Over the past few months, there have been several occasions when having PMS’ metadata and it’s binary package (the .qpkg) stored in two distinct locations.
Primary reasons to have this structure is:
Code can be on one volume of your choosing.
Data can be on another volume of your choosing.
The installed binary package will be free of its connection to the data. This allows uninstalling the package without loss of data and is consistent with other platforms.
When installing PMS, the installer will:
Search for an existing PlexData directory. If one is found, regardless of location, it will use it.
None having been found, it will create the PlexData share one where PMS is installed.
What this provides:
Ability to move the PlexData share to whichever volume is desired (PMS stopped first)
Freedom to uninstall PMS and downgrade without loss of data
What this removes:
Ability to move metadata via the “Migrate to” function of QTS. Only the binary code will be moved. (good if your primary volume is M.2 SSD because all writing will be done on the PlexData volume).
Ability start over by uninstalling Plex. Manual deletion through File Station will be required.
I would like to create a Forum Preview build and test here once development testing is complete.
This is a short timeframe task.
This goes against how all other qpkg’s works, IMHO
I Ack. that there’s a danger of people loosing their metadata if doing an uninstall, but to be frank, I can count the amount of times it happened up here the last 6 years on one hand!
I really think, that Plex instead of trying to tweak same behavior on all platforms, should use what’s native behavior on the platforms
Since this topic was opened, I’ve had several discussions with QNAP.
I have learned the following:
When Video Station is uninstalled, previously indexed content is not discarded. Plex’s is.
When Video Station is reinstalled, it resumes as if nothing has happened.
Video Station stores the data in a location which is very awkward to get to which makes a ‘Cold Restart’ difficult.
I would therefore like to propose;
The PlexData share exists, only accessible by the admin user.
When PMS is uninstalled, the current metadata is moved there for safekeeping.
While PMS is uninstalled, the admin can do anything he/she wishes including delete it and start fresh.
When PMS is reinstalled, if it sees previous metadata, it recovers it back into the QTS package directory. If there is no metadata to recover, it starts fresh.
Plex may now be migrated normally using the QTS migrate to functionality without restriction.
