / issues at all.

  • Mint does things their way which goes against the majority of the community.

  • How Mint sets permissions on directories and how it manages /home/USERNAME is different than the other distros.

Because of all this, and their changing the rules from version to version, itā€™s not stable enough to vet and support.

1 Like
9

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