I want to take all the files for the media server, like the information and covers, from windows and transfer them to ubuntu I tried taking the files and pasting them into ubuntu's plex folder but it wouldn't do anything I checked the permissions on the folder and it's owned by plex, but I can't figure out how to change the permissions.
You would have a far easier time to have a central location for your media files and have the Windows PC (If that is your new media server) rescan and redownload the meta data. Trying to shoe one database between OS/Architectures is not necessary. In theory it's possible but the time it takes is not worth the effort. I have on my end a NAS that has mount points in both Linux and windows. Far simpler to simply rescan and redownload meta info. It's not too data intensive or IO bound.Â
Moving Plex Media Server between Windows and Linux is possible.
I have a medium sized collection. My wife and I have spent days organizing the information. I didn’t want to lose this effort.
The first few tries were moving the Plex Media Server folder to the Linux Plex Media Server folder. It didn’t work. The Plex service failed to start and displayed an error.
I looked closer at the files in the Plex Media Server folder. Some the folders had OS specific files in them. I deleted those folders. I also deleted all the Cache folders. This left seven folders: Media, Metadata, Plug-in Support, Plugins, Scanners, Site Configurations, Thumbnails. Four folders contained data: Media, Metadata, Plug-in Support, and Plugins. In my research, these four folders contain the data and the media images for the library. The other three folders where empty.
I copied the four folders and the three empty ones. I’m not sure if Plex Media Server uses the three empty folders, but what’s the harm if it doesn’t?
The moment of truth was at hand. I issued the command to start the Plex service. It started! When I launched the Plex website, all my movies and shows displayed! Success!
In Linux, you’ll need to mount the network share as a local drive. This means you’ll need to change library paths. Not a big deal, but this does trigger a rescan of your entire collection.
Update
I had to reinstall Plex and found some gaps in the above instructions.
- Install Plex on Linux
- Configure Plex via the web interface. At this point you’ll have an empty library.
- Shutdown plex sudo service plexmediaserver stopt
- Copy the media files as described above
- Start plex sudo service plexmediaserver start
- Change the Library paths to new paths. This will trigger a rescan of the files
- After complete, re fresh the plex website
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Sooo U R saying that you really did not have to move any data as the mount triggered a rescan anyway??
I’m not sure. I didn’t try it.
I wanted all the posters and the custom entered data, which was retained, even after Plex completed the scan.
@chuckconway said:
Moving Plex Media Server between Windows and Linux is possible.I looked closer at the files in the Plex Media Server folder. Some the folders had OS specific files in them. I deleted those folders. I also deleted all the Cache folders. This left seven folders: Media, Metadata, Plug-in Support, Plugins, Scanners, Site Configurations, Thumbnails. Four folders contained data: Media, Metadata, Plug-in Support, and Plugins. In my research, these four folders contain the data and the media images for the library. The other three folders where empty.
It’s 2018 now… I just migrated from a Windows 10 Plex to a QNAP Plex using these instructions. However, these are the steps I used.
- Install Plex on QNAP (Linux)
- Configure Plex via the web interface. At this point you’ll have an empty library.
- Shutdown plex service on both machines (I stopped it in the QNAP processes window)
- Copy the Media, Metadata, Plug-in Support, and Plugins folders from Windows to QNAP
- Start Plex service on QNAP (Linux)
- Add the new Library paths to the respective categories. This will trigger a rescan of the files
- After completed scans of each category, edit the libraries and remove the old paths
- Follow the “Final Maintenance” instructions here
https://support.plex.tv/articles/201370363-move-an-install-to-another-system/
I only had the (4) folders to move and I have a large library. Media, Metadata, Plug-in Support, and Plugins.
I originally zipped these (4) on the window machine and moved to the qnap and tried to unzip, but something failed in the unzipping process… so I just had to copy the (4) folders to the QNAP’s Plex folder. Use these instructions along with the link below and you should be golden!
https://support.plex.tv/articles/201370363-move-an-install-to-another-system/
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Awesome!
Just did the same from my windows 10 to a WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra drive.
I followed your (b3i2g1) instructions but tried zipping the folders first as I add almost 2GB of files to transfer.
Only worked after copying them across without compression. Used an intermediate shared folder on the drive to take the files from the computer to the drive; and then from the shared folders to the Plex Media Server folder with putty (SSH free software) and some linux commands.
Thanks!
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Thank you! But where did you copy those 4 folders into on your Linux box? I’ll be using Debian as my destination server in my migration.
Was this link not helpful?
"… See our Where is the Plex Media Server data directory located? for details on where to find the Plex Media Server data directory. Make sure the preferences.xml file in the Plex Media Server folder is included. It contains the equivalent of the registry settings in Windows.
Related Page : Where is the Plex Media Server data directory located?"
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If you’re migrating from Windows to Linux, copying the registry would be useless.
Followed these direction to a T moving from Windows 10 to Ubuntu 18.04 and Plex would not scan the new Library folders. Deleted the old folders anyway and Plex still wouldn’t scan the new Library folders.
Because pathnames are different, making this move is not for the faint of heart or newbie to Linux.
To add to the above article, the How-To below shows the effort required to move from location to location on Linux. Moving from Windows to Linux introduces the change in pathname syntax and delimiter character as a complexity.
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