We already have season 1 of the Orville in Plex – I ripped it from the DVD. Tonight I set the 1st episode of the 2nd season to record, and Plex shows that it was successful, but now I see it’s nowhere to be found.
I give Plex write permission to the root of my media folders, but not the files or folders already there (stops anything from accidentally being deleted except for DVR content). Plex usually uses a different folder naming convention for shows and movies than I do, however, I wondering if it tried to use the folder already there and couldn’t move the file because it didn’t have permissions.
If this occurred, is there anyway to recover the recording? It’s not in the grab folder. I’ve uploading logs. I’ve skimmed, but haven’t found anything to do with the recording.
It would be helpful to know what system the server is running on, i.e., Windows, Mac, FreeBSD, Linux, NAS, router, etc… Some NAS units will only allow you to put certain kinds of files in predefined directories IIRC…
If I had to guess I would say it’s a permission problem somewhere, a temp directory for transcoding or something silly… Also, using a different naming scheme than what PLEX recommends probably doesn’t help either… Hopefully someone who uses a Linux server will chime in… You might want to see if you can go back and add the Linux-server tag to the first post along with the livetv-dvr tag…
I use a Windows server for Live TV/DVR duty and a FreeBSD server for streaming mainly to stay away from all the hassles with permissions that come with Linux and *BSD systems for recording… Plus it just seemed the way to go since I had the Windows server with Live TV/DVR up and running a long before I decided to run a second server…
Well, my naming scheme isn’t really different than what Plex recommends, it’s just don’t in different ways. I don’t use spaces in directory names and I usually don’t add the year to a TV show unless it’s needed. When Plex creates directories, it does use spaces and sometimes adds the years.
I just didn’t know if Plex would create its own directory for the show because it might vary from what I currently have or if it would be smart enough to know where the show already lives.
I don’t think the permissions are a hassle (in fact, I think it’s an advantage on *nix systems), it would just be nice to know how Plex is handling certain situations.
Anyway, thanks for chiming in! I went back and added the server-linux tag to the post.
Yes, but if I already have a folder for the 1st season of a TV show, will Plex try to add recordings of the second season in the directory already created? And if so, if it doesn’t have permissions to that directory, what happens?
Also, it was giving me the play option last night (I assumed it had recorded and successfully moved it out of the grab folder), but now I don’t get that option and the recording is nowhere to be found.
I agree with you on permissions as far as being an advantage for security purposes in large networks but a hassle for home use…
I do believe PLEX will create a new directory inside of the library for new seasons if the series directory is already there… (I don’t remember ever having to add a directory prior to the recording of a new season) Do you use a re-naming program/script of some kind to move the files after recording and any other post-processing since you mentioned a grab folder??? Also when you set the recording, PLEX should have given you an option where to save the file…
Have you scanned the library manually to make sure it just hasn’t been scanned automatically yet???
If you premade the directory and the permissions were wrong the the file would fail to move.
If you moved the file from the grab folder then Plex wasn’t quite finished with it so I’m not quite sure how the recording would say it was successful. Go to the TV library location and look for the show, if you were trying to cut spaces out it may have created it’s own directory and with luck the file will be there.
TV Shows/ShowName/Season XX/ShowName – sXXeYY – Optional_Info.ext
I had a pre-made directory called The.Orville. Plex uses spaces in its directory names. So, I didn’t know which it would try to use. I didn’t try moving the file myself. I just know that it’s now gone. I did a scan last night because I added another show. I’m not sure if that caused the recording to be deleted if it was in the Plex trash for some reason.
Well, if it tried to do this, then I can imagine that’s why it’s gone. Plex wouldn’t have had permissions to create a new season directory in the one that already existed for the show.
Thanks. I’ll read through that and make the necessary changes. Plex already has write permissions to the root library folders so it can create directories and save files as it needs to, but it doesn’t have write permissions for directories or media I’ve added.
It didn’t occur to me that this would be a problem as everything else we’ve previously recorded wasn’t already in our library (as far as already having a previous season of a show). Live and learn, I guess!
Exactly. In Linux, only one thing can own a file or directory and there are only 3 classes of permissions. (owner, group, and other)
What my how-to shows you how to do is this:
Setup the permissions and permission flags (inheritance) such that the owner and group of the parent directory and copied to the child (subdirectory or file).
Once you’ve gone through and established the baseline for everything in existence, it’s self perpetuating.
You can create files freely. They end up with you owning and plex as the group.
When plex creates files, They end up with you owning and plex as the group.
We’ve also set the permissions such that both owner and group ID can read & write.
Slick, huh?
Linux is derivative of Unix which comes from Multics. This mechanism comes from Multics. It’s worked well all these years without change (if you understand it)
FYI, I was able to answer my own question last night. I changed the permissions on the series folder and Plex successfully recorded the show and used the existing folder already there for the new season.
