Media Server app won't open at all on mac

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
1

I’ve installed, and reinstalled, the PMS app on my Mac running 12.7.6
Once installed it will not even attempt to open the app. Installation seemed to go smoothly. Verified I want to open the app, etc. Then just, nothing. Won’t open from Finder, or from the Taskbar.

Thanks in advance

Server Version#: 1.41.6
Player Version#:
<If providing server logs please do NOT turn on verbose logging, only debug logging should be enabled>

2

High Sierra (12.7.6) should still work with the current Plex Media Server.

If the Plex Media Server won’t start and doesn’t even get to the stage where it’ll be writing to the server logs, you can attempt the following procedure to see if there’s any error messages on the OS level:

  1. Open Finder and navigate to /Applications
  2. Select Show Content from the context menu of the Plex Media Server.app item
  3. Navigate to Contents/MacOS
  4. Open the Terminal app
  5. Drag the Plex Media Server executable from the Finder window (#3) into the Terminal Window and press Return to execute it

This is no different from running the app, so it won’t succeed – but you should get a more specific error message about what’s causing it to fail starting.

1 Like
3

Do you have the Plex “chevron” in the menu bar? That’s the only visual indication you’ll get if the server is running.

Screen Shot 2025-04-27 at 12.37.38 PM

If so, click it and select “Open Plex.” This should open the Plex Web app where you can complete setup. See the macOS section of the server installation article:

https://support.plex.tv/articles/200288586-installation/

[Edit]
Literally Ninja’d. I may have misunderstood. If the chevron isn’t in the menu bar then the server is indeed not starting.

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