I was wondering if anyone could help with this. I’m trying to roll back to an older version of Plex Server due to the ongoing problems with large databases in the current builds.
I found the ~/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Updates/ folder which contains the most recent previous versions. These are not installers, but each folder contains a “packages” folder, which contains a zip file. If I unzip that file, I get a “Contents” folder. This can be used to replace the Contents folder within the Plex Media Server.app in Applications (by right clicking and selecting Show Package Contents).
The problem with this is, after I do all this, when I restart the Plex server, it gets stuck on “Server is Starting” and never completes the startup. So considering this, maybe I’m going about this the wrong way.
Can someone shed some light on how to actually roll back the Plex server on a Mac? Thanks!
I unzipped it in the Downloads folder, which resulted in a folder called “Contents.” Then I went to the “Plex Media Server.app” in Applications, right clicked and selected “Show package contents.” Which also revealed a “Contents” folder. So I just replaced that Contents folder with the one from the zip file.
Like I said, Plex starts to launch, which means it seems everything is in place. Except it never fully launches, it just stays on “Server is starting.” Which makes me think there is something incompatible between that version of Plex and the existing database.
You’re following the correct procedure for rolling back to an older version on a Mac. How far back are you going?
Try renaming your Plex data folder (~/Library/Applications Support/Plex Media Server/) to something else temporarily; then try to start the rolled-back version of Plex Media Server. It will create a new one, basically giving you a blank slate for testing. (You can always delete the new on and move your old one back).
If that works, it likely means that there’s something in your existing Plex data causing the older version to behave the way you describe; otherwise, there’s something more fundamental causing the startup issue. In either case, logs from one of these startup attempts may be helpful.
On a side note, I had a look at your other recent post regarding Plex Media Server “crashing.” There’s another thread on the forum discussing something similar (server running, but inaccessible). There are some steps in the first post to see if you’re experiencing the same problem.
