New PMS not seeing NFS mounts from Synology NAS

[ckronengold]

Now that Ubuntu 22.04.1 has been out a while, I decided to upgrade my PMS. Followed all the instructions on moving my library to a new computer, and seemed to go reasonably well.

But my PMS is not seeing the library folders which are mounted NFS shares from my Synology NASes. Yes, the nfs-common package is installed.

I mounted the folders with the same fstab settings as previously. The folders mount and are accessible when I’m using the command line. Media files can play, too. So I suspect its a permissions issue with the Plex user that was created during the install. But I can’t figure it out.

Mounted shares from the hard drives on the server (ext4) work fine.

I tried mounting folders with two different fstab parameters. The first which worked previously…

192.168.0.23:/volume1/Videos    /nasmount/nasvideo      nfs     defaults        0       0
192.168.0.23:/volume1/music     /nasmount/nasmusic      nfs     defaults        0       0

And a second attempt to see if that was the issue…

192.168.0.26:/volume1/video     /bignasmount/bignasvideo        nfs     auto,nofail,noatime,nolock,intr,tcp,actimeo=1800     >
192.168.0.26:/volume1/4Kvideo   /bignasmount/bignas4K           nfs     auto,nofail,uid=1000,gid=1000   0       0

Neither worked. Then I chmod 777 all of the mounts to test if Plex could see them, but they can’t. I added my main (and only) user from ubuntu to the Plex group, and added the Plex user to my main user group. Still nada. When I tried to chown of the mounts to plex:plex, I get “read-only file system” and the changes dont take, even after adding “rw” to the fstab mounting params.

My NFS sharing settings, which worked on my previous install, are:

I even reinstalled using the SNAP version instead of the .deb package, same issue. I gave up at 3:30am because I couldn’t see straight and I’m sure I was making dumb mistakes and missing something obvious. For the love of all that is holy, what am I missing?

[ChuckPa]

The SNAP package is more restrictive. Go back to the DEB (host) package.
(Snap doesn’t work well with ‘sec=sys’ either)

Something is seriously stupid with the version of DSM.

I’m still working on it myself.

1. Two of four drives went ‘critical’ status.
   – Ran S.M.A.R.T. test
   – Drives and volumes came back to normal at the end of the test.

2. My NFS isn’t allowing access either unless I’m ‘root’.

I’ll find a way; give me a bit.

[ckronengold]

No pressure. It will take me a while to go back to the deb. Probably longer than just rebuilding all my libraries manually

Thanks for the help, @ChuckPa !

[ChuckPa]

You can grab the Library tree out from under SNAP and move it to /var/lib/plexmediaserver

“data is data”

change the ownership and you’re there.

[ChuckPa]

I have to fix my /etc/passwd (too much hand-crafting for testing).

As for your permission issue.

1. It is now strictly enforcing “sec=sys” (No matching UID/GID → No access)
2. To combat this, which Synology has always had

• Create a new permission rule
  – In the username dropdown – select “Everyone”
  – Grant the permission you want (probably R-O)
  – Apply to this folder, subfolders and files.

• Go back to Linux and unmount/remount the shared folder.

Ice Age (2002)/                                 Ratatouille (2007)/
[chuck@lizum media.2047]$ sudo su -s /bin/bash plex
sudo su -s /bin/bash plex
plex@lizum:/glock/media$ whoami
plex
plex@lizum:/glock/media$ ls -la /mnt2
total 436
drwxr-xr-x 104 root root  4096 Nov 19 16:23  .
drwxr-xr-x  33 root root  4096 Mar 31 00:03  ..
drwxr-xr-x   2 1026 root  4096 Feb  8  2018 'Aladdin (1992)'
drwxr-xr-x   2 1026 root  4096 Sep 23  2017 'Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007)'
drwxr-xr-x   2 1026 root  4096 Sep 17  2017 'Alvin and the Chipmunks Chipwrecked (2011)'
---cut ---
[chuck@lizum media.2048]$ mount | grep mnt2
192.168.0.71:/volume1/Animated on /mnt2 type nfs4 (rw,relatime,vers=4.1,rsize=131072,wsize=131072,namlen=255,hard,proto=tcp,timeo=600,retrans=2,sec=sys,clientaddr=192.168.0.13,local_lock=none,addr=192.168.0.71)

[ckronengold]

I did something wrong moving the files over.
"Plex Media Server[8873]: Failed to load preferences at /var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Preferences.xml"

I chmod 777 that file, but still getting that error. Gotta plug away at this one so I can even mount the libraries.

[ChuckPa]

Did you remember to sudo chown -R plex:plex /var/lib/plexmediaserver

AFTER

you brought it all over ?

sudo bash
cd /var/lib/plexmediaserver
chown -R plex:plex . &
find . -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \; &
find . -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \; &
wait

Now confirm “/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Preferences.xml” exists and is non-zero byte length

[ckronengold]

@ChuckPa

Create a new permission rule
– In the username dropdown – select “Everyone”
– Grant the permission you want (probably R-O)
– Apply to this folder, subfolders and files.

Which version of DSM are you using? My “Edit Shared Folder” menu looks different, and I don’t have an “Everyone” user group.

[ChuckPa]

I showed you DSM 7 (my development system)
I have both DSM 6 and 7 here.

You won’t find “Everyone” there

FileStation → Properties → Shared_Folder → Permissions
(there are some GUI inconsistencies in DSM 7)

@ChuckPa

Create a new permission rule

(Under the “Create” button)

[ckronengold]

@ChuckPa

Did you remember to sudo chown -R plex:plex /var/lib/plexmediaserver

AFTER

you brought it all over ?

I did not. That did the trick.

I felt like I shouldn’t have had to mess with the NFS settings because the shares had been working previously. Not having plex:plex own the app was (obviously, now, duh) the issue.

But I didn’t make any of those NFS changes on the NAS yet. And its running.

[ChuckPa]

You might be more blessed than I as I do tend to abuse the machine a fair amount in development and testing.

I have my machine back now to 100% but am concerned about why 2 drives faulted in software.

Either way, You have the full info now how to make it work regardless

[ckronengold]

Where can I mail your well-deserved cape, my hero?!?!
Thanks as always, @ChuckPa. You are doing yeoman’s work.