Downloads and Sync failing (Converted files cannot be written to the server's disk)

Plex Players Mobile Devices
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1

Server Version#: 1.19.4.2935
Player Version#: 7.2.1
iPadOS: 13.5.1

Plex Media Server is Ubuntu Linux 18.04.2
Media files are mounted from a FreeBSD server using NFS:

/etc/fstab NFS mount points

#2018-12-29 NFS mounts for Plex
freenas03.home:/mnt/vol01/media/Movies /media/Movies nfs defaults, grpid 0 0
freenas03.home:/mnt/vol01/media/TV /media/TV nfs defaults, grpid 0 0

Streaming works beautifully local and Internet access, including hw transcoding.

Two interrelated issues and need a second set of eyes on the configuration.

  1. On the iPad when I choose to download, almost immediately when I go into Downloads & Sync > Manage I see these messages:
    “Converted files cannot be written to the server’s disk”

  2. On the web client when I choose to synchronize I see that conversion starts. On the iPad in Downloads & Sync > Manage I see the media as status Pending and it never finishes. (One TV episode has downloaded and will play in airplane mode.)

For both use cases Status > Sync on the web client shows the content that is targeted to the iPad.

Initially I thought the problem was with the file system permissions across the NFS mount, but I do see ‘Plex Versions’ directories getting created in each media directory on demand. I have also written a shell script to create the Plex Versions directory with rwxrwsr-x permissions with group ownership that the Plex account is a member of. Beyond that, I do see “.inProgress” directories being created inside the “Plex Versions” directory.

I have followed the guidance of these three articles:

(and also updated /etc/login.defs to change UMASK from 022 to 002)

It’s not clear to me what log files I should look at to troubleshoot this problem or if I should start investigating somewhere else.

All suggestions appreciated.

thanks… Brad

2

One thing changed over time…

After setting up the override.conf file to set UMask to 022 and restarting the Plex service (per Customizing your Plex configuration) I now see that all the previous episodes I tried to download have changed from “Converted files cannot be written to the server’s disk” to “Pending”.

After the making the UMask change in override.conf, I tried to download one more episode from the iPad and it is now (the only file) showing the “Converted files cannot be written to the server’s disk” message.

… very confusing. :upside_down_face:

3

Found some pertinent log messages…

Jul 12, 2020 17:58:02.293 [0x7fbeabfff700] Error — Error creating directory "/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Cache/Transcode/Sync+/39948844/9e": Permission denied
Jul 12, 2020 17:58:02.293 [0x7fbeabfff700] Error — TranscodeJobManager: [Running] directory is not writable: "/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Cache/Transcode/Sync+/39948844/9e"

checking the file system, indeed those directories are not writeable by the plex user.

They have been created with the same ownership (nobody:nfs_group) as the NFS mount points (!) The plex user is a member of the nfs_group group, but obviously no group write permission… :unamused:

brad@ubuntu01-media:/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Cache$ ls -lah
total 56M
drwx---r-x   6 plex         115 4.0K Jul 12 18:05 .
drwxrwxrwx  11 plex         115 4.0K Jul 12 17:25 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 plex   plex      9.0K Jun 19 21:48 autotag_wordlist.json
-rw-------   1 plex         115 1.7K Dec 18  2019 ca.crt
-rw-------   1 plex         115 3.2K Dec 18  2019 certificate.p12
-rw-------   1 plex         115 5.1K Oct 19  2019 CloudAccess.dat
-rw-r--r--   1 plex   plex      7.9K Jul 12 18:05 CloudAccessV2.dat
-rw-------   1 plex         115 4.6K Apr 13  2019 CloudAccount.dat
-rw-r--r--   1 plex   plex      7.2K Jul 12 17:24 CloudAccountV2.dat
-rw-r--r--   1 plex   plex      6.9K Jul 12 17:25 Flags.dat
drwxr-xr-x   2 nobody nfs_group 4.0K Jun 30  2018 fontconfig
-rw-r--r--   1 plex         115  56M Dec 30  2018 gn_lists.gdb
drwxr-xr-x   2 nobody nfs_group 4.0K Dec 29  2018 OCSP
drwxr-xr-x 258 nobody nfs_group 4.0K Jan  7  2018 PhotoTranscoder
-rw-r--r--   1 plex   plex      7.3K Jul 12 17:25 Privacy.dat
-rw-r--r--   1 plex   plex       20K May 24 14:53 relayHostKey.txt
drwxr-xr-x   4 nobody nfs_group 4.0K Oct 13  2018 Transcode
-rw-r--r--   1 plex   plex       352 Jul 12 17:25 UpdateChannels.dat

and the Transcode directory in particular:

brad@ubuntu01-media:/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Cache$ ls -lahR Transcode/
Transcode/:
total 16K
drwxr-xr-x 4 nobody nfs_group 4.0K Oct 13  2018 .
drwx---r-x 6 plex         115 4.0K Jul 12 18:05 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 nobody nfs_group 4.0K Dec 23  2018 Sessions
drwxr-xr-x 4 nobody nfs_group 4.0K Oct 13  2018 Sync+

Transcode/Sessions:
total 8.0K
drwxr-xr-x 2 nobody nfs_group 4.0K Dec 23  2018 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 nobody nfs_group 4.0K Oct 13  2018 ..

Transcode/Sync+:
total 16K
drwxr-xr-x 4 nobody nfs_group 4.0K Oct 13  2018 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 nobody nfs_group 4.0K Oct 13  2018 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 nobody nfs_group 4.0K Oct 24  2018 22688107
drwxr-xr-x 2 nobody nfs_group 4.0K Oct 31  2018 28649500

Transcode/Sync+/22688107:
total 8.0K
drwxr-xr-x 2 nobody nfs_group 4.0K Oct 24  2018 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 nobody nfs_group 4.0K Oct 13  2018 ..

Transcode/Sync+/28649500:
total 8.0K
drwxr-xr-x 2 nobody nfs_group 4.0K Oct 31  2018 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 nobody nfs_group 4.0K Oct 13  2018 ..

I’m reluctant to change ownership or permissions without some idea why this happened and if I’ve got something configured incorrectly.

Any ideas?

thanks…

4

Found this too…

… but why doesn’t the sync-transcode process respect the Transcoder temporary directory setting???

(https://support.plex.tv/articles/201105343-advanced-hidden-server-settings/)
Preferences.xml > TranscoderTempDirectory

:upside_down_face: :upside_down_face:

5

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