I was out of space on my boot SSD for my Plex Sever because video preview thumbnails were taking too much room and growing all the time. Saw this in support section which seems to address this directly:
“Relocate your Plex Media Server Data Directory
If the underlying issue is that you’re running out of space on a small boot drive, for instance, then the easiest solution is often simply to relocate the Plex Media Server data directory.
…
For Windows installations, you can make use of the The Path where Local Application Data is Stored general server setting. Refer to information about that setting for details.”
I got a new hard drive to transfer these to and tried to do it by changing the path from C:\Users\Plex Server\AppData\Local to F:\Plex Server\AppData\Local. Doing that I saw the folder created on F: automatically so I thought Plex would handle the transfer from there. But a few hours later there was still very very little that had transferred and I got feedback from family that Plex wouldn’t actually play anything. I thought maybe I needed to restart the server and right then saw there was a new Plex update I could install, so I told it to install the update knowing that would also restart the server. [I think that was my biggest mistake?] After the update plex was totally inaccessible… I went to the server settings and changed the path back to C:\Users\Plex Server\AppData\Local and after that I saw that the server came back and was accessible on Roku but now all my libraries were gone!
So my video files are all structured for Plex recognition but I’m still hoping there’s a way to get back in business without having to recreate all my libraries from scratch… especially because for a few of my custom libraries there was a significant amount of manual work I did to make them look pretty. Any advice so I can get to resurrect my libraries short of total recreation? Maybe using the database backup? I could really use some help here ASAP. Thanks!
@treMMor said:
I got a new hard drive to transfer these to and tried to do it by changing the path from C:\Users\Plex Server\AppData\Local to F:\Plex Server\AppData\Local.
Not correct.
so I thought Plex would handle the transfer from there.
No, you need to copy them yourself.
You might want to restore Plex to working condition first.
For that, simply empty out the input field “The Path where Local Application Data is Stored”
Save, then restart the server machine.
Thank you @OttoKerner for your quick response to help. I’ve spent the past few hours since seeing your reply trying to implement the fix but unfortunately nothing has changed: I still have Plex up and signed in but with just access to News, Channels and WatchLater & Recommended… none of my 14 or so libraries shows up.
I tried emptying out the path field as you stated, saving, then restarting Plex. Then I tried again but this time entering the original path on C:, saving, restarting Plex. Then I tried blanking again, saving, restarting again. Then I tried entering the F: path, saving, restarting (after copying the entire ~425GB directory directly myself this time now that this time I took your note and stopped the Plex Update Service from your linked post). I tried every permutation multiple times but…
The problem persists: Plex is up and signed in and everything is working except none of my libraries are available. Is there anything else I can try or is it time to give up and get Plex started on re-building my libraries? Thanks again for your kind help.
copy this address into the address bar of the Windows file explorer and press Enter: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Plex Media Server\
make a screen shot of the contents of this folder or copy them as text form, whichever is more convenient for you
That looks very good.
Make sure you have still ‘Automatic library updates’ and ‘Periodic library updates’ DISabled.
Also, keep ‘Empty trash automatically after every scan’ DISabled.
Verify that there is no content in the key Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Plex, Inc.\Plex Media Server\LocalAppDataPath
or that this key doesn’t exist at all.
Only make changes while Plex server is not running! (and with that I mean the tray icon from Plex is not present. Closing the web browser with the web app is not shutting down the server!)
OK, I hadn’t disabled Automatic updates before so I did and verified Empty trash was still disabled. The registry key was there but with no data. I made sure Plex was shutdown, and restored the backup of 11/29/17 (281MB) in place of the one there already (309K) (there were no -shm or -wal library files to remove) per the Restoring a Backup instructions.
I then restarted Plex, but though the DB file is now 281MB the libraries still don’t appear in Plex.
Did you copy the Plex data folder from a different Windows installation?
If so, it could have different access permissions. Make sure your hard disk passes a CHKDSK run.
I scanned C: (SSD) with chkdsk and got no errors I also used the tool you referenced. I only have the single dedicated Plex server so nothing was transferred from a different Windows installation.
My setup is using Plex on a dedicated laptop. The OS is Windows 7 and the only things on it are Plex, PlexPy, TeamViewer (so I can administer remotely) , Hard Disk Sentinel (for monitoring the health of my external USB attached hard drives where I store the videos), and Samsung Magician which came with the 500GB SSD that the OS and Plex are on for monitoring it’s health.I was not having any problems at all with Plex, but quickly running out of room on the SSD because of the Video Preview Files. The day before I attempted this it was showing ~2GB free space on the SSD when no transcoding was happening.
Yesterday, while working on this issue, I noticed it was showing at one point only 1MB free! and shortly after like 7MB-32MB free. I’m not sure why b/c I didn’t add anything because my libraries were gone/inaccessible. Knowing not having free space is a problem I deleted ~1.5GB from
C:\Users\Plex Server\AppData\Local\Plex Media Server\Media\localhost\0
because those files were already ‘backed up’ in the place I was trying to transfer all such files to (my F: external drive) and I didn’t think that small bit of files being missing would bother Plex even if it was still trying to use only the original file locations in C:
I know I could be wrong about that but since there’s not much else on that laptop to delete to free up space, I couldn’t figure a better way to free space for normal operations. Should I try re-copying those files back to C: from F: and trying again?
Well I just copied those files back to C: and restarted Plex but the libraries are still missing. It left only 23.6MB free on C: however. I’m going to close Plex now and delete them again to free that space.
@treMMor said:
Well I just copied those files back to C: and restarted Plex but the libraries are still missing. It left only 23.6MB free on C: however. I’m going to close Plex now and delete them again to free that space.
I assume then that the lack of space on C: has already messed up your plex data beyond the point of salvation. Sorry.
Change the path to the new plex data folder location (but clear this out beforehand) and start afresh.
Ah well, It’s my own fault then… I was holding out until the big sales for BF/CM to buy a new drive to finally do this, but I should have had Plex delete all my remaining Video Preview Files for the last and biggest library that I’d hoped to simply transfer over. That would have taken a long time to rebuild but would’ve been better than having to start over for everything especially on those custom libraries. Well lesson learned… late.
Again thank you so much @OttoKerner for all your help. At least I know now that I did everything possible to try and recover. WOW, you now have over 26K posts–amazing knowledge and patience. Thank you!
