what the steps and files needed to migrate from a sever on a sheild to a windows sever keeping all the watch history custom collections and playlists
It is almost impossible to get it right, if you’ve never did it before.
You want to migrate from Android to Windows. i.e. across two completely different operating systems
The first hurdle is the Android custom of hiding the app data folders from the end user. Unless you have already moved the Plex server data on the Shield from the internal memory to an external hard drive, there is almost no way to access it.
If your plex data folder is already on an external hard drive, you need to find a way to access that drive and the folder on it.
Theoretically, you could copy the whole plex data folder to your Windows machine, replacing its contents completely. (Both the source and the target Plex server must be stopped during the whole copy process, or you will end up with a damaged database.)
So you might have successfully moved the database structure to your Windows server.
However, Windows is adressing the storage location of media files differently than Android. As a result, all items in your library can show a trash can icon at first.
The checkbox “Empty trash automatically after every scan” in your server settings must be empty, or you may lose data. Same goes for periodic and automatic library scans. You better keep them disabled until after the transition.
If the items in your library are regular movies and tv shows, matched with the default, modern metadata agent of Plex, you have a good chance of re-connecting each poster with its file, after you have edited the library and added the new media storage location. (keep the old, now invalid media location from the Shield in there for now!)
However, “Other Videos” type of content may lose their metadata and may appear as newly added. Simply because there is only the folder location and the file name to identify such a file. But the folder location changed with the move to Windows, so many of these files may lose their identity in Plex.
A rather easy method to transfer at least the “watched” status between servers, is to activate the Sync with your account on plex.tv https://support.plex.tv/articles/sync-watch-state-and-ratings/
(you will need to leave the old server switched on and online for a few days after enabling it)
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