Does Plex not work with symlinks? (Both aboslute and relative)

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
1

I have two shares:

  • /mnt/user/Plex/Family
  • /mnt/user/Videos/Sea_2019

I tried both absolute and relative symlinks, (ln -s / ln -rs).

So for example: I did `ln -s “/mnt/user/Plex/Family/VID1.mp4” “/mnt/user/Videos/Sea_2019/Video1.mp4”

I can open that symlink just fine and it works, but Plex doesn’t recognize it.

I have the /mnt/user/Plex entire directory shared/passed through as /media in Docker settings.

Here’s the funny thing, you know that option “add folder” in Plex? When you’re adding new media directories within plex Creating those groups etc It actually shows me files there just fine. It just doesn’t load them to be viewed at all. As if files weren’t .mp4 files, it just ignores them. Here’s the image of what I mean: https://i.imgur.com/AgYsp5e.png

I add that folder, click rescan in Plex - and it says There are no items in Library

I also checked the permissions, they’re good 100%. I even did chmod 777 to everything for testing. Still didn’t work.

2

Symlinks work. They’re ill advised but work.

Remember what’s happening in Linux:

When Linux resolves the link, user plex:plex must have permission to traverse and read each directory it passes through in resolving the link.

Just because you can see it doesn’t mean user ‘plex’ can. (Linux’s default security)

3

Solved it. The issue was that Plex was inside the Docker, and it reqired 1000:root access there (chown). It also required relative symlinks within the same directory (SMB share), otherwise it wouldn’t work.

I just hid the folder and now it works flawlessly. Thank you.

4

So in a Docker,
Required root,
While standing on left toes,
As you create the symlink.

Got it :+1:

:smiley:

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5

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