Hello, I installed Plex on an older computer I have in hopes of turning the system into a media server. The system is currently running Lubuntu 17.04. The problem is, Plex isn’t seeing any of the files I copied to the system’s secondary storage drive; in fact, I can’t even see any subfolders. I checked the permissions for the drive, and that doesn’t seem to be the problem. Is there anything else I should take a look at?
Thank you in advance!
Is your media properly named?
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/categories/200028098-Media-Preparation
Yes, I used the same file structure under Windows with no problem in the past.
If you recently did the library scan, your logs should have all the info needed to check what’s going on. Download them via the server settings -> help page and attach them to your next post.
Here are the most recent files. Please let me know if you need anything else.
Can you upload the entire zip file?
Sure thing.
If you can’t see anything inside those directories, Linux default security is blocking you.
You need to explicitly relax them for the media directory(ies).
if you have your media in /disks/video1 and /disks/video2 which you want Plex to access, here’s how to relax it in its simplest form.
Using my username in this example (substitute yours as needed)
sudo sh # Get a root shell
chown -R chuck:chuck /disks/video1 /disks/video2 # chown the ownership (if needed) to my username
chmod 755 /disks # relax the top level permissions for Plex to read but me to still read/write
find /disks/video1 /disks/video2 -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \; # repeat for all subdirectories Plex will use
find /disks/video1 /disks/video2 -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \; # now make the files matchAs supplemental information, if you have disks which are external or NTFS, here is how to make them permanently available in Linux
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I see some SQL errors, perhaps the database is having problems.
Also, there’s a curl_easy_perform 52 error, which I believe means it didn’t get any response, which is an error.
You have a cert error about no shared cipher, so perhaps there’s an authentication problem going on, too.
Permission denied: "/media/bradley/Backup", Permission denied: "/media/bradley/09605A8E1C11B601", so likely a permissions issue.
Thank you for the information chuck. I’m not having any luck with the code provided, could you look over what i’m typing in to ensure I didn’t mess something up? Sorry, i’m a bit of a noob when it comes to linux commands.
sudo sh # Get a root shell
chown -R bradley:bradley /media/bradley/09605A8E1C11B601 # chown the ownership (if needed) to my username
chmod 755 /disks # relax the top level permissions for Plex to read but me to still read/write
find /media/bradley/09605A8E1C11B601 -exec chmod 755 {} ; # repeat for all subdirectories Plex will use
find /media/bradley/09605A8E1C11B601 -type f -exec chmod 644 {} ; # now make the files match
Bradley,
I see what’s happening…
Ubuntu loves to ‘claim’ disks for exclusive use and give them to you unless they are declared in /etc/fstab
The commands I gave you are what you’ll need after we get the drive /media/bradley/09605A8E1C11B601 out from under Nautilus’ control.
Please go to the link I provided, get the pdf, and follow through the steps using the file type (HD formatting) which applies to you (NTFS or ext4). As you walk through, you’ll have to umount /media/bradley/09605A8E1C11B601 so it’s free to mount permanently in /etc/fstab which is where the document will take you when done.
When you’re done there, having taken care to ‘test mount’ the /etc/fstab entry you just created, you’ll be good to go.
You’ll see where I have you perform the same permission-relaxing steps for ext4 drives as I wrote above.
I always praise Linux for being user friendly and easy to learn, then I run into things like this. Thank you, i’ll work on this more tomorrow. 
Hopefully my doc is well enough highlighted to show you what’s important? If not, it’ll get tweaked… Again 
Linux is a full multi-user system (simultaneous users). As such, user plex and user bradley can’t see each others’ files (plex can’t see the media files you own) unless it’s given permission. This is the root of what’s happening there. Windows does security entirely differently and is very single-user oriented whereas there can be several hundred users (literally) signed into my server, each with their own username, at the same time, and nobody would be able to see anything the other is working on.
The link containing the solution is no longer functional. Is there any chance you can repost it?
