Mac Media Server Installation problem

General Discussions
1

First time installation of Plex Media Server on a Mac Mini (Late 2014 HighSierra 10.13.2. 8gig RAM, i5, lots of free space), totally new, never setup before. Downloaded Plex Media Server ver 1.10.1.4602-F54242B6B from the app.plex.tv console. After downloading, I start the Plex Media Server from the Download directory, after a “verifying the app” box flashed by, and clicking “Open” box after a warning about downloading from the internet, nothing happens after. I try to open the app again, nothing happens. Restarted and tried several time, same result, then removed all directories, download again and same result. Any help would be great.

2

do you see the Plex icon in menu bar? is it creating a plex media server.log at all? it might have info on what stopped it from starting up

3

try seeing if Plex is running in the background in Activity Monitor and Force Close it. Then try reopening the app again without having to restart the whole system.

4

Thanks BW and Ir, here’s what I see:

  1. BigWheel - The icon in the menu bar appeared for a second or two and then disappeared. I could not find any logs, the only directory I found was ~Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server, the following were missing:
    ~/Library/Caches/PlexMediaServer/
    ~/Library/Logs/Plex Media Server/
    ~/Library/Preferences/com.plexapp.plexmediaserver.plist

Maybe that tells you something??

  1. Ir1950 - I did check the Activity Monitor and couldn’t see anything running with or near the name “Plex”?

Thanks

5

In System preferences>Security & Privacy do you have “Allow app downloaded from” set to App store and Identified Developers?

6

BigWheel - Yes, I just checked, that setting set to Allow app downloaded from: App store and Identified Developers

FYI - FileVault and Firewall are both ON

7

@BigWheel - would there be a way for you to pass along a download link to build 4561 instead of the newly released build 4602 @“wch2882@gmail.com”. It sounds like Plex is not initiating its startup process and not creating the proper directories. When you click on the Plex Server icon for the first time, it should create the folder structure and open your default browser with a welcome/setup screen with a local address http://127.0.0.1:32400/web/index.html in your url address bar.

8

i can’t sorry.

if the server is not starting up and immediately closing it won’t create the directories. the directories not being there are not the cause of it not starting up . I just installed 4602 on a machine that never had PMS installed and it launches fine.

Are there any crash logs for PMS in either of these directories?

~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/
~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/

9

BigWheel - Those directories are not there, but there is ~Library/Plex Media Server/Crash Reports… with a file named: C4BAD40A-F35C-490C-B892-721AFFD0145C.dmp

File attached, renamed from .dmp to .txt to attach, hopefully it helps

10

i missed that you are launching it from the downloads folder.

can you move it to the Applications folder ( don’t just click the box that asks if you want to move it )

if it still does not launch from Applications please open terminal and type in these two commands

cd /Applications
./Plex\ Media\ Server.app/Contents/MacOS/Plex\ Media\ Server

is the second one fails it may have a more telling error

11

I will try that thanks.

Also, one more piece of information, (you reminded me with your question) during the initial install, the dialog box asking you to move the app to the Application folder only appears for a couple of seconds and then is gone/disappears, I never got the chance to pick an option.

12

just move it manually

13

BigWheel - Here are the following steps

  1. Restarted Mac Mini
  2. Cleaned up / removed old files / emptied Trash
  3. Moved App to the Applications folder
  4. Attempted to start app from the Application folder - no success, same result as before
  5. Ran commands you gave me for Terminal session and received this:

ValandBillsMini:~ wch2882$ cd /Applications
ValandBillsMini:Applications wch2882$ ./Plex\ Media\ Server.app/Contents/MacOS/Plex\ Media\ Server
libc++abi.dylib: terminating with uncaught exception of type boost::filesystem::filesystem_error: boost::filesystem::create_directory: Permission denied: “/Users/wch2882/Library/Logs/Plex Media Server”
****** PLEX MEDIA SERVER CRASHED, CRASH REPORT WRITTEN: 17A6E265-2CD5-4EA3-AA1C-974F8D458642
ValandBillsMini:Applications wch2882$ Error in command line:the argument for option ‘–serverUuid’ should follow immediately after the equal sign
Crash Uploader options (all are required):
–directory arg Directory to scan for crash reports
–serverUuid arg UUID of the server that crashed
–userId arg User that owns this product
–platform arg Platform string
–url arg URL to upload to
–help show help message
–version arg Version of the product

Attached two files: Both .dmp files renamed to .txt

14

uncaught exception of type boost::filesystem::filesystem_error: boost::filesystem::create_directory: Permission denied: "/Users/wch2882/Library/Logs/Plex Media Server"

Looks like this http://forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/1171855/#Comment_1171855

In terminal check permissions and ownership for /Users/wch2882/Library/Logs

ls -al ~/Library/Logs

If it owned by root change it to be your username

sudo chown wch2882 ~/Library/Logs

Please first check the permissions / ownership

15

sa2000 thanks a lot. After I changed the permission to ~/Library/Logs, installation completed, the server console started, scanning started, things appear to be working. Thanks again!!

16

Excellent

I suggest you should check other directories as well, e.g.
~/Library/Caches