I have two Plex Servers. My main server is hosted on a Drobo 5N and mostly works fine (shhh) other than its too weak to transcode some of the more difficult files. My other server is a W10 box with an old but beefier CPU that transcodes everything fine. I am just using it for testing until i build my final everyday box.
Problem is, out of the blue the other day - not sure exactly when - the W10 box cannot stream anything. All videos show UNAVAILABLE. The NAS is connected fine and i can rescan for metadata but evertime i try to view, i get same message. see screenshot for info.
Any ideas?
This happened to me when my "My Book’ was off line. The server appeared fine, and appeared to update metadata as well but it would not play. I found a lose connection to the My Book, reseated it and everything worked. The screen shot definitely is showing the W10 Server is not talking to where the file is located. I’d check cabling, attempt to access any file from the W10 box to your data store to show connectivity works.
Thanks for the response but the screenshot actually shows Windows file explorer just below the Plex output and Windows File Explorer sees the files just fine. So, i think the connection is good. Additionally, i can manually stream the video on the W10 box using Win Media Player. So, Plex is the only thing that is having trouble seeing the file.
Actually, looking at the screenshot, PLEX SERVER is definitely not enumerating the mapped drive at all. What gives? All other apps on this box see it fine.
I would start with permissions. Make sure that the account that Plex runs under really has access to that drive.
Well it seems i’ve located the problem although not sure why its occurring now and not previously. I configured PLEX to run as a service using NSSM under the context of the admin. It worked fine for a month or so and now - not? Anyway, obviously that user account can access everything but maybe i have something misconfigured with NSSM? i will have to go through it when i have time. For now i uninstalled the service and just have it running as an application and have W10 configured not to restart on updates.
The most likely cause is the fact that Windows drive letters are mapped per user on login. At the point of starting as a service, there is no users logged in and hence no mapped drive letters.
I use allwaysup to start as a service - this has a feature to map drive letters when starting as a service (no idea if NSSM can do this) BUT this was still unreliable.
A better solution is to remap your libraries in plex using a UNC share rather than a drive letter- these are available for services and require no login.
So for exemple change V:\TV_Shows_2 to
\\droboname\sharename
or
\\droboipaddress\sharename
Gary.
Actually i didn’t think to manually type in the UNC. Good idea. I will try that. Thanks.
The UNC path works. I will try to use it with NSSM later. Still not sure why the mapped drive is not showing up on PLEX even when i am logged in. Thats odd.
