Music folder on Synology is empty while browsing for Media

Plex Media Server NAS & Devices
1

Server Version#: 1.16.6.1592-b9d49bdb7
Player Version#:

I’m using Synology NAS 416 (latest DSM, DSM 6.2.2-24922 Update 3). That has (amongst other folders) a shared folder Music with all my music files, which I want to add to my Plex library.

I have Plex Server (version above) manually installed on my NAS. The “plex” user has sufficient permissions (read-only) to the shared folder Music.

But when I try to add folders to my library on Plex, the Music folder appears to be empty. Other shared folders, and their subfolders, are visible - although I have not set the permissions for those folders.

I really don’t know what the problem is. I had it working some months ago, but I hadn’t re-installed Plex since a severe disk failure (and subsequent reinstallment of my NAS).

2

Are you using the system-provided Music shared folder or are you using one of your own making music ?

Synology-created shared are problematic (polite way to say “a royal pain”).

DEBUG logs (the ZIP) would allow me to confirm what’s happening when you go to add the shared folder to a music library. If any errors there, it will show in the log.

To reproduce.

  1. Verify: DEBUG on, VERBOSE off
  2. Now attempt to add the library again
  3. Get back to the dashboard after it refuses
  4. Settings - Server - Troubleshooting - Download Logs
  5. Attach the ZIP
3

Plex Media Server Logs_2019-09-22_16-47-20.zip (373.1 KB)

Hi ChuckPA, this is the log.
I’m not sure if this is the system-provided folder, but I think not, as I named it “music” (with m)

4

Thanks.

Found it…

Control Panel - Shared Folders - “Music” (on Volume2) - EDIT it.

Permissions Tab - ADD user Plex to the Read-Only or Read/Write list.

Sep 22, 2019 16:46:53.364 [0x6d059450] DEBUG - DirectoryBrowser: Decoded [L3ZvbHVtZTIvbXVzaWM=] to [/volume2/music]
Sep 22, 2019 16:46:53.365 [0x6d059450] ERROR - Error listing directory [/volume2/music] - boost::filesystem::directory_iterator::construct: Permission denied: "/volume2/music"
Sep 22, 2019 16:46:53.366 [0x73511450] DEBUG - Completed: [192.168.1.114:58893] 200 GET /services/browse/L3ZvbHVtZTIvbXVzaWM=?includeFiles=1 (5 live) TLS GZIP 2ms 429 bytes (pipelined: 5)
5

That’s strange, because user Plex does have read access to that folder.

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See the screenshot (in Dutch, with “alleen-lezen” meaning “read-only”)

6

Maybe this is the problem? Plex user is only member of the “users” group (and “video”, for the transcoding features)

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but that users group has read access to the music folder.

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Strange.

7

In the same way as i show here for Movies, check your Music share.

I have seen it get completely out of sync with DSM.

If you find you need to set it, be certain to check the box “Apply to this folder, sub-folders, and files”.

Screenshot%20from%202019-09-22%2012-08-59
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that’s the case.

could it be something with the permissions over http?

9

maybe I’m doing something wrong in Plex? I’ve made a screen recording of what I’m doing there

screen recording plex.mov.zip (13.8 MB)

10

these permissions are on the file system. It’s not related to access / http permissions like you get from Web pages (401 / 403 errors)

Thank you for that video.

I see it now. DSM is being a pain.

  1. Make sure you know the pasword to user admin on the synology (assign one if you haven’t)
  2. Control Panel - Terminal & SNMP - Enable the SSH service
  3. Either with “Putty” ssh client or the command line *ssh tool on mac / linux -
  4. ssh ip.addr.of.syno (or start a session in Putty)
  5. sign in as user admin (it only permits that username)
  6. at the prompt, type sudo -su root
  7. The prompt will change: sh-4.3#
  8. Now type the following commands just as written here.
sh-4.3#  cd /volume2
sh-4.3#  chmod 755 .
sh-4.3#  chmod -R o+r .

These three commands do the following:

  1. Point you at Volume2
  2. Change Linux level permissions at the top (above what the “Permissions” tab can grant)
  3. Add permission to read for everything below. (this is optional. No need to do it if the one above fixes it)
11

I’m sorry, but I don’t understand this. When I try to do that in Terminal, I get this:

Unable to negotiate with 192.168.1.105 port 22: no matching cipher found. Their offer: aes128-cbc,3des-cbc,aes192-cbc,aes256-cbc

12

You connect to the Synology with the Windows “Putty” ssh client -or- “ssh” on Linux/Mac computers.

13

nearly there, but now this is happening:

27

14

Please look very carefully at what I wrote above. There is a decimal point (dot) as the last argument after 755.

In linux, . means here (this directory)

chmod 755 . = “set the mode to 755 for this directory”

15

Oh, I thought that was a full stop :slight_smile:

This command worked, but nothing is permitted. The third command line runs through all of my files (thousands and thousands), but each line states: “Operation not permitted”.

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16

You missed Step #6 at the prompt, type: sudo -su root

The entire sequence again:

admin@ds418j's password: 
Could not chdir to home directory /var/services/homes/admin: No such file or directory
admin@ds418:/$ 
admin@ds418:/$ 
admin@ds418:/$ sudo -su root
sh-4.3# cd /volume2
sh-4.3# chmod -R o+r .
chmod: changing permissions of ‘./aquota.user’: Operation not permitted
chmod: changing permissions of ‘./aquota.group’: Operation not permitted
sh-4.3#
17

I had done the sudo -su root, only wit “admin” instead of “root”, because I don’t have a password for “root” at my Synology.

18

I have been delving deeper into this, bc I really want it fixed. It appears that the permissions in Plex (browsing for a folder with media in it) does NOT AT ALL correspond with the permissions set in Synology. Plex can browse two folders that don’t have any rights for user Plex, only to admins.

I’ve been turning permissions on and off to test, e.g. giving Plex no rights at all to any of the shared folders. But Plex can still browse those two folders.

I have a suspicion that the permissions are set elsewhere.

19

How it works is:

  1. We must use admin to sign in with. Synology has restricted it this way.
  2. The password when using sudo -su root is the admin password again (which you assigned).
    a. Neither of my systems ask for password when I type sudo -su root
    b. If yours does, use the admin username password.
20

For a while I was able to see my folder structure (but unable to add subfolders to my Library), but now Plex is warning me for insecurities (“Unable to connect to securely”), and my Synology does not want port 22 assigned to SSH.

I’m giving up with Plex. I want to reset everything to how it was. I also want to revert what I did with “sudo -su root” and the three commands above, because I’m afraid some settings are no longer secure now.